Lightroom classic working and backup flow

[anterak]

Hello i would like to have an advice for my general workflow. My target is to have at each process always 2 copy of my pictures to avoid any loose when i'm shooting outside (sport photography). Here is my thinking about a professional protection of my datas.

On the camera : i target to shoot Raw+jpeg on dual card : CF for raw file and SD for jpg. This is simple
Out of the camera : i think to import with Lightroom or Photo Mechanic Raw files only on an external SSD hard disk threw my computer, no files will be deleted from the camera. Then the main Lightroom Catalog will be on the SSD
Back to office : i plan to backup all pictures on my Synology server. I suppose that i will stay working on the catalog of the ssd disk while i'm at the office.

But some of this process are blury in my mind, here is my questions : 

- When backuping pictures on the synology server, do i have to do it out of Ligthroom Classic, or with anoter application like Time Machine or any backup application which will compare to 2 differents folder and will keep them both the same (the SSD disk and the server) ?

- And then another problem, the SSD external travel hard disk is not unlimited capacity, i have only 2 Tb, my server can expand to 24 Tb. Then how it's working, Do i have to setup another Lightroom Catalog on my backup server ?

Thanks for helping me to find the best way to setup the workflow.

[dj_paige]

Backups of photos are not done via LrC, they are done by other software.

You can't set up your LrC catalog on a server (although you can store backups of the LrC catalog on a server). Usually, people put the catalog on the internal disk and photos on an external disk. If the disk isn't big enough, then you can decide what solution works best ... photos split on more than one disk; or you get a bigger disk; or not having all the photos on the external disk, its up to you.

[richardplondon]

Whatever is your working setup (the place where the files live which are imported to LrC) - it is important to have a regular separated backup routine for that whole storage - besides separated backups of the Catalog. By "separated" I mean that these backed up files cannot realistically be swept up in any incident which may affect your main setup, including physical events such as a fire, or the actions of malware.

Camera photos exist as a single copy until you get back to base, unless you use a dual-card provision in the camera or unless you use a portable storage device with card USB OTG card reader, which can store a duplicate of card contents at push of a button.

Personally I find it enough to slide the physical write-protect tab on SD cards immediately they come out of the camera. So there's no pilot-error possibility of deleting those photos from card for the meanwhile, nor are they likely to get corrupted accidentally during import to LrC. I'll put a different card back in the camera for now.

Ideally the removed card then waits around locked as it is, acting as safety second copy for these newly imported photos, until after those photos have been included in the next computer-storage backup.

[SeanMcCormack]

For Mac backup, I highly recommend Chronosync. It's great for scheduled backup, and even allows backup to Backblazes' B2 service, probably the cheapest file backup service out there. It's also long established and robust. 

You should be backing up everything, regularly and incrementally. Just don't try run a catalog from the server. 

[anterak]

Thank you all for your contribution. Here is what i decided with your idea and advice from the web.

• I'll keep my LrC Catalog on my macbook pro, but this will be synchronized with Synology Drive which as soon i connect to my office network will synchronized both Catalog. I'll then have an automatic backup of my Catalog on Synology Raid Server.
• When i'm out, i will copy pictures from my CF cards to 2 x 1Tb SSD simultaneously. I will then begin to post process my pictures on travel. 1 Tb is a way enough for more than 1 week shooting (30.000 RAW picture at 24 Mpx).
• At the office, i'll move internaly threw LrC, pictures from the SSD to the Synology NAS by drag and dropping the pictures folder newly imported, this will erase pcitures from the SSD and copy them to the Server.

[dj_paige]

I'll keep my LrC Catalog on my macbook pro, but this will be synchronized with Synology Drive which as soon i connect to my office network will synchronized both Catalog. I'll then have an automatic backup of my Catalog on Synology Raid Server.

Generally a better idea is to use the built-in backup feature in LrC and have the backup placed on the NAS. This built-in backup has important features that simply synching with a Raid server doesn't have. The built in backup feature of LrC has both "check integrity" of the catalog and "optimize" catalog, important things to do on a regular basis, that should not be skipped.

At the office, i'll move internaly threw LrC, pictures from the SSD to the Synology NAS by drag and dropping the pictures folder newly imported, this will erase pcitures from the SSD and copy them to the Server.

Don't put the photos on the SSD in the first place. Put them on the Synology NAS straight out of the camera, instead of having to use two operations (import photo to SSD, manually move photo to NAS).