Mac users: Backup options?

I use a time capsule but only backup my photos folder, I am trailing an external nas drive as well.
Lastly I use Dropbox which automatically updates any changes and updates externally.

A lot is down to price and how important your files are. All us fine until you get a drive failure.
I experienced that and lost a load of photos from a trip to India. Only have a few images left
made me go overboard on backing up
 
I've been doing some more research and after a lot of buggering about in folders, I can confirm that Time Machine will look inside packages - folders that are made to look like a single file.
This means that if you back up Lightroom Catalog Smart Previews.lrdata, Time Machine will actually only back up any previews that have changed/been added since the previous backup.

(This must be the case because iPhoto/Aperture/Photos libraries are packages and there's no way Time Machine would back up those in their entirety every time).
 
Andy Taylor said:
I've been doing some more research and after a lot of buggering about in folders, I can confirm that Time Machine will look inside packages - folders that are made to look like a single file.
This means that if you back up Lightroom Catalog Smart Previews.lrdata, Time Machine will actually only back up any previews that have changed/been added since the previous backup.

(This must be the case because iPhoto/Aperture/Photos libraries are packages and there's no way Time Machine would back up those in their entirety every time).
Click to expand...
It has been doing that since its first iteration...Was great with Aperture....but at the time Adobe didn't support it...Good news if it now does that as well...
 
Andy Taylor said:
I think it is just that Time Machine doesn't treat packages any differently to normal folders. There's a more in-depth explanation here: http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html
Especially this page: How Time Machine works - it's Magic :D
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I think we are in agreement, it is primarily how some software created and saved their source files. If they do it wrong and don't use like a sparse bundle but make their own binary format, then it is as inefficient as other backup software and backup the full file.
 
dejongj said:
I wonder whether in Explorer you are viewing the embedded JPEG and in LR it is rendering the RAW image. When you import in LR you can create previews, set this to a happy medium for speed for yourself, then it doesn't have to render the full image on a slow machine.

I got to admin that even on my three year old Macbook Air it is pretty quick if not instant.
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Ah, well, that could be it. I have no idea, lol. Guess I will wait till my Mac arrives and see if it's ok on it. Thanks for replying! :)

wuyanxu said:
Lightroom is a catalogue program rather than file browser.

I press X on the photos definitely won't make the cut, P if I want to pick it. Then delete all X'd photos in one go (there's a keyboard shortcut for this) and edit Picked photos. The filter tool is invaluable.
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That means you're pruning your photos while looking at a whole page of thumbnails? I have to see my photos one by one in large size to decide whether I want to keep them. :P But thanks for your answer!

JonathanRyan said:
You can totally do that in the Finder (that's Mac for Windows Explorer). You can also do it from quick look in the finder - hit space and it will show you the contents of most kinds of file. Select several jpegs and you get pretty slideshows and stuff.

There are plenty of other ways to do this but at first you might like to stick to what you've done up until now.

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH18813?locale=en_US
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Thanks for replying! I was just thinking it will save a step if I import directly to LR and prune from there. Well, I probably should have asked this question only after getting my iMac and trying it out. :P
 
I save that step and use the tools in Lightroom or Photo or Aperture (in the past). It's handy and convenient.
 
There are different options for how previews are rendered that you chose on upload to LR. If you don't have the right preview setting chosen for you this could what the delay you are seeing. With LR everything needs to be done in LR once they are uploaded to LR otherwise you will start getting missing link symbols appear in LR if you have deleted or moved a file or folder outside of LR.

The idea of using X and P is very useful, it can be done in the library page it can be done with a single image previewed not just thumbnails. I import straight from camera to LR, everything is then done in LR. I never touch the raw files on the hard drive as I have no need to.
 
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Winter said:
Thanks for replying! I was just thinking it will save a step if I import directly to LR and prune from there.
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It will. However, your computer has to do a significant amount of "work" to import raw files into Lightroom (less for jpegs). It's entirely up to you but some people prefer to prune before importing to LR as it can be quicker and keeps your catalogue size nice and small.
 
Andy Taylor said:
I've been doing some more research and after a lot of buggering about in folders, I can confirm that Time Machine will look inside packages - folders that are made to look like a single file.
This means that if you back up Lightroom Catalog Smart Previews.lrdata, Time Machine will actually only back up any previews that have changed/been added since the previous backup.

(This must be the case because iPhoto/Aperture/Photos libraries are packages and there's no way Time Machine would back up those in their entirety every time).
Click to expand...

I'll admit I wasn't thinking if the previews - those can be recreated so IMO don't need a lot of effort to back up. The LRCAT files are, I believe, files (rather than packages) and can get fairly large. I'm pretty sure that moving a single slider in LR (or even swapping views) would cause a change to this file. That surely has to flag it for backup.
 
JonathanRyan said:
The LRCAT files are, I believe, files (rather than packages) and can get fairly large. I'm pretty sure that moving a single slider in LR (or even swapping views) would cause a change to this file.
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That's correct, this file contains all the metadata, changes and history. It is a SQLite format file. One option would be to split the catalogue. I've seen a couple of articles suggest that 10,000 images is about the maximum you should have in a catalogue. This will improve performance of Lightroom as well.
 
JonathanRyan said:
I'll admit I wasn't thinking if the previews - those can be recreated so IMO don't need a lot of effort to back up. The LRCAT files are, I believe, files (rather than packages) and can get fairly large. I'm pretty sure that moving a single slider in LR (or even swapping views) would cause a change to this file. That surely has to flag it for backup.
Click to expand...

Andy Taylor said:
That's correct, this file contains all the metadata, changes and history. It is a SQLite format file. One option would be to split the catalogue. I've seen a couple of articles suggest that 10,000 images is about the maximum you should have in a catalogue. This will improve performance of Lightroom as well.
Click to expand...

So, I've been reading your posts about LR catalog and trying to digest it all (remember I'm new to LR too). But what's the final verdict? Should I set my TM to not backup the catalog? Is it a specific file I have to pick for TM to exclude it?
 
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Winter said:
So, I've been reading your posts about LR catalog and trying to digest it all (remember I'm new to LR too). But what's the final verdict? Should I set my TM to not backup the catalog? Is it a specific file I have to pick for TM to exclude it?
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I suggest letting Time Machine back up the catalogue file, but be sure to that at least some backups run when Lightroom is closed.
My reasoning is that your catalogue file is likely to be fairly small to begin with and you're going to have a lot of free space on the backup drive.

If you ever need to tell if Lightroom was open when the backup was made - look for a file called Lightroom Catalog.lrcat.lock in the Lightroom folder in Time Machine.

I would also make sure that Lightroom is set to back up the catalogue regularly (Lightroom Preferences>Catalog Settings...) and let Time Machine back up these files.

You can set exclusions for Time Machine in System Preferences>Time Machine>Options...
The Lightroom files/folders to skip if you want (assuming you are using the default location) are:

/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/<username>/Pictures/Lightroom/Lightroom Catalog Previews.lrdata
/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/<username>/Pictures/Lightroom/Lightroom Catalog Smart Previews.lrdata
/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/<username>/Pictures/Lightroom/Mobile Downloads.lrdata

Let me know if that make sense or not.
 
Exactly as Andy says. I think Time Machine does backup open and locked files, but I'm in a habit of just having the Lightroom catalog excluded but make a backup of the catalog each time I exit the application. Those backups are included and there easily restored.
 
Andy Taylor said:
I suggest letting Time Machine back up the catalogue file, but be sure to that at least some backups run when Lightroom is closed.
My reasoning is that your catalogue file is likely to be fairly small to begin with and you're going to have a lot of free space on the backup drive.

If you ever need to tell if Lightroom was open when the backup was made - look for a file called Lightroom Catalog.lrcat.lock in the Lightroom folder in Time Machine.

I would also make sure that Lightroom is set to back up the catalogue regularly (Lightroom Preferences>Catalog Settings...) and let Time Machine back up these files.

You can set exclusions for Time Machine in System Preferences>Time Machine>Options...
The Lightroom files/folders to skip if you want (assuming you are using the default location) are:

/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/<username>/Pictures/Lightroom/Lightroom Catalog Previews.lrdata
/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/<username>/Pictures/Lightroom/Lightroom Catalog Smart Previews.lrdata
/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/<username>/Pictures/Lightroom/Mobile Downloads.lrdata

Let me know if that make sense or not.
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Thanks for the detailed instructions! Ok, so I will just let TM backup everything for a start. And you're saying that, whenever I finish working with LR and close it, I should just manually back it up just to be sure all the changes are saved right there and then?

dejongj said:
Exactly as Andy says. I think Time Machine does backup open and locked files, but I'm in a habit of just having the Lightroom catalog excluded but make a backup of the catalog each time I exit the application. Those backups are included and there easily restored.
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I think I understand. You only manually backup the catalogue upon quitting LR so that TM doesn't backup every single action you make in there and waste resources?
 
Approximately. I save the changes to the sidecar file so that will be picked up anyway. It is just that the catalog is actually a relational database. An odd design choice but so be it. In order to make a trust worthy backup of that you ordinarily need some severe integration which is just not worth it for Lightroom. Therefore, upon closing Lightroom mine pops up asking to backup the catalog, I just hit enter and it is done. Time machine keeps working and will automatically backup the backup of the catalog.

My Lightroom sessions aren't long enough to warrant interim backups, if yours do then you could backup it up more regularly or set it to do it automatically.

As my photos are backed up, as are my edits, then it is purely the organisation within Lightroom that is exposed for say an hour or two. I can live with that. A risk that is to me not worth putting extra controls in place.

However if you edit professionally then losing two hours work, remember just the work/organisation not the photos, may be worth it to put enhanced measures in place.
 
Winter said:
Thanks for the detailed instructions! Ok, so I will just let TM backup everything for a start. And you're saying that, whenever I finish working with LR and close it, I should just manually back it up just to be sure all the changes are saved right there and then?
Click to expand...

That's one way to do it.

Winter said:
I think I understand. You only manually backup the catalogue upon quitting LR so that TM doesn't backup every single action you make in there and waste resources?
Click to expand...

That's another way to do it, but remember Time Machine only runs once an hour, keeps hourly backups for 24 hours, daily for up to a month and then weekly backups until the disk fills up.
Time Machine will then delete older backups as needed.
 
Okay. Thanks, guys, for the extra clarifications! :)
 
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