I have 12,000 pictures on my iMac hard drive and need to back up them up. What is the easiest way to do this? Will they all fit on a single external hard drive? How do I find out how much space my pictures are taking up? Thanks for any guidance!
iMac
I'd suggest backing-up your whole system, not just your pictures.
You might want to review the Time Machine Tutorial, and perhaps browse Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions. especially item #1. If you don't want to use Time Machine, see #27 there for some alternatives.
One way to find out how much space your pix are taking up:
Open iPhoto
Choose Photos in the Library
Do a Command-A to highlight all the photos (be very careful not to do anything that would delete them!)
Click Info in the lower right corner
The number of pics and movies with total GB will be displayed
Another way to check total size taken on HDD for iPhoto pix that doesn't risk erasing them all if you goof after selecting all:
In Lion
Open Finder
Choose Preferences in Finder menu
Under Sidebar check Pictures in Favorites
Close dialog box and go back to Finder
Right-click newly visible Pictures icon in Favorites
Select Info
Total size is displayed in info window
iMac Backup of pictures
