Using a 2nd HDD with LR Classic CC...

Hi Everyone,

This is such a great topic.  I have been trying to create a working backup system for really long.  I have tried RAID 1 mirrored systems (both hardware and software based) but these don't make any sense as they are unreadable outside of the particular enclosure in that array.  If your enclosure dies or eventually becomes obsolete you are stuck until you buy that brand enclosure again. I wanted to find a solution where my working copies would be readable from any hard drive dock and that way once I filled up those two drives I can archive them both sending one off to a secure location while keeping one onsite for easy access. 

I am running Mojave version 10.14.2.

I bought a 4 bay thunderbolt 3 enclosure from OWC and use it as JBOD.  I put two 6tb hard drives in bay A and B for my current working files (C and D are used in the same way but with a different project).  I use a Master LR catalog for all my projects unless it gets too full and then I start a new one organized by date. 

After many many failures I found FreeFileSync and tried just a regular sync between my A and B drives.  It worked great.  I didn't save it as a batch and I had some problems running it again and had to reformat my drives which was fine because I was just running tests.  The I saved it as a batch and ran Real Time Sync, and that worked perfect.  I also had the default refresh at 10 seconds but had forgotten to make it run in the background.  So when I did tests making changes to RAW files in Lightroom I got a notices all the time.  I'm thinking I can change it to not give me the alerts all the time and just run in the background.  I was afraid that the constant changes you are making to files in Lightroom might not work well with this but so far in my tests haven't had a problem.  Perhaps I will change the refresh time to be a little longer. 

My other thought was to sync hard drive A and B but to exclude the LR catalog through the filter option.  I could then set my LR catalog to back up to the B drive upon closing.  But that would mean losing work I did during any given session if something happened.

Also once a week or so I will connect a thunderbolt 3 dock and make a complete backup of the data on drives A and B and keep them offsite just in case so as to employ the 321 method. 

Does anyone have any experience or thoughts on this setup?  I have heard that it's bad to run freeware because they could be monitoring your computer but couldn't that be the case with other softwares? It seems to me that a lot of people use FreeFileSync and have had a decent experience.  There are also many other softwares that you can pay for or use the free version of that do this same thing but I don't know anything about them. 

I was also wondering why this post is still listed as 'unanswered'.  Don't Adobe experts monitor these forums and give advice?  Is it still unanswered because we are discussing third party softwares?  Won't they answer questions on how 3rd party softwares work with their software?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated and I'd love to know if Joefry99 is still using this system and with what results. 

Thanks!

Thank you everyone for your suggestions.  I am using a Mac.  I typically only keep master files of my best, completely edited shots on my Mac hard drive and keep all RAW images on the hard drives.

I figured I would need to look into a third party software.  I guess what it boils down to is I have been using one hard drive for years and would like to have an extra copy without having to drag/drop files anytime I make changes to older photos.  I'm honestly a bit surprised its as "complicated" as it is to achieve this.  What are most people doing who are using Lightroom to manage their photos and have a reliable backup system?

Thanks again to everyone for their input!

Hi Michael,

What DL_Page said is correct.

Ironically enough what you are proposing to do is what I've been doing now for several years.

As is known there are 2 kinds of computer users: those who've had a hard drive crash and those who haven't had one yet. So I have it programed to backup once a week, or after a heavy editing/import session, I manually do an extra back up of my images folder to the 2nd 4TB drive.

However, that all means nothing if my house burns down. So, I also backup everything to the clouds (I use BackBlaze, I like it a lot). So I'm covered.

You do not say what your OS is, I'm on a Mac and use Chronosync. (The Best Mac Backup and Sync Software - ChronoSync | Econ Technologies ). BTW, I've had Chronosync for many many years and have yet to pay for any update. Pay once and that's it. And their service is excellent.

I've been using FreeFileSync with some luck. Be careful starting out until you get the gestalt of mirroring so you dont go the wrong direction. It works "on demand" - but they also have a RealTimeSync which works off a config file you create in FreeFileSync. I haven't used that yet, I prefer my sync to be episodic like a backup. they have PC and MacOS versions.

I often revisit older photos and edit/delete from HDD.  What I would like to do is create a situation where when I edit/delete a photo from Lightroom (specifically delete from HDD, not just LR catalog) this change is ALSO made on the secondary drive.  When I add new photos and then cull in LR, I would like to make that change on the second HDD as well.

As far as I know, the only way to do this (specifically deleting from both disks) is to use special third party software that can clone an entire disk.

If you just want the edits to apply to both disks, there's no problem, you don't have to do anything, the edits are in the catalog and by default not stored in the photos.

I'm assuming I am trying to create a mirrored HDD.  Any suggestions on the EASIEST way to achieve this with MY CURRENT HARDWARE would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

There are many third party backup softwares that can accomplish this. Some specifically clone the disk, others just backup new or changed files, which works for most people. I use a backup software (not a clone software) that costs money (it is called Winzip Pro) but there are many others and some that are free.

Simply use a third party backup utility and backup the images and your Lightroom catalog to the external HD.