Backing Up LR Files

[Souwalker]

Hi

I know I've seen this questioned asked before. I'm a bit tired and about to go to bed soon :-[

I recently got a NAS and was wondering what files & directory I need to backup. I know there's the Catalogue, config files but I am positive there is more such as plugins, setups etc.

I am on an xp home o/s.

LR was installed in it's default location.

Many Thanks
Pat

 

[Jim Wilde]

Well, speaking personally I backup the following:

1. First and foremost of course are my original images, stored on a local hard drive but backed up to my NAS and two additional external Hard Drives.
2. Equally as important (arguably) is the catalog - I use only one main catalog but occasionally export disposable subsets for experimentation purposes - again backed up to same destinations as the image files. I also allow LR to create periodic catalog backups to the same parent folder as the catalog, so the backups themselves are backed up x 3.
3. Lightroom Settings - default location on XP will be c:/documents and settings/username/application data/adobe/lightroom - I also backup this folder as all the presets are stored here.
4. Plugins are stored wherever you decided to store them. I very unimaginatively store mine in a sub-folder called Plugins in the same Lightroom folder as per 3 above, hence these are also included in my backup regime.

About the only things I don't backup are the program installation files and the Camera Raw cache.

Hope this helps.

 

[clee01l]

I've long contended that any backup of Lightroom should be a part of a normal regular system wide backup. If you follow the recommendations for a regular system wide full/differential backup you will not need to worry. There are two reasons to backup data. The first is to protect against a catastrophic disk failure or a corrupted file. Fot this a simple mirror may be all that is required. The second reason is to protect you against yourself. That "Oops" where you accidently delete or write over a file. Lightroom's non destructive file saving approach is a form of this protection. It does not however prevent you from deleting a file that you shouldn't or protect against file operations outside of LR. For this you need a differential backup with a periodic full backup at an interval that you are comfortable with.

Between full backups, a differential backup only makes a backup of those files that have changed since the last differential backup. If you run full back-ups once a week and daily differentials and any file that changes every day (e.g. .lrcat), you will get 8 copies of that file before the cycle repeats. Alternately, if you delete a JPG on Tuesday and discover that mistake on Sunday, you have that file on the last full backup or on a differential between that backup and Tuesday when it was deleted.

For LR, the basics include backing up only those files that can not be recreated. For LR you can recreate ACR cache and previews, so these should be skipped. I store all presets and plugins in folders under the default LR folders (On XP that would be"c:/documents and settings/{Yourname}/application data/adobe/lightroom)
The LR catalog can get corrupted if it is backed up while LR is actively writing to it. For this reason it is a good idea to schedule your system wide backup over night when you are not likely to be actively using LR. Also for this reason, I use the LR (on startup) catalog backup to make a good clean copy once a week. Even this LR copy backup gets a redundant backup in my house.

 

[Souwalker]

Many thanks

I do have backup copies of my jpgs and RAWs in another NAS and was backing up those LR files as mentioned as part of my backup routine.

I've since bought a new NAS and I cannot remember where those files are kept to backup.

Many Thanks.
pat