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what are the steps to do an image back-up on an external hard drive ? Can i do a back up of photos on the same hard drive? this hard drive will be an additional hard drive NOT TIME MACHINE.
iMac 10.10.5 Yosemite 348 storage at present
iMac 27″, OS X 10.10
babowa wrote:
All good points. Some more detail on each...
No, you do not need to partition anything if you just have one type of backup on the drive.
Correct. As for the downsides of partitioning, partitioning is a favorite way to lose data across all partitions, when partitioning goes sideways, and partitioning goes sideways more often than any of us might prefer.
And a partitioned backup device that fails fails all partitions. Which means two sets of backups co-located on one hard disk can all be lost in one hard disk failure.
I would certainly recommend that you store anything you do not want to lose on an external drive rather than icloud as that is basically a syncing mechanism. If you delete something from your Mac, it will also be deleted in icloud.
While iCloud is a synching service and which surprises a number of us that (once) thought a file or photo delete might be device-local and not across all devices we’re using, Apple has implemented facilities to archive the iCloud data, and iCloud can restore some deleted data, including restoring deleted photos.
And, best check this out: you said you like iPhoto? That was replaced with the Photos app in Yosemite - is that what you are using?
Yeah; that iPhoto app usage is going to be a problem just as soon as Catalina or Big Sur arrives in scope here, such as can happen “suddenly” with the arrival of a newer replacement Mac. iPhoto cannot run on Catalina and later.
babowa wrote:
All good points. Some more detail on each...
No, you do not need to partition anything if you just have one type of backup on the drive.
Correct. As for the downsides of partitioning, partitioning is a favorite way to lose data across all partitions, when partitioning goes sideways, and partitioning goes sideways more often than any of us might prefer.
And a partitioned backup device that fails fails all partitions. Which means two sets of backups co-located on one hard disk can all be lost in one hard disk failure.
I would certainly recommend that you store anything you do not want to lose on an external drive rather than icloud as that is basically a syncing mechanism. If you delete something from your Mac, it will also be deleted in icloud.
While iCloud is a synching service and which surprises a number of us that (once) thought a file or photo delete might be device-local and not across all devices we’re using, Apple has implemented facilities to archive the iCloud data, and iCloud can restore some deleted data, including restoring deleted photos.
And, best check this out: you said you like iPhoto? That was replaced with the Photos app in Yosemite - is that what you are using?
Yeah; that iPhoto app usage is going to be a problem just as soon as Catalina or Big Sur arrives in scope here, such as can happen “suddenly” with the arrival of a newer replacement Mac. iPhoto cannot run on Catalina and later.
If you don’t want to think about this backup stuff, I’d suggest re-considering and using Time Machine.
if you use iCloud for Photos, here’s how to create a local archive of your iCloud data:
Archive or make copies of the information you store in iCloud - Apple Support
Boot into Recovery or boot into a bootable installer and use Disk Utility there to copy the macOS storage either device-to-device or device-to-image, or select and use a third-party backup tool such ss Carbon Copy Cloner, or use Time Machine and which deals with various of these and other issues for you.
Upgrading to at least 10.11 would be recommended, too. Preferably newer, if this Mac supports that.
If you want to just copy photos or files, in order not to mess up the storage space assignments on the external drive, I would recommend that you partition the external using Disk utility. Use Mac OS Extended and GUID partition scheme. After that, you should see an icon on your desktop for whatever you named the partitions. And, you can simply drag + drop files onto that partition. It will be copied to the external. I have been using this method for many years without the need of booting into an installer.
Or, if you wish to use CarbonCopyCloner to create a clone, download that, install it on your internal, launch it, and designate the new partition on the external for your clone. For that, you will need as much or more space on the external as you are currently using on your internal. It will create a bootable clone which will contain everything as it will be an exact copy of your entire system.
Thanks ! I think I will just use this external drive for photo back up only and get another one for my Mac back up. I am so tired of trying to figure all this out. But I really appreciate it. Do I have to partition it if I am only using it to back up photos only?
Thank you. I have an up to date time machine back up. I wanted to have another back -up of my complete photos. Just to give you a background of my problem . I have a great 27 “ Mac . It’s Os is Yosemite. I am using iPhoto which I really like . I am wanting to move to Mojave and keep using iPhoto for the time being. (I know I am way behind ) I want to down load my full resolutions photos from iCloud then back them all up. My ext. hard drive is G-Force 2 TB. So this pass week suddenly my iMac started fading . I vacuumed it as best I could. I have 2 fans blowing on it. I want to back up my pictures . Then I am going to take it to Mac to be cleaned if it is not too much. If it is not worth it, I may get another one. But I DONOT want to loose my pictures. I ran into the hitch today , there is no “ download full resolution “ under preferences in the iPhoto app. Soooo I have to figure that out. Thanks for your help.
No, you do not need to partition anything if you just have one type of backup on the drive.
I would certainly recommend that you store anything you do not want to lose on an external drive rather than icloud as that is basically a syncing mechanism. If you delete something from your Mac, it will also be deleted in icloud.
And, best check this out: you said you like iPhoto? That was replaced with the Photos app in Yosemite - is that what you are using?
If you want to archive your data from iCloud including your iCloud photos (when you’re using that), click here > Archive or make copies of the information you store in iCloud - Apple Support
Thanks for your help !
backsups not time machine
