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EHDs & organization

I have always had a EHD that was DS stuff and photos only. My original USB EHD has finally died but it was so small I could no longer put anything on it! And, my original power cord EHD has also now failed.

I have never kept any of my DS stuff on my laptop. Which is why I had the EHD that I could take with me when I went to scrap retreats. But I mainly keep all this stuff on my desktop. I have the DS EHD where I copy stuff on a monthly basis. I also have another EHD that is just for backups done twice a week. I also have Backblaze.

In fact, Backblaze is how I found out the power cord EHD had failed. I got the notice of not backing up. I checked everything, tried it on the laptop and realized it was dead. I have had at least 2 EHD's that have all my important stuff (DS and other documents) for many years so when the EHD's failed, I didn't lose anything since it was all elsewhere as well.

So I may be going overboard with the number of EHD's I have with the same stuff on them, but if one fails I know I have another. Backblaze does back up 1 of the EHD's and the C drive. So if something would happen to the C drive that is where I could restore from.
 
@Kat Same here - I get confused by their names too ... I tend to buy a lot of LaCie drives and I get confused because they are all named something similar by default. You do have a lot of EHDs/backups ...WOW!

I'm in the process now of moving and organizing as we speak ... I've changed my mind twice now already. LOL. (I should be doing this in the winter! Note to self for next time!)
 
HavaDrPepper said:
I have always had a EHD that was DS stuff and photos only. My original USB EHD has finally died but it was so small I could no longer put anything on it! And, my original power cord EHD has also now failed.

I have never kept any of my DS stuff on my laptop. Which is why I had the EHD that I could take with me when I went to scrap retreats. But I mainly keep all this stuff on my desktop. I have the DS EHD where I copy stuff on a monthly basis. I also have another EHD that is just for backups done twice a week. I also have Backblaze.

In fact, Backblaze is how I found out the power cord EHD had failed. I got the notice of not backing up. I checked everything, tried it on the laptop and realized it was dead. I have had at least 2 EHD's that have all my important stuff (DS and other documents) for many years so when the EHD's failed, I didn't lose anything since it was all elsewhere as well.

So I may be going overboard with the number of EHD's I have with the same stuff on them, but if one fails I know I have another. Backblaze does back up 1 of the EHD's and the C drive. So if something would happen to the C drive that is where I could restore from.
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Sounds like having all those backups worked out well for you! I don't think you're going overboard if it saved you twice now! :)
 
Regarding getting mixed up by EHD names . . . last time I got a new one, I actually named it My 5Tb Book and renamed my old one Kendzie 3Tb (it contains stuff about or created by my family; I don't consider it mine). I wanted the size of the drives in the name because I kept forgetting what size they are!
 
I had three large format EHDs that were supposed to be separated by use, but then I bought a fourth EHD (that was portable and with more storage than all three combined) and I copied them all onto there. (But didn't bother to organize.) Then I bought another portable one that was supposed to be wireless -- turned out it can only send read only music and movies wirelessly -- and that one is also a copy of the last one. And, of course, I had to buy yet another portable one when I was having trouble connecting with my laptop (hindsight, I think it was the port or the cable, not the EHD) and I copied both of the other drives to it and was using only that one.

On top of all that, I've saved the hard drive that I swapped out from my laptop for an SSD -- I only used it for a couple of months before getting my desktop, it's pretty much my entire hard drive, in portable format. I haven't accessed it yet, but I did buy a case for it so that I could. :)

I need to go through all my EHDs and eliminate duplicate files, but I found the easiest way to deal with them all was to switch from a laptop, to a desktop, and copy the most recent EHD to a dedicated internal drive. ;) Furthermore, my husband set up a shared drive system, so if the files are *really* important -- photos and layouts -- I save them there too.

I guess I'll be following this thread to see what you all come up with. LOL
 
Jenn, don't you have an dedicated EHD to use with Time Machine?

My 4T is my Time Machine backup for my computer (which has apps and docs only) as well as my 2T which has all photos, all digi supplies and all layouts and more. I also have a 1T which is archives for finished albums or old PL years. ALL of these EHDs are only HALF FULL.Now most all my layouts are done for various challenges and I make monthly folders for them...1807 Challenges, 1806 Challenges etc. and then at the end of each month, like today or tomorrow, I'll pull copies of the Print files and stick them in a Yearly Print folder for those periodic free 8" books. Of course it's never the right number for the 20 pages, so I just do them in units of 20. i think I'm at least two books behind in printing...of course I could pay but...

So bottom line is all my EHDs are backed up to that 4T. I keep them named by their size and actually write the name on the EHD itself. Most take pencil! My 2 portable EHDs (one 500GB and one 1T) are just copies of my whole digi stash - aimed 18 05 10DigiMasterwhich I also add the updated date to the name of that file. I TRY TRY to update that file quarterly but often end up having to copy it before I go on a trip. UGH If I'm going to take my MacBP somewhere, I add copies of the photos I want to use into the drive.

btw, I want a new bigger EHD so I can make the 2T one I can give to a friend for off site storage.

Here's what my 2T - main repository - looks like. The only big thing other than what you see is ALL my zips of digi supplies. Yes, I do keep them and find missing things now and again. The 2018 Photos folder will go into the 2T Images folder at the end of the year but will be moved via Lightroom. 2T Images folder is all visible in LR


Screen Shot 2018-07-31 at 3.02.01 PM.png
 
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I'm not going to be much help for multiple EHDs, as I only have one that's 3TB.

I don't really keep anything at all on my C: drive these days - usually just program files.

My EHD houses all photos, layouts, and digital supplies.

I organize my photos and layouts using Lightroom, and I organize my digital supplies with Bridge.

If you want to know about my organization within my one EHD, I'll be happy to share, but I think you're basically looking for what items to put on what EHD . . . I think?
 
cookingmylife said:
Jenn, don't you have an dedicated EHD to use with Time Machine?

My 4T is my Time Machine backup for my computer (which has apps and docs only) as well as my 2T which has all photos, all digi supplies and all layouts and more. I also have a 1T which is archives for finished albums or old PL years. ALL of these EHDs are only HALF FULL.Now most all my layouts are done for various challenges and I make monthly folders for them...1807 Challenges, 1806 Challenges etc. and then at the end of each month, like today or tomorrow, I'll pull copies of the Print files and stick them in a Yearly Print folder for those periodic free 8" books. Of course it's never the right number for the 20 pages, so I just do them in units of 20. i think I'm at least two books behind in printing...of course I could pay but...

So bottom line is all my EHDs are backed up to that 4T. I keep them named by their size and actually write the name on the EHD itself. Most take pencil! My 2 portable EHDs (one 500GB and one 1T) are just copies of my whole digi stash - aimed 18 05 10DigiMasterwhich I also add the updated date to the name of that file. I TRY TRY to update that file quarterly but often end up having to copy it before I go on a trip. UGH If I'm going to take my MacBP somewhere, I add copies of the photos I want to use into the drive.

btw, I want a new bigger EHD so I can make the 2T one I can give to a friend for off site storage.

Here's what my 2T - main repository - looks like. The only big thing other than what you see is ALL my zips of digi supplies. Yes, I do keep them and find missing things now and again. The 2018 Photos folder will go into the 2T Images folder at the end of the year but will be moved via Lightroom. 2T Images folder is all visible in LR


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Your thinking is where I have been heading. I think I have been approaching this back a$$ backwards for years. I've decided after moving and shuffling and rethinking ... that my new 8TB EHD will be my Time Machine backup. It will backup my iMac -which has limited stuff on it. And then I'll keep all my photos on a 4TB EHD and everything else on another 4TB EHD. The two 4TBs will also get backed up by Time Machine. So my Time Machine will be an automatic mirror - hopefully, of everything. (I recently had a mishap with Time Machine but I think that was partly me not paying close enough attention. I usually don't keep a lot on my iMac HD either - but had been slacking in that department for many months with school keeping me busy.) So the two 4TB should do the trick of storing everything I need -now that I've culled pretty well. I really could use a culling in the photo dept too but that's for another day and time. I went through all these little EHD drives I have and releazed I have so much overlap of old stuff I never look at ... so I'm purging a lot too.

Hopefully this works and I don't have to think about moving files to multiple EHDs for mirror/backups. The Time Machine should do it. I just need to keep the photos on one 4TB (which lightroom moves for me). And then do a better job of keeping my HD clean of other downloads to get them over to the other 4TB. Either way Time Machine will be set to backup all 3 : HD, 4TB photos, 4TB everything else.

And then I have Backblaze as an added safeguard to back up the 3: HD , 4TB photos, 4TB everything else. It takes forever to move these files around though ... gah!
 
jenn mccabe said:
@Kat Same here - I get confused by their names too ... I tend to buy a lot of LaCie drives and I get confused because they are all named something similar by default. You do have a lot of EHDs/backups ...WOW!

I'm in the process now of moving and organizing as we speak ... I've changed my mind twice now already. LOL. (I should be doing this in the winter! Note to self for next time!)
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I've been doing this for about 8 months!! lol
 
Hijack....

@Kat Um, your tagline on your siggie cracks me up! Not sure when you changed it, but I love it!
 
I do it like @michelepixels I buy a bigger one when one gets full. I MUST have all the things in one place or there is no hope of finding anything. So I have two 4TB drives. One is my main drive and has all my scrap supplies, photos and documents. Nothing gets stored on my PC because then when I switch computers or get a new one... it's as easy as plugging in my EHD. The 2nd EHD I keep at work as my backup drive. Then I take my 1st EHD to work at least once a week and back it up.

I use Microsoft SyncToy for my backups. I do not use mirror, but rather "contribute" so that if I accidentally delete something on my main drive, I know it's still on my backup drive. I LOVE that program. It's old and no longer updated, but you can still download it for free.

Finally I have one of my older EHDs to store my old .psd files. Then when my main EHD gets a little full, I just transfer a bunch of .psd files over and WHAMMO.... lots of free space appears. :)
 
by the way, when I get a new bigger EHD, everything is transferred to the new one and then I add a label to the old one with something like: Last used 7/31/18 Then I don't use the old one again until I'm sure the new one is working and has everything on it. Then I put the old ones in a EHD grave yard drawer until I need it for something else...
 
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