How to backup the iPhoto library

I like the idea of using an external firewire drive.

 

Archiving photos is very important because I firmly believe that hard drive crashes are inevitable, and photos can never be recreated.

You can easily drag the entire iPhoto Library into a large external hard drive. You can also segregate photos by months and years and see how many you can squeeze into a DVD.

The method I prefer though is the burning of iPhoto disks. This is where creating albums in iPhoto pays off. You can burn iPhoto disks based on albums. Label them properly, then store them in those Case Logic type CD booklets so that you, friends or family memers can easily flip through them. When you insert an iPhoto disk, iPhoto will automatically launch and the disk will appear in the iPhoto source list, as if it were a part of your library. It works in very much the same way an audio CD does with iTunes.

Once you've archived all your photos in iPhoto disks, you can then delete the contents of your iPhoto library, should you want to reclaim hard drive space.

It goes without saying though that you must take extra care in the storage and handling of your iPhoto disks. In this state, they are more prone to physical damage. If you really want extra precaution, burn two copies and store one in a safe.

HTH.

 

How do you make an iPhoto disk? In iPhoto do you just go to submenus >Share> burn disk to make one? I don't have a super drive will it burn on CDs as well? Thanks.

AS

 

I use SilverKeeper with my LaCie to back up my home directory. But take not that SilverKeeper does not archive, meaning it only syncs what is currently on your Mac HD. Depending on your setting, if you delete from your Mac HD it also deletes it in the back up.

As a Hobbyist Photographer, here's what I do to my Photos:
1) Import via Image Capture to a 'photo download folder'. I don't use iPhoto to download.
2) Burn to CD or DVD (depending on the size of photos downloaded).
3) Import manually to iPhoto. I also use the format yyyy.mm (ex. 2006.06) as the Roll Name. If the next 'Roll' I imported to iPhoto already exists, I just drag the whole new roll to the Roll Month it is supposed to be in.
4) From iPhoto, delete photos I don't like and do some post processing.
5) On the next month, I Burn to DVD the previous month Roll.

Take note:
1) All original photos I take are already archived in CD or DVD before I import it to iPhoto. I usually make two copies.
2) I only back up the Rolls and not the Albums. For me it's easier to reconstruct the Album.
3) I also do at least a weekly or immediate back up (depending on amount of new data) in my LaCie drive.
4) For archiving purposes, get the more expensive CD or DVD. They tend to last longer. I already have Audio CDs from the 80s that are not readable due to flaking reflective material.

I agree with Elbert that HD do inevitably crash, it already happened to me. Good news was except for the current month in iPhoto, everything was in my LaCie & DVD. For the current month I have the original files in DVD and still in my CF. I also have multiple Macs in the house. Once a month I copy part of my library to the other Macs.

 

That's the reason why I also do a back-up of the Rolls in iPhoto in CD/DVD and the weekly back-up of my whole home directory (including iPhoto directory) to the external LaCie drive.