Hands-On Tech
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Mikah Sargent [00:00:00]:
Coming up on Hands-On Tech, let's take a look at what we can do to back up a large photo library. Stay tuned. Hello and welcome to Hands-On Tech. I am Micah Sargent and today we are taking a look at a very important question because as you know, this is the show where I take your tech questions and do my doggone best to answer them. Today we hear from Scott who is asking about backing up a large photo library. Let's hear what Scott has to say. Scott says, I have looked at several possible solutions to backing up a large iPhoto library but have not found a satisfying one.
Mikah Sargent [00:00:47]:
My wife has a very large iPhoto library that is too large to fit on the SSD for her MacBook Pro. iCloud storage has been quite reliable of late, but I don't want to rely totally on iCloud for all of her photos should something happen. I do have a Synology NAS at home that I back up my computer to with Time Machine backups that is completely automated. I currently pay for 4 TB of iCloud storage with an Apple One bundle. Most of it is my wife's iCloud photo library. Is there a seamless way I can back up her entire iPhoto library that sits in iCloud as it's too large to fit on her SSD? Is there a way to automate this? I prefer not to use a large external SSD that is large enough to fit her entire iCloud photo library as it would require her to actually have the disk available on a regular basis. And I don't feel that I can rely on her to do this. She's not a techie.
Mikah Sargent [00:01:35]:
He says in parentheses. Please help. Hopefully you can suggest a solution to this problem that I feel is not that rare. Good question. Okay, this is something that is a little complicated because you are dealing with file saving issues that a lot of people experience when it comes to the photo library and in particular with Apple's system. So first and foremost you've got a problem here in that you and your photo library and your wife and her photo library are kind of different, right? And are you're not equally backing up to the same thing? One thing that you could do is if you have it, if you. This is. I know this is kind of.
Mikah Sargent [00:02:30]:
This is potentially a very expensive solution, but it is a solution that would work here is that if you could log into a Mac that is always on. So think like Mac Mini, Mac Studio. Maybe this is your. This is your Opportunity to tell your wife, hey, you know that Mac Studio or that Mac Mini that I've really been wanting to get to have as the home theater system, this is the reason to do it where we both benefit, right? You would sign into your wife's iCloud on that Mac and then what you'd want to do is in iCloud photos, you want download originals turned on on that Mac. What that does is it makes it so that all of the photos that are part of that iCloud photo library are stored locally. But here's the best part is you get to choose where the photo library is located. And so what you can do is take that photo library and make it available on the Synology network attached storage. So instead of saying, hey, Mac os, the photo library is something that I want you to keep on this Mac in this place.
Mikah Sargent [00:03:45]:
No, instead you have a mounted share from Synology and that is the place where the photos are stored. So when new photos come through iCloud photo library, then they automatically get downloaded in full quality and plopped right there on the network attached storage. Super easy to do. You could also then if you, you talked about, you know, her not having not regularly plugging in the SSD. So then if that there's a Mac Mini or a Mac Studio right there, then you've got it plugged in and it's backing up the photos right there to the to the SSD and it never has to be unplugged. So it's not something that she would have to worry about at all. Now with that, there's another thing that you could do to even go further when it comes to the backup, and that is that Synology has the Synology, excuse me, Synology Photos service, or you can also use the Folder Sync service to be able to back up those photos in that library to another location. So that's a very sort of tried and true, seamless way to make it possible for your wife to not have to worry about anything and still have all of the stuff backed up.
Mikah Sargent [00:05:01]:
Okay, so again, a Mac that is separate from hers, that has an SSD attached to it for all of that storage space, or you invest in an internal storage space where there's plenty. Again, I probably go external for that, or I almost always suggest getting as much storage as possible built in. But in this specific case where we're talking about just a photos library, an external SSD that's going to cost you a lot less makes sense. So that way her MacBook Pro doesn't need to have the local copies because there's not room for them anyway and the copies are stored elsewhere. Let's talk about the second option. If that is far too much of an investment or you can't convince life that you need a new Mac Mini or. Well, what's another option you can use cloud to cloud backup services. There are a few services out there that offer this, including a service called iDrive.
Mikah Sargent [00:05:58]:
And what it does is it allows you to log into or connect your photos and it will sync them and then put them into other places. Okay, so it's essentially kind of a one source of truth situation where it's taking files from one place, in this case photos, and plopping them into different places, including you could set it up so that it's your local network attached storage. However, these are subscription services and so using iDrive it would require a subscription. But the good thing is it's fully hands off. You don't even have to really get involved once you set it up because that iCloud photo library is automatically going to be backed up and it's going to do that. But here's the thing, here's the thing. The privacy implications therein are something to just be aware of, okay? If you are using a service like this, be mindful of the fact that you are syncing your stuff to it and then allowing it and its servers to then populate your stuff elsewhere, right? That's how all of this works. But it's just something to be mindful of and something that you should be aware of that it's not a completely sort of nothing's looking at anything.
Mikah Sargent [00:07:14]:
Nothing is real, nothing. It's. It's something to just, just be aware of when it comes to giving one more, one more company access to your data. Now that said again, one of our lovely listeners has mentioned in the discord that they use iDrive and let me see, they use iDrive and what's great is it supports multiple PCs, so you could, you know, sync between multiple PCs as well. Perhaps you would be able to then have your photos and your wife's photos all backing up exactly as you need them to. Again, it's a subscription, so be mindful of that. But another tip, if you. I'm.
Mikah Sargent [00:07:59]:
I'm being told that if you threaten to leave, then oftentimes they're going to give you half off of the cost of the subscription. So maybe it's worth it. This episode of Hands-On Tech is brought to you by Shopify. If you've Shopped online. Well, the chances are that you've bought from a business. Powered by by Shopify. You know that purple shop pay button you see at checkout? The one that makes buying so incredibly easy? Well, that's Shopify. And there's a reason so many businesses sell with it.
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Mikah Sargent [00:09:09]:
Endless aisle, ship to customer, buy online, pick up in store, all made simpler. Stop seeing carts going abandoned and turn those sales into-. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com hot. Go to shopify.com/hot. shopify.com/hot. The next option is one that I have used and it's one that I think could be helpful for you. And that is again going to come with a caveat that you would either need to be comfortable with Google or Amazon having access to your wife's photos because you can use the Google Photos or Google Drive app or the Amazon Photos app to be able to sync and store your photos or your wife's photos in this case in Google Photos and Amazon Photos. So this is not going to let you, you know, then sync to the network attached storage. But I use Amazon. Well, I don't currently use Amazon Photos. I do still use Google Photos as another backup for me and particularly if your wife has an iPhone or an iPad.
Mikah Sargent [00:10:32]:
This is a great way to take care of this. Okay. Because what will happen is that device is going to be able to regularly back up the photos as they're coming through, which means that you're getting those new high quality photos and videos backed up before they kind of get whisked off to the cloud and are no longer those high res versions. So that's something to be mindful of. You can install the Google Photos app on the MacBook Pro, same with the Amazon option. So it will be there, but you can also, as I mentioned, install it on the device that's taking the photos as well. So between all of that, that is another choice for you. The last option is is there any chance you have a an old Mac around? Because you could use an Intel Mac Mini with a large external drive that's attached to it.
Mikah Sargent [00:11:32]:
And once again, you simply set things up with your wife's iCloud account logged in and you're good to go. It's all syncing, it's all working, it's all doing what it needs to do. And so that is another option for you in terms of being able to back things up. So if you don't have a new, if you can't get a new Mac, would love for you to be able to get a new Mac, Scott. Then if you've got an old one or you just want to go browsing for an old one, especially now those Intel Macs are, you know, cheap in comparison, then now's the time to sort of jump into that. So yes, be sure to let us know. I'm always curious to hear what people are doing, you know, what options they end up taking and if anyone out there is listening and they have had this exact problem. I would also love to hear from you on what you do to back up a huge photo library.
Mikah Sargent [00:12:36]:
For me, as I mentioned, I am a Google Drive backer upper but my main Mac has enough storage on it that it can hold the originals of my photos and videos. And so that has made it simple to do. So folks, that is the answer to this week's question. Before we go, I wanted to mention a couple of follow up moments. We had our friend who was asking for help being able to being able to get into the Drobo files. You may remember that someone had said, look, I've got a Drobo. I am having trouble booting it. I want to get access to these photos that are on it.
Mikah Sargent [00:13:22]:
But it's got that special Drobo encryption. One of our listeners wrote in named Lance and says that what Lance did was using a virtual machine app. Lance was able to install Windows xp. Okay, When Windows XP was installed by way of this virtual machine app, it allowed for the installation and running of the Drobo software on Windows XP in the virtual machine and then from there able to access the encrypted files because of having access to that Drobo software. So that's something that you might try as well along with the different options that we gave you last time and the person who had issues with their Apple watch streak. I heard back from someone who said that they, too, had this issue, and unfortunately, it was exactly as we expected, which is that in almost every case, it is very difficult to reclaim streaks because Apple has decided that it needs to be this very real thing. So that is unfortunate, but also fortunate in the sense that if you do find somebody who's got a multi, multi month, multi year streak, you know, they've really put in the work. Right, folks, that is going to bring us to the end of this episode of Hands-On Tech.
Mikah Sargent [00:15:02]:
Be sure to reach out hot@twit.tv if you have questions, if you have your own feedback, if you have other stuff you want to send this way, that's how you get in touch. Thank you so much for tuning in. And we'll catch you guys again next week for another episode of Hands-On Tech. Bye bye.
