Whats the best way to manage photos on multiple computers?

[Pholcus]

Hi, I have three copies of all my photographs. On my laptop, on my desktop and on a portable hard drive. In the event of a catastrophe I should always have a copy. I've also started moving images to Flicker.

The problem is, if I work on my images on one computer how do I keep the other copies up to date? I know it can be done manually but its pretty laborious. Can anyone recommend a better way of doing it? 

[Allan Bell]

Not a techie but I would have thought that networking both computers would help in your case. You could then copy and paste files from one to the other.

 

I have a system where all my files are kept on two WD Mybook Duo external hard drives with mirrored backup on each. There is another drive with the same files kept up to date also.

 

Allan

[Vincent Lowe]

I have a similar setup to you.  I use back-up software, Backer 6 - http://www.cordes-dev.com/english/overview.html

 

Once you set up a 'profile' for each drive or computer you only need to select that profile next time and it will only copy any files that have been changed.  Several profiles can be added to a batch file so you can do the lot in one go.  I'm assuming you have your laptop and desktop networked.  There are all sorts of checks and preview options to prevent you doing something nasty by mistake.

 

I expect most other back-up software will perform the same function.

[Graham]

There are several ways, but for myself I use synchonisation software.

 

Personally I use ViceVersa Pro, but there are dozens of alternatives: this page on Wikipedia lists lots of them http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_synchronization_software  There are plenty of perfectly good free and open source solutions.  If you are looking  for something free to try, you might like to try Microsoft SyncToy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyncToy (assuming you are using Windows).

 

Any software worth its salt will identify new/missing files when it compares source and target folders, and if the same file is presednt in both it should  show which is older/newer so that you can choose which way to synchronise according to where you last worked.  It's pretty simple and intuitive in most instances I have tried.

 

Graham

[John Gaffen]

I tend to keep multiple copies of each photoshoot I do, but I mainly use USB-type  WD Hard drives. These mainly have fast write speeds and you can  plug them into any machine or device you want easily. These days the trend is for wireless storage devices, but I do not rhink these are necessary for what I do.  Yes I know drives can fail (I have never had one fail yet),  but keeping multiple copies is some insurance agaist this. I realise that I am not really addressing your  image management question though!

[Pholcus]

hi, thanks for all the replies. I've decided to give ViceVersa Pro a try as it seems to do what I want and I can try it for free for thirty days. I'll report back on how I get on with it.

[Martin P Wilson]

There are several ways, but for myself I use synchonisation software.

 

Personally I use ViceVersa Pro, but there are dozens of alternatives: this page on Wikipedia lists lots of them http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_synchronization_software  There are plenty of perfectly good free and open source solutions.  If you are looking  for something free to try, you might like to try Microsoft SyncToy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyncToy (assuming you are using Windows).

 

Any software worth its salt will identify new/missing files when it compares source and target folders, and if the same file is presednt in both it should  show which is older/newer so that you can choose which way to synchronise according to where you last worked.  It's pretty simple and intuitive in most instances I have tried.

 

Graham

 

I agree, you can usually even set it up so that it copies changes from the master disk without copying deletes (after the original file was copied). Useful if you find that you inadvertently deleted something from the master file. It does mean that your copy folders will still have it (if you had sunchronised before the delete). However copies  will be bigger and potentially grow faster than the master.

[biel]

what OS?

 

if windows family, in winXP for exemple go to "command prompt" and type: xcopy /?

 

for xcopy from a computer to other you need:

 

\\computername\driveletter\folder...

[Photoguy]

With an Imac, I use Carbon Copy Cloner to make backups to specific hard drives and the Crashplan family plan which will back up several computers to the "cloud". The contents of all computers is available to any of them so when I travel, I can use my laptop to access image files from the base computer.