External HDD or SSD for backing up familly photos recommendations.

All drives eventually fail so it is good to have at least two backups, and maybe one extra in another location.

Remember that iCloud is not a backup but a sync service so if the user makes a mistake, it syncs that mistake to other devices as well.

I have archived my images and movies as plain Finder folders with metadata stored inside images and movies themselves instead inside Photos database (I don't 100% trust Photos libraries) to one master HDD which is cloned to two other HDDs with Carbon Copy Cloner. An additional copy is imported and stored on SSD as a Photos library and I periodically copy that library to a SSD my daughter has in another location.

Additionally I have piles of quite old CD and DVD backups collecting dust. They do not have all metadata added or fixed and I have begun to consider to get rid of them although they do provide a safety net if all those HDDs and SSDs somehow corrupt at the same time or if I do some stupid mistake or if some app misbehaves.

AFAIK SSDs need periodical power maybe once a year to keep the cells intact. HDDs should keep their data also in "cold storage" so I wonder what caused your HDDs fail so soon. I have used Seagate 1.5-3TB SATA HDDs and I'd avoid using those very large ≈20 TB HDDs (not all eggs in one basket). Sometimes dealing with slow HDDs is frustrating while much faster SSDs are becoming cheaper. Currently I use Samsung 860/870 EVO SATA TLC SSDs.

https://www.howtogeek.com/444787/multi-layer-ssds-what-are-slc-mlc-tlc-qlc-and-mlc/

I save the originals from my Nikon (I don't take many with the phone) to an external drive. I also use Time Machine to do backups when my MacBook is near the TM drive. I also drag the Photos Library to another drive. That's 3 drives with 3 different kinds of backups.

The Photos Library contains lots more information than any file of a picture. Much of that information is stored in the database. As Matti worries, it may happen that Apple is taken over by aliens, and the Photos app is destroyed in a world apocalypse (as I see on TV all the time,) and the Photos database then becomes unreadable. Luckily, I have the other two backups, just in case that should happen.

The Library Package has all the original files just as they were uploaded, but their filenames have been changed to unique identifiers. That's so Photos doesn't have to deal with a bunch of files all named IMG_0102, or something similar. So mining the originals from the package is easy, but they're hard to organize. The Library package has thumbnails of all those pictures to help with quick viewing. And the Library may have Preview copies of some of the pictures so you can see what the picture will look like on the screen. But the actual edited pictures don't exist as files until they are exported. Edited pictures are generated on the fly from the original picture file and the recording of all your edits in the database.

I've had two SSDs fail completely, and it looks like I have another that is slowing down. I, too, have heard and read that SSDs need to be powered periodically, and some say written to as well, but mine are not so old and unused, so I don't know. I think there are a lot of myths. I am using spinning mechanical drives for alternate backups, so I really have more than 3 drives for backup. But I've had mechanical drives die after a long time--perhaps a matter of dust and lubrication?

What do you think?

DoogyDawg wrote:

When I got this new mac..2020 I dragged all my photo

Drag 'n drop from Photos is NOT recommended! Depending on macOS version it might very well output only a low-res thumbnail of the image or even some frame from a movie.

Matti Haveri wrote: Drag 'n drop from Photos is NOT recommended! Depending on macOS version it might very well output only a low-res thumbnail of the image or even some frame from a movie.

You could see this:

Should you use Drag & Drop in Photos" - Apple Community

The answer, as Matti says, is "No" for exports.

DoogyDawg wrote: …I never use the photos app on the Mac to view, I just go to my custom folder, look for the image and double-click to open it.

That's great if it works for you. (Of course, you posted in the Community Discussion for the Photos app!) But the reason we use Photos isn't to view the pictures, but to organize them. Finder is a File Management System and it's great for handling various kinds of files. But Photos is an Image Management System, especially designed to handle images. Since all images have certain things in common, then searches and organization becomes way better in a system designed for that. For instance, most of my pictures don't reside in just one place. The picture of "Aunt Ethel at the Grand Canyon" can be in the "Aunt Ethel" album with other pictures of Aunt Ethel, and it can also be in the "Grand Canyon"  album with pictures of other people at the Grand Canyon. And it can also be in a the "September 2015" album with other things that happened then. Each album is pointing to a single file stored in the Photos Library, so having pictures in multiple albums takes up no more storage space. I can even make a Smart Album that searches out all the pictures of Aunt Ethel or all the pictures at the Grand Canyon. As you can imagine, this is very powerful in organizing pictures.

Maybe you should try Photos and see if you like it. It will behave differently than you're used to with File Management Systems like Finder and Explorer, and so seem a bit confusing at first, but you might find it more convenient.

Richard.Taylor wrote:

The Photos Library contains lots more information than any file of a picture. Much of that information is stored in the database. As Matti worries, it may happen that Apple is taken over by aliens, and the Photos app is destroyed in a world apocalypse (as I see on TV all the time,) and the Photos database then becomes unreadable. Luckily, I have the other two backups, just in case that should happen.

ouch ;-] But there are some folks that fail to upgrade their macOS in a timely manner so the future Photos version might not read the ancient iPhoto/Photos/Photos AI database anymore without much effort and skill (not to mention the macOS apocalypse I'd rather not imagine...). And sadly most folks ignore backups. And fail to verify those backups.

https://tidbits.com/2024/09/13/international-verify-your-backups-day/

Matti Haveri wrote: … ouch ;-]

Well, apocalypse might be a bit strong. But I was thinking of backups I studiously made in 1993 or so. I'm sure there was important stuff in there, but I had compressed it with the best compression app, Compact Pro. Unfortunately, Compact Pro doesn't exist anymore. (And I encrypted it, and I doubt that I can reproduce the password.) Other stuff that I backed up, like files from AppleWorks or MacDraw or stuff from OS9 are just unusable now. I'm thinking Apple will still be around for awhile, but I do want my original pictures separate from my Photos Libraries.

Great Link!

DoogyDawg wrote:…When I got this new mac..2020 I dragged all my photo albums from one of my external hard drives (all my externals were fine at that time, and all with the same images on them) over onto it.

Do you mean Photos Libraries? Or individual picture files? A Library has to be upgraded and re-built to work on a newer OS, and then it can't be used on an older one.

Not all, but when I open up a folder, all the thumbnail images, preview? are blocky/low res…Would the images which are showing as a blocky preview, but when opened ok, be the originals?

Thumbnails are a few hundred KB. Previews are a few MB. Originals are probably 10s of MB. They are all kept in separate folders. It's conceivable that Photos is making new Thumbnails as it goes. These link to the database, so when you edit them, they pull up full resolution versions. If you can go into edit mode, the data is all there. If the thumbnail or Preview has lost touch with the original, then editing is not possible.

If you mess around inside the Photos Package, you can disrupt the connections that the database depends on. Always work on a copy.

Would the images which are showing as a blocky preview, but when opened ok, be the originals?

I've got the backing up sorted in my head, I'll just go for a few more external HD's maybe just 1TB each.

The advantage of a small drive is that, when (if) it goes bad, you don't lose so much. The disadvantage is that when you have a bunch of small drives, you can't figure out which one has the stuff on it you want. Trust me on this. (1TB is "small.")

It was so much easier back in the days of just 35mm and having to have them developed Haha.

I have a closet full of prints and slides that pretty much haven't been looked at in years, because it's so much trouble. On the other hand, I have tens of thousands of pictures in Photos, and I see them all the time.

I've digitized hundreds (a thousand or more?) of pictures, but there's thousands more-- mostly blurry duplicates, I'm afraid.