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Best way to store and backup large iPhoto library?

Hello. I'm trying to find the best way to store and backup my iPhoto library. I'm using a Macbook Pro with Retina Display, OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 with 512 GB of storage. I currently have about 70,000 photos, totaling over 240 GB. Since about half of my storage is photos, I would like to reduce this to optimize the speed of my Macbook. I frequently access many of these photos, so it would not be practical for me to store most of the photos elsewhere and only keep the most recent photos on my computer. Instead, I'm thinking of storing these photos on a portable 1 TB external hard drive (plugging it in when I need to access my photos), but I would still like to back all of them up with the rest of my Macbook on a 2 TB hard drive. Is this possible? If not, any alternate suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on Mar 2, 2015 2:29 PM

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1 reply

Mar 2, 2015 2:32 PM in response to Jgorneau

Perfectly possible:


Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)


1. Quit iPhoto


2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.


3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.


4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.


Back up to the 2TB drie:


Most Simple Back Up:

Drag the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to another Disk. This will make a copy on that disk.


Slightly more complex: Use an app that will do incremental back ups. This is a very good way to work. The first time you run the back up the app will make a complete copy of the Library. Thereafter it will update the back up with the changes you have made. That makes subsequent back ups much faster. Many of these apps also have scheduling capabilities: So set it up and it will do the back up automatically.


Example of such apps: Chronosync- but there are many others. Search on MacUpdateor the App Store


Regards



TD

Best way to store and backup large iPhoto library?

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