I have gotten to the 200 gig size with my iPhoto library. Should I be worried that I will begin to have trouble backing up on Time Machine and that things will get corrupted? I would hate to lose all my precious memories and hard work naming all the events for the past years. Any suggestions on how to manage so many pics? Should I be swapping over to Lightroom (which I own) or just backing up the entire iPhoto library every couple of weeks on another drive?
—–
Juli
MacMost Q&A Forum • View All Forum Questions • Ask a Question
13,000 iPhotos? How Many Are Too Many??
Comments: 6 Responses to “13,000 iPhotos? How Many Are Too Many??”
Comments Closed.
First, the size seems off. I've got 17,000 in my iPhoto library and it is 70GB. So 13,000 at 200GB seems too big. Maybe you just have a lot of videos in there? But you may also want to try to empty the Trash or rebuild the iPhoto library to see if that helps. Right after a good backup, of course.
I don't see why having a large iPhoto library would cause it to get corrupted. I guess there's simple math -- the more files, the more chance of something random happening. But it should back up to Time Machine fine. In addition to my 70GB of photos, I've got at 1+ TB of data that gets backed up from several drives.
I don't see why Lightroom (or Aperture) would make it less likely that there would be a backup or corruption problem. They would still be files on the drive.
A second backup is a good idea. I do that, but I use an online backup solution. After all, your originals and your TM backup are in the same location. A disaster could take them both out. If you don't want to do that, a second backup or clone (http://macmost.com/time-machine-versus-cloning.html) to an external drive that you then store in a different location (relative or friend's house, work, safety deposit box, etc) is piece of mind.
So are 13,000 photo too many for iPhoto? I don't think so. But if you find that iPhoto isn't meeting your needs anymore because it is too slow or doesn't have enough features, then perhaps look into the features of Aperture (like it) or Lightroom (never used it) to see if you want to try them.
Great advice (as usual). I do have oodles of video clips and I am going through my files and culling what I can. I will be working on this project this during the next week so I'll give you an update on how it is going. I AM going to get an online backup going. That is something I've been putting off way too long! Thanks so much.
Gary, I wondered the same thing and have used a variety of backups to be safe. I do a clone copy as well as my time machine backup. Additionally, once in a while I do a copy of just the photos onto a separate drive. However, I have wondered what happens when I delete videos which are in iPhoto. I use iMovies as well, and from what I understand, iMovies and iPhoto are linked. I am assuming that means if I delete a movie in iPhoto, it is no longer usable in iMovie.
RIght. But iMovie isn't a good "permanent storage" app for video projects. I would use iMovie to make edited productions using my videos as clips. Then I would export the video and keep that. I would then get rid of the project and the event after some time.
Care to share your research on on-line backups and your ultimate choice?
Did a little research and asked around. Ended up using CrashPlan. But I'm sure that is just one of several good options.