Backup

[hoddo]

I have my library auto backup every day and wonder what is actually being backed up? The file by comparison to the library of images, is small.

My belief is that the main catalogue is on my hard-drive accessing my images on one external hard-drive that auto backs up to another hard-drive. The back up goes to the external. This first external then gets auto copied to the other external drive.

So, if I move one of the external hard-drives to a laptop with LR installed would I simply point it at the latest backup and everything would work inc any setting changes I've made via LR?

Thanks and I'm sure this may have been asked before but I did look.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Yep, that backup is just a duplicate of the catalog, renamed with the date, simple as that.

 

[hoddo]

So what is actually being backed up? I know it's not the images but is it some sort of reference to each image and the data of changes I've made if any to each image?

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Yes, the catalog contains a link to the file, and all of the metadata about that file - develop changes, ratings, everything you do in Lightroom.

 

[hoddo]

Thanks Victoria. Actually two fold thanks.

Was with a friend who has converted to LR a month or two back, previously Aperture. He uses Mac and over the weekend just gone he uploaded raw images, made changes and stored them onto a couple of external Lacie HDD. During the process of trying to find where he'd sotred them, that bit is sorted now, he used some kind of find tool installed in the Mac which look a little like iTunes.

It showed the images but they were the flat raw files without the alterations and he started having kittens. The issue here isn't the viewer, that's easy to explain, but LR isn't allowing him to backup and so his catalogue is on his internal hard drive not his externals so if he has a system shut down my understanding is he runs the risk of loosing the LR adjustments he's made. Why is LR not allowing him to back up do you think?

Apologies for the long post.

 

[davidmknoble]

As another aside, while it doesn't save the metadata and the lightroom steps used to alter the images,

An export of the files with all of the changes applied would at least backup the images with some of the data:

Export, DNG, With RAW files, Embed RAW files, Export Keywords as Metadata.

Also, when you say LR isn't allowing the backup, is it trying and failing or is it not even asking to back it up?

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Lightroom isn't allowing him to back up? I'd guess, at first glance, that the backup location he's got it set to use doesn't exist or is read-only.

So when your friend moved his files, did he do so within Lightroom? Or at least keep them in the same directory structure? Probably time to invite him to the forum so he can talk us through what he's done so far.

In the meantime, he can always close LR and manually duplicate the file onto the other drive.

 

[hoddo]

I've seen the response from LR and it asks, the location set is on one of his external HD but the operation fails - can't remember what the error message says

 

[Victoria Bampton]

At a guess, there either isn't enough space on his external, perhaps it's formatted as NTFS, maybe he doesn't have write permission... something along those lines would be my immediate best guess.