Replacing HDD - Lightroom Question

I've recently moved my entire workflow to Lightroom and I have to say that I love it.

However, the HDD on my laptop is almost at capacity and I'd like to replace with something that has more storage around 750GB and at 7200RPM.

I've been looking at Western Digital

My question is, what is the best way to move my pictures over without screwing up my catalog. I own a 2010 15" Macbook Pro i5, a 1TB external HDD, and I back up my entire computer using Time Machine.

If you use Time Machine to back up an entire computer, install the new HDD, install the OS and use Time Machine to restore my computer, everything should be intact the way that they are before the HDD install, correct?

If time machine works the same as Windows 7 imaging it will be exactly the same. A clone.

If it's not then use a third party imaging program like Macrium or Acronis. There are many others but I don't know what is compatible with the file system Apple uses. Windows uses NTFS but Apple uses FAT or FAT32 I believe.

Anyway, make sure Time Machine images the drive exactly not just the files and folders but the entire disk image and just transfer it to the new disk. I have done it a million times with Windows but never Apple. Good luck. It's not too hard. The first time is just scary.

I recently did exactly what you are asking. Follow Helen Bradley's instructions: http://www.digital-photography-school.com/moving-a-lightroom-catalog. It's very straightforward.

csondagar wrote in post #12293482
I recently did exactly what you are asking. Follow Helen Bradley's instructions: http://www.digital-photography-school.com/moving-a-lightroom-catalog. It's very straightforward.

Thanks for the tip.

Can anyone validate if Time Machine simply clones your HDD?

nate42nd wrote in post #12293393
Windows uses NTFS but Apple uses FAT or FAT32 I believe.

OSX can read and write FAT/FAT32
OSX can read NTFS and can be made to write it.
OSX uses HFS plus.

http://en.wikipedia.or​g …le_systems_unde​r_Mac_OS_X

pxchoi wrote in post #12293960
Can anyone validate if Time Machine simply clones your HDD?

No. It creates a folder "Backups.backupdb" which is accessable trough TimeMachine.
http://support.apple.c​om/kb/ht1427

pxchoi wrote in post #12293960
Thanks for the tip.

Can anyone validate if Time Machine simply clones your HDD?

Time Machine does have a complete copy of all your information on your computer. I would not call it a clone though as I would associate that as one single image file with everything inside that. I have used it when upgrading my HDD in my macbook pro. I just did one last time machine backup right before the upgrade. Then I replaced my HD, put in Snow Leopard, it asked if I had a time machine backup, I said yes and pointed it to the backup. Then it proceeded to install the OS on the new drive and restored my desktop and all my files like nothing had been changed. It worked amazingly well.

KuroHouou wrote in post #12296732
Time Machine does have a complete copy of all your information on your computer. I would not call it a clone though as I would associate that as one single image file with everything inside that. I have used it when upgrading my HDD in my macbook pro. I just did one last time machine backup right before the upgrade. Then I replaced my HD, put in Snow Leopard, it asked if I had a time machine backup, I said yes and pointed it to the backup. Then it proceeded to install the OS on the new drive and restored my desktop and all my files like nothing had been changed. It worked amazingly well.

That's what I thought... I've replaced my computer before and I used Time Machine to restore everything, and my programs were intact as if I always had this computer.

I've been mostly a PC user, so this will all be brand new for me, hopefully it goes smoothly.

Here's how you do it:

1. Put your new drive in a USB2 enclosure and connect it to your MBP.
2. Launch Disk Utility from your Applications/Utilities folder and initialize the drive as HFS+ Extended, case insensitive.
3. Download the free app Carbon Copy Cloner and run it to clone your internal hard drive to your new external hard drive. This can take several hours to complete.
4. Leave the new external drive connected and reboot while holding the Option key. After a few seconds you'll be presented with bootable volumes, which should include your new drive that's on the USB bus. Use the keyboard arrow keys to select it, then press Return and your MBP should boot. If it does, then the cloning process was successful.
5. Swap the new drive for the old drive and you should be done.

Do you use your optical drive? If not, you should consider replacing it with a second hard drive or SSD.

To answer your question.
If you only have one drive (os and pictures are in one partition) than best way is to clone it. There are many cloning software available. You should not have your data stored in same partition anyway because if your o/s crashes or HDD fail? It will cost you alot to recover from bad drive. All drive will fail, just a matter of when.

My suggestion is to just keep your old drive for OS than add the new HDD for storage. Just cut and past your picture into new storage drive.

If you are anal like me? always backup. I recently upgrade my PC and move all my data into storage 4TB raid 1/0. I have 8TB drive raided. useable space is 4TB. mirrored redundant.

czynot wrote in post #12304725
To answer your question.
If you only have one drive (os and pictures are in one partition) than best way is to clone it. There are many cloning software available. You should not have your data stored in same partition anyway because if your o/s crashes or HDD fail? It will cost you alot to recover from bad drive. All drive will fail, just a matter of when.

My suggestion is to just keep your old drive for OS than add the new HDD for storage. Just cut and past your picture into new storage drive.

If you are anal like me? always backup. I recently upgrade my PC and move all my data into storage 4TB raid 1/0. I have 8TB drive raided. useable space is 4TB. mirrored redundant.

I own a laptop, not a desktop and I do back up my Hard Drive. I won't be replacing my optical drive for a hard drive.