Reply With QuoteWould be extremely unwise to upgrade without backing up first. On Mac OS I always use SuperDuper!
Just a quick question for you computer guys...
I have a mid 2017 iMac which is running OS Mojave 10.14.5 and I've held off updating to OS Catalina as I've heard some stories of things going wrong.
I have a 500Gb SSD on the iMac because I have connected two external hard drives which I use for storing my Lightroom catalogs and saving all my photos and music. I also use Spotify for music instead of iTunes and only have 30 or so photos in iPhoto which are on my iPhone. I also back my photos up in Google Drive and Flickr. So basically the 120Gb that is taken up is the system and LR catalogs.
Can I update to OS Catalina without doing a back up (I don't use Time Machine) and if something went wrong, would I lose anything on the external hard drives that are plugged in to my iMac? Has anyone experienced any issues with updating to Catalina?
Would be extremely unwise to upgrade without backing up first. On Mac OS I always use SuperDuper!
Just unplug those drives and install.
Just to be picky Time Machine isn't classed as a backup, not even by Apple. SuperDuper! then upgrade. External drives won't matter in this context but in general it would be an idea to have a backup for them. General rule is a backup, a backup of your backup and then a final backup. I only backup onto two HDDs, find 3x overkill but anything important is cloud based. However I do admit I probably backup once or twice per year but I only use my MBP about 10x per year max.
So would it be a good idea to just buy a cheap external HDD and back up the iMac using Superduper?
The only valuable content is my photos which I have on the 2 HDDs, Flickr and a flash drive that I keep at work. I’m also going to put them on google drive.
Originally Posted by wileeeeeey
My 2012 MacBook Air was “bricked” when I updated to 10.11 El Capitan (despite the model being compatible and supported)
I was savvy enough to do a TimeMachine backup before updating and had a good experience rolling back to Yosemite through Recovery Mode and restoring the backup made prior to the update.
I’d advise, if nothing else, backup up your Lightroom catalogs and making a note of the filepaths used so you can drop them back in place in the event of a catastrophe.
Sent from my Pip-Boy 3000 MkIV
Sorry if this is a dumb question but would I back up my LR catalogs with Superduper?
If I’m using Adobe CC aren’t the catalogs in the cloud and therefore ‘virtual’?
Super Duper! (another recommendation from me) duplicates the contents of one drive onto another drive; so anything else, like you stuff in the cloud, or other external drives, is ignored.
What makes it so good, is, as it is an exact copy, you can boot off the drive if the internal drive is corrupted or broken.
-- Note: simplified for the sake of clarity, you can do much more with SuperDuper! --
-- Tim
SuperDuper is a bootable backup so will backup the entire computer and OS with all user profiles. You could even take the ext HDD and plug it into another Mac and book up from it.
Not used lightroom so would double check. I would imagine the files are on one of the ext HDDs but the settings are on the main HDD.
Put it this way if you're happy to take the 1% chance that it goes wrong would you think "meh" and start again formatting the iMac HDD completely losing whatever you have on it (just iMac HDD) or would you have to pay for data recovery/scream and rage at your desk?
I might be wrong but I think the main thing cloud based about the Adobe products is the licensing. I’m pretty confident that the LR Catalogs will still be stored locally on your machine. You can check this by clicking the Lightroom menu (top left) and then Catalog Settings. This will show you the file path to the folder where the Catalog is stored. You could then locate this file and copy it to a USB stick or other safe storage.
Disclaimer - I used to work with Apple’s Aperture which used a “Library” and was a huuuuuge file. A quick google shows your .lrcat catalog file won’t likely be bigger than 2Gb
Sent from my Pip-Boy 3000 MkIV
Thanks guys - I will take your advice and use Superduper to copy the HDD of my iMac before I do anything else. It’s probably a good thing to do periodically even if I weren’t updating. It’s probably easier to just pick up a new external HDD to copy onto.
Is your Lightroom up to date? If you’re using LR6 or earlier it won’t run with Catalina. Others who are more computer savvy than me will be able to explain why...
Yep - I use the Adobe Photography Plan which receives constant updates so LR and Photoshop are up to date.
Amazon sells external HDDs starting at about £40 (Seagate, WD, Toshiba etc) so I'll pick one up and clone the iMac's hard drive before I do the upgrade. I'll also disconnect my two plugged in HDDs before I do this.
Remember to check all of your applications. If you use something like Office for Mac 2011, that won’t work on Catalina.
Thanks - I'm not using MS Office at all. The main apps I use are LR and CS. I think all the apps I use should work with Catalina.
Apparently Carbon Copy Cloner si supposed to be good as well for backing up a hard drive.
Shane I would stick to your plan.
For general info, I have used this app https://macdaddy.io/install-disk-creator/ to create a bootable USB drive in order to install the MacOS clean, rather than on top of what is already there. The advantages of this method are that it can result in HD space recovery, faster responses in the OS and potentially remove any niggles with app behaviour which have crept in over time. It is more involved but as I regularly wipe MacBooks at work, after freelance use, having a bootable installer is handy.
So my method is as follows:
Back up any data you need to restore - CCC is a great program for doing that.
Download the latest standalone installer from the App store - bear in mind these can be very large. Catalina 15.3 is over 8GB.
Use the Install disk creator app to wipe and set up your USB pen drive as the installer.
Reboot the Mac into Recovery mode and wipe the internal HD.
Install the new OS from the USB drive.
Reinstall apps and restore your data.
More involved bit you do get a nice fresh Mac.
Good luck.
Hi David
I'm sorry - you lost me in the list of actions after downloading CCC and the Catalina install from the App store.
(I know how to edit photos but I'm a dimwit when it comes to hardware / software)
I thought I'd just need to:
1. Download CCC or SDuper
2. Plug the external HDD into my iMac and start the cloning
3. Download the app for MacOS Catalina
4. Install the app
And that would be it?
I don't understand what you mean by any of this
Use the Install disk creator app to wipe and set up your USB pen drive as the installer.
Reboot the Mac into Recovery mode and wipe the internal HD.
Install the new OS from the USB drive.
Reinstall apps and restore your data.
I only want to create a backup copy of my HDD onto an external hard drive - I don't want to delete anything on my iMac's hard drive. I've only used 120Gb out of 500Gb.
Thanks
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