WD My Book

Scroller · Nov 15, 2015

I feel like such a beginner......oh wait I kind of am lol I bought LightRoom 6 so I can begin to learn how to edit my pics.....struggling on that one as well but I'm learning thanks to a manual. But, one of the things that (Kelbys) manual recommends getting a external back up drive at least 4 tb....so I bought the WD my book 5tb. I hooked it all up it went thru all the motions and said it was backing things up. Ok, this is where I am lost. I don't want everything on the external...just my pics. I don't see how to open it like a file so I can see whats on there. again I just want to dump all of my pics off my laptop into the external. thanks for any help I hope I don't sound as ridiculous as I feel lol

480sparky · Nov 15, 2015

Windows or Mac?

Light Guru · Nov 15, 2015

Scroller said:
I hooked it all up it went thru all the motions and said it was backing things up.

Without knowing what you used to set up the back up nobody can answer your question.

The_Traveler · Nov 15, 2015

I had a Western Digital Mybook and never used its built-in software because it didn't work the way I wanted.

I wanted the ability to have different backup regimes; a big incremental backup that did all my docs and all my pictures, a second that did only the latest pictures and a third that backed up our two other networked drive.
At least ten years ago I found Sycback from 2BrightSparks and I've used it since.
The user can make profiles to backup virtually any combination of drives, folders, files, timed, untimed, when a program finishes, to uncomressed, to dynamicallynamed zipfiles, to ftp sites.
I use Syncback SE but there is a free version.

Backup software that works - SyncBackPro and SyncBackSE

The_Traveler · Nov 15, 2015

I forgot to say that there is a month free trial and, if you need help setting up the backup profiles, I can give you a hand over Skype.

Scroller · Nov 15, 2015

I am using windows 10. Sorry about that. Also Thanks Traveler....I may go that route for an additional drive.

480sparky · Nov 15, 2015

Are you wanting to BACK UP your images on the drive, or use the drive as a 'working' drive to hold all your images?

Scroller · Nov 15, 2015

I believe it would be the working drive. Sorry not trying to be vague.....I'm just in unchartered waters here without really a clue lol

480sparky · Nov 15, 2015

Simply open two windows with your File Manager..... One where your files reside now, and the other for the external drive.

Highlight all the folders / files you want to move, then drag them from one window to the other.

This will not be a substitute for a proper back-up plan. All you're doing is relocating where the images are stored. So you'll still need to implement a back-up routine.

Scroller · Nov 15, 2015

ok, I will do that, thank you.

DandL · Nov 15, 2015

Scroller said:
I believe it would be the working drive. Sorry not trying to be vague.....I'm just in unchartered waters here without really a clue lol

I'd recommend using the WD My Book as the backup drive for your picture files and keep the working files on your laptop. Before you even begin to edit your pictures, make a copy of the originals and put them on your My Book. Do like Sparky suggested, except instead of *moving* them, *copy* them from your laptop and *paste* them to your My Book. Your files will then be backed up on the My Book.

I download my digital files from the camera to my workstation. Then back up the files to a 12TB file server, AND two other external drives before I begin editing. My working files are always kept on my workstation. After editing, I then copy the edited files to the external drives and to the file server.

Scroller · Nov 15, 2015

Ok, that doesn't sound like a bad option. Thank You guys you are all awesome.

Alexr25 · Nov 15, 2015

If the files you want to move are images in the Lightroom library make sure you move them through Lightroom rather than through windows file manager or else Lightroom won't know where to find them.