Combining Hard Drives

[Chris Hamilton]

Here's a question and responses I posted about combining hard drives on the controlled vocabulary forum. I was referred to this forum for more help/info.

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I have purchased a new larger capacity hard drive (A) that I would like to combine all the folders from three older, smaller hard drives (B,C,D). I know I could just drag and drop all these folders, but I want to verify that they all transfer properly using ChronoSync. How do I combine these 3 into 1 using Chronosync and what is the best way to do this considering all three older drives are cataloged using Lightroom? I don't want to relocate every folder one at a time in Lightroom, and I can't figure out the best, easiest way to do this.

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After a few responses, here's my response and more info...

Thanks David, Brad and Eric,

I'll try to answer you all at once. 97% of the files are Raw, 2% psd, 1% jpeg. The metadata from Lightroom has been exported out to the originals. I'm very familiar w/ reimporting vs. "Locate Missing Folder/Update Folder Location" and
definitely want to avoid reimporting. I also know how to move folders and/or images in Lightroom, but I wanted to make sure the copying process verifies that the data was moved to the new disk w/out errors or corruption as this new hard drive will be my primary hd w/ new backups made from it. Are moving large numbers of files/folders in Lightroom completely trustworthy or should this be verified somehow (hence ChronoSync). I think the Lightroom way is the easiest way if I can trust it - never had any problems before moving a folder or small group of files w/ Lightroom, and I'm not sure how to move or synchronize 3 hard drives into 1 using ChronoSync. I also use SuperDuper for cloning my Mac HD if that is of any help.

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Any help or thoughts Lightroomforums??

Thanks,
Chris

 

[stasber]

Hi Chris, welcome to the forum.

You'll help us and yourself in future responses by completing your signature like most of us here have done. Go to your Control Panel for that. Thanks.

Just wanted to say that moving and/or renaming the folders within LR poses no problems - touch wood - I've had no problems in relocating date-structured folders with thousands of images from one hard drive to another. The moves are always successful (sometimes I might move a folder back to it's previous location (hard drive) from my archive drive if I'm going to be working on it again). I have also renamed folders in the same way.

Of course you'd be wise to back up the data before you move it. I use Super Duper too, which is perfect as the data is accessible without any messing about.

On your new hd create a folder with a sample image in it. In LR add this folder - it'll appear within a new hd parent folder/location. You can now delete the sample image and/or folder if you like. Start moving across the folders from your other location within LR using drag & drop. Simple as. Do a 'Locate in Finder' to see that it has in fact moved across.

As mentioned, this has always worked for me. I'm not sure if the data is verified per se, but LR does a good job of moving it intact and keeping track of it.

 

[Brad Snyder]

Chris, welcome to the forums.

Stas is correct, Lr does no addtional copy validation or verification beyond the OS provided services. I'll second his opinion also, I've moved 1','''s of files within Lr, with no problems. The main gotcha' is the inability to move multiple folders, so a folder structure with minimum parent folders is desirable.

Your alternative to move using the OS capability is also a valid option, but will require the subsequent 'relocation' step within Lr. Since Lr uses the same system functions that Explorer does, I don't believe anything is gained thereby. Possibly a third party move/copy w/ verification application could be effective here, but I don't use one, so have nothing to recommend.

Recent online conversations I've seen in other fora lead me to believe that the Lr team is aware of this file verification issue, particularly in the camera to Lr phase. Whether future Lr versions will address it is anybody's guess.

 

[Chris Hamilton]

Thanks - I'm in the process of transferring folders in LR now.
Chris