Where is the best place to backup your photo library in case your computer crashes and loses everything? This question never seems to get answered clearly and people seem confused. I have an old computer with all of my photos on it and just want to make sure they're safe.
I've backed them up on an external drive in the past but they seem to be unreliable.
The most useful and accessible back up is to made a copy on an external HD. Externals are no more unreliable than internals. Best to make a couple of back ups, imho, to multiple hard drives.
I'm not sure how much more clear that can be.
That's protection against mechanical failure or user error.
You can also back up your photographs to photo sites like Flickr. This doesn't back up your Library but it is a failsafe that protects your photographs in the case of calamity (say: your house burns down), while also making them available to you from any computer in the world.
There: two simple back ups.
The most useful and accessible back up is to made a copy on an external HD. Externals are no more unreliable than internals. Best to make a couple of back ups, imho, to multiple hard drives.
I'm not sure how much more clear that can be.
That's protection against mechanical failure or user error.
You can also back up your photographs to photo sites like Flickr. This doesn't back up your Library but it is a failsafe that protects your photographs in the case of calamity (say: your house burns down), while also making them available to you from any computer in the world.
There: two simple back ups.
Any external drive you are using to save a copy of your Photos Library should prepared as described here: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support
Thank you for the explanation!
This was my understanding but I've had a couple of older external hard drives refuse to boot on my Mac, so I figured I'd see if there were some better options being used.
What does "refuse to boot" mean?
Sorry, it won't appear on my desktop.
Did you set 'show external HDs' in Finder preferences?
Thanks again for the information! I'll take a look.
Photo library protection and backup
