How to access photos

graybalanced said:

If you are using Time Machine, it is sending your photos to a rolling backup inside a backup disk image. It puts your files inside that backup disk image so that it can keep track of multiple versions of the same file over time. This means you can't browse your backed-up photos using a normal hard drive window. You must browse them through the Time Machine restore interface ("Enter Time Machine"). If you enter Time Machine, you should be able to see all photos that are backed up. But there's another catch. If you are managing them with iPhoto, they will be hidden inside the iPhoto Library, not as loose photo files in folders.

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noirdesir said:

graybalanced said:

If you are using Time Machine, it is sending your photos to a rolling backup inside a backup disk image. It puts your files inside that backup disk image so that it can keep track of multiple versions of the same file over time. This means you can't browse your backed-up photos using a normal hard drive window. You must browse them through the Time Machine restore interface ("Enter Time Machine"). If you enter Time Machine, you should be able to see all photos that are backed up. But there's another catch. If you are managing them with iPhoto, they will be hidden inside the iPhoto Library, not as loose photo files in folders.

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There is no disk image with locally mounted drives and TM. Disk images are only used for networked backup location, eg, the Time Capsule. And you can browse through every TM backup with the Finder. The hierarchy is 'Backups.backupdb' -> 'Your Computer Name' -> date-stamped folders.

Of course, browsing an iPhoto/Aperture library via the Finder requires you to employ the right-click 'Show Package Content' and then you have to know where to look for things. But as I just tried it out again, only Mail has its own TM UI (not iPhoto, Aperture, nor iTunes).

Which is why I find the TM Aperture library backups of much less use. They work fine if one does a total restore (of the computer or just the library). Restoring individual deleted images (or sets of images) is doable if you know when you imported the images (because that is how Aperture organises them), otherwise it can be a lot more work. And restoring any metadata (including edits) cannot really be done elegantly (the best bet is to restore the whole library, to another location, open it and export the project/folders which contain the images whose metadata incl. edits you want to restore).

You could open the backed up library directly (without first copying it) but I would not do this with a TM backup, who knows what Aperture might right back to the library when it has it open, if it alters anything, this could compromise the integrity of the Aperture backup by changing one of the many small building stones that a TM backup is made of. With a clone you can do this as running another clone job will restore the backup to perfection again.

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1billbobaggins said:

1billbobaggins said:

And you can browse through every TM backup with the Finder. The hierarchy is 'Backups.backupdb' -> 'Your Computer Name' -> date-stamped folders.

Of course, browsing an iPhoto/Aperture library via the Finder requires you to employ the right-click 'Show Package Content' and then you have to know where to look for things.

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Yes, I am managing them with iPhoto. What if I buy another external hard drive and transfer all the photos in my iPhoto library to the new hard drive. Would that be the best. I do find this all very confusing.

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• You have an iMac and use iPhoto to manage your (35 000) images.
• You have an external drive connected and Time Machine is backing up to it.
• You would like make sure/verify that your images are on the backup drive (ie, are being backed up).

noirdesir said:

1billbobaggins said:

noirdesir said:

And you can browse through every TM backup with the Finder. The hierarchy is 'Backups.backupdb' -> 'Your Computer Name' -> date-stamped folders.

Of course, browsing an iPhoto/Aperture library via the Finder requires you to employ the right-click 'Show Package Content' and then you have to know where to look for things.

Click to expand...

Yes, I am managing them with iPhoto. What if I buy another external hard drive and transfer all the photos in my iPhoto library to the new hard drive. Would that be the best. I do find this all very confusing.

Click to expand...

So, tell me if I got this right:

• You have an iMac and use iPhoto to manage your (35 000) images.
• You have an external drive connected and Time Machine is backing up to it.
• You would like make sure/verify that your images are on the backup drive (ie, are being backed up).

A quick check is to verify this is to go to your Pictures folder, 'Enter Time Machine' and see if in the TM interface you'll also see your iPhoto library (and if it has the same size as the iPhoto library on your main drive). You can alternatively check this by going to your backup disk and navigate to the Pictures folder in your backup and see if the iPhoto library is there: 'Backups.backupdb' -> 'Your computer name' -> 'Date-stamped folder' -> 'Your HDD name' -> 'Users' -> 'Your user name' -> 'Pictures'.

Additionally, you can open the library in the Finder (via the right-click 'Show Package Content' command), both the original in your Pictures folder and the one in the backup and do some random checks of folder sizes and contained items.

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Alpha Doug said:

Also, while TM is an easy, automated way to backup your computer's drive, you might think about using a program like "SuperDuper" or "Carbon Copy Cloner". These are not totally automatic, but what they do is completely clone your drive to an external drive, so everything is exactly the same and you can even "boot" from the external drive in the case of a drive failure. The initial cloning takes a few hours. Just walk away and let it do it's thing. After that, you can do regular or scheduled backups that are "smart" and only update things that have changed. I find this much easier to work with than TM.

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1billbobaggins said:

The 2 programs you mention...can I get get that if I google it or do I just download it? I presume that the external hard drive I have and Time Machine would have to be disconnected also.

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1billbobaggins said:

Alpha Doug said:

Also, while TM is an easy, automated way to backup your computer's drive, you might think about using a program like "SuperDuper" or "Carbon Copy Cloner". These are not totally automatic, but what they do is completely clone your drive to an external drive, so everything is exactly the same and you can even "boot" from the external drive in the case of a drive failure. The initial cloning takes a few hours. Just walk away and let it do it's thing. After that, you can do regular or scheduled backups that are "smart" and only update things that have changed. I find this much easier to work with than TM.

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gaussian blur said:

1billbobaggins said:

The 2 programs you mention...can I get get that if I google it or do I just download it? I presume that the external hard drive I have and Time Machine would have to be disconnected also.

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You don't need to disconnect the Time Machine drive, just be sure you clone to the correct drive, not the one for Time Machine. It's best if you clone when Time Machine is not running. It works, but both will be slower when they're both copying at the same time.

Time Machine is useful to go back in time and recover an older version of a file, or maybe one you deleted. It keeps a history changes.

Cloning serves a different purpose. It's an exact copy of your current drive, so if something goes wrong, you can just swap and continue working. However, you only have the latest files. If you deleted a file on the main drive it gets deleted on the clone. There is no going back in time.

Using both Time Machine and a clone is the safest.

SuperDuper
Carbon Copy Cloner

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Alpha Doug said:

1billbobaggins said:

Alpha Doug said:

Also, while TM is an easy, automated way to backup your computer's drive, you might think about using a program like "SuperDuper" or "Carbon Copy Cloner". These are not totally automatic, but what they do is completely clone your drive to an external drive, so everything is exactly the same and you can even "boot" from the external drive in the case of a drive failure. The initial cloning takes a few hours. Just walk away and let it do it's thing. After that, you can do regular or scheduled backups that are "smart" and only update things that have changed. I find this much easier to work with than TM.

Click to expand...

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