Backup Question?? In Lightroom..

How do I get Lightroom to save/Backup in multiple places (IE two different hard drives)?

during import you can tell LR to save to an additional drive, but as far as I can tell that's only going to be the photos, not any changes you make later or the catalog file. I do it anyway, but I also back up my entire computer to CrashPlan and to an extra external drive.

There are several free or cheap backups software solutions out there as well, you can set up scheduled backups to an external drive. personally I'd suggest something like CrashPlan or if you have Amazon Prime you get unlimited online photo storage (not sure if you can backup your computer there as well). At least have a full backup on an external drive that you store at work or at some other place, just in case you have a break in or fire at your place.

I don't know of any way to get LR to backup to two locations at the same time. You could use a backup app like https://www.microsoft.​com …fLCb09kC7iv5kGO​5mPrxuf1RQ which can automatically backup a folder to another drive.

If I have understood correctly your question.
hope this help

This is what I do.

To me anything in your computer is a copy, not a backup. Backups are on a different device, in a different location.

tim wrote in post #17746687
To me anything in your computer is a copy, not a backup. Backups are on a different device, in a different location.

Yea a very important point often overlooked.
Lightrooms default location to "backup" your catalogue is in a sub folder in Pictures > Lightroom. If your drive fails you will lose not only your catalog but you back-ups too.

It is important to backup (to a separate drive) not only your photos but also your catalog and your LR settings (develop presets, export presets etc). The last of these can be (rather helpfully) found hidden away at C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\​AppData\Roaming\Adobe

Finally refound this thread.. (I Am a NewBee to the site so) Thank you all for your help. I am running three external hard drives as back ups and wanted a master, keepers, and edited photos section and your information help a lot

I'm a bit proponent of time machine if you are using Macs. You can designate the backup to target only the photo files. Good luck.

la_ricecooker wrote in post #17753401
I'm a bit proponent of time machine if you are using Macs. You can designate the backup to target only the photo files. Good luck.

Since that drive has to stay connected to the computer (as I understand it) it's more of a copy than a backup. To me backups are offsite. Could be wrong about TM, I don't know mac well.

^ Time Machine is great at backups
If you have a spare drive.

You can back up just your photo library folder or the entire computer.

The only reason I don't use it actively for my photo backups is, should I need to take my raw files to a friend or family's house.
They can access my folders via my universal Exfat format external drive.

If it was a time machine backup, it would require a Mac to view the data inside it.

Dan Marchant wrote in post #17747303
Yea a very important point often overlooked.
Lightrooms default location to "backup" your catalogue is in a sub folder in Pictures > Lightroom. If your drive fails you will lose not only your catalog but you back-ups too.

It is important to backup (to a separate drive) not only your photos but also your catalog and your LR settings (develop presets, export presets etc). The last of these can be (rather helpfully) found hidden away at C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\​AppData\Roaming\Adobe

And this is why a very simple thing to do is the locate the backup folder and current catalog on your local drive and simply copy the conetent of the folder and the current .lrcat file to an external harddrive or NAS, so the only copy of each file is resident only on the internal harddrive. Data redundancy, best stored off site but even just on a second harddrive is far better than being reliant on your PC's harddrive...I have had, more than once, internal harddrive failure. Windows 7 system image helps, but I would rather have the data backed up even in addition to the system image.

Wilt wrote in post #17756032
And this is why a very simple thing to do is the locate the backup folder and current catalog on your local drive and simply copy the conetent of the folder and the current .lrcat file to an external harddrive or NAS,

Alternatively set the destination for your backups to an external drive so you automatically have your main catalog and backup catalog on separate drives.

Dan Marchant wrote in post #17756599
Alternatively set the destination for your backups to an external drive so you automatically have your main catalog and backup catalog on separate drives.

I follow Wilt's method, backing up to the same drive but then backing that drive up to an external drive. That external drive is rotated off-site.

We each have our own methods, and different needs. Some time ago I realized that storing all my data offsite doubles the chances of data theft. To reduce that chance, I now encrypt the offsite drives. That makes routine backups to those drives a bit more complicated. The backups are now done intermittently, when I choose, after mounting the encrypted drive. I usually do these backups before formatting my SD cards.

My Lightroom catalog is saved in my Dropbox. This way it's backed up with Dropbox revisioning and it's on very computer and device I own. I also keep a copy on my NAS as well that's backed up daily.