Backing up photos

Now we finally get to the all-important photos backup.

I've already imported my photos into Lightroom. Also, every time I quit Lightroom, it prompts me to back up the library (which I do). So what I want backed up to an external drive are the original images, the Lightroom catalog, and the Lightroom backups.

I certainly could backup these photos to the 1TB external Thunderbolt drive that I'm copying the video files to, however specifically for photos I travel with something else — a tiny little SanDisk Ultra Fit 128GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive. For under $30 on Amazon, this tiny little 128GB flash drive can easily be kept separate from the computer, and even hidden. If I were worried about theft (I wasn't), I could keep this with me while my computer stayed in the hotel. Or hide this in the room so if everything was stolen, this would be left behind. Or toss it in any bag separate from the computer for travel. Or keep it on my person at all times. At 128GB it's likely to be plenty for any single trip (for photos only). And if I don't need a big external drive, then this is the entirety of the backup drive that I need to travel with. In short, I really like having this tiny little drive to quickly copy my originals and Lightroom backups to!

SanDisk Ultra Fit 128GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive in my MacBook Pro

As far as how to copy the files… of course, it's CCC to the rescue.

Here's what my backup Task for the photo originals and Lightroom backups looks like (and it's currently running a backup in this screenshot). The Task (1) is called “Lightroom to Mini Thumb Drive”, and the Source (2) is the entire Pictures folder (which will be filtered) and the Destination (3) is my tiny flash drive. Inside of the Pictures folder, I've selected some content in the Lightroom (4) folder, and some in the Lightroom Originals (5) folder. What's good here is that when a new folder is created (because for example I've imported new photos into a new dated folder), that will be automatically selected. It does also mean however that I have to be sure if I add anything else to the Pictures folder, I manually deselect it here. There are other ways to do this of course; for example I could have created individual tasks for the Lightroom and Lightroom Originals folder so I didn't have to worry about new content in the Pictures folder getting added to the backup, but this works fine for me.

The backup Task to copy all original photos and Lightroom backups to my tiny SanDisk USB flash drive

And now I'm backed up!

So that's all there is to it! Once the CCC tasks are created, backing up is as simple as plugging a drive in. The initial setup of a CCC Task may feel a little daunting, although you will start in a simplified view mode and it really can be as simple as selecting a source, a destination, and a schedule. I've complicated things because of my video files but that's just me. If you don't already use Carbon Copy Cloner, I encourage you to check it out.

Learn more about Carbon Copy Cloner from Bombich Software