Steve Grisetti wrote:(Anyone else have more experience in this area?)
I doubt that I have more experience than you, but the following is the method that I have been using, very successfully, for over a decade.
1) My C drive is for the OS and programs ("apps") ONLY
2) My second internal drive is a mirror image of my C drive for immediate use when (not if but when) my C drive crashes
3) ALL data go on a USB3.0 external 3TB HDD ("A") that is connected via a USB3.0 port
4) Using SmartSyncPro 5, drive A gets manually but frequently backed up to a second identical external USB3.0 HDD ("B") so that when drive A (not if but when) crashes, drive B will be immediately available for use, including a copy of my A drive catalog
5) Currently Organizer 2018's catalog manages 110,000 media (audio, photos, videos) that are located on drive A.Where is that catalog located?
6) Using the Custom Location option, I placed the catalog for all the data on my A drive not on the C drive but on that one and the same A drive -- the result is that the catalog on drive A gets backed up to the B drive whenever I run SSPro
7 The result is that the next time drive A crashes, here is how I will get my catalog up and running quickly: double-click the following sequence on my B drive:
Organizer 2018 Catalog>>>A drive catalog>>>
catalog 16 db.JPG
Double-clicking on that last database item opens from my B drive a copy of the A drive catalog, including all the thumbnails that were present on the A drive when I synchronized them; however, many thumbnails will have question marks overlying them.
Single-click any of the thumbnails and then click Reconnect.
Don't ask me how, but what happens after clicking Reconnect is that the Organizer would begin the process of
rapidly reconnecting the thumbnails to all 110,000 of the audio, photo and video files that I've been regularly backing up from the A drive to the B drive.
Conclusion: with this method, one can have one's Organizer catalog back up and running in a matter of hours rather days not to say a week.
Here is how to place your catalog on an external drive rather than the C drive: with the Organizer open, in the File menu choose Manage Catalogs and then use the Custom Location Radio button to choose your custom location.
IMPORTANT: Be sure to label as Watched Folders all the folders that you ask the Organizer to track. What will happen as a result is that whenever you acquire new audio, photo or video files in any of those folders, the Organizer will automatically show the thumbnails and ask whether you wish to "Import" (track) them.
BTW, regarding the Import menu at the top left, here's a suggestion: Choose the "In Batch" method for importing so that you can control which media folders in your system you want the Organizer to manage. Otherwise, it will spend, possibly, hours upon hours looking in every nook and cranny on each and every one of your internal and mounted external drives searching for media to import.
One last VERY IMPORTANT point: if ever you want to COPY, DELETE, MOVE OR RENAME any of the media files that the O tracking, DO IT VIA THE O's File menu; otherwise, the O may lose track of the them.
Why would anyone want to put with the O's requirements?
Here is just one of many answers: check out the O's Find Menu to see all the many different ways it can search for a specific one of my 110,000 audio, photo and video files -- and that's only one of the benefits. Both the PRE and the PSE books by Steve succinctly describe many more that result from mastering the capabilities of Organizer 2018.
catalog 16 db.JPG
P.S. Note from the images of their respective Welcome screens that, if you have both PRE and PSE installed on your system like I do, what will happen is that if you open either program's Welcome screen, you will also be able to open both the Organizer and the complementary program to, if you wish, have all three open at once. (If I had only, say, PSE installed, then its Welcome screen would not show the Video Editor option like it does in this image of the PSE Welcome screen.) Here is the reason that, when assembling a movie in PRE, I also have both the O and PSE open: my workflow would be to import my audio, photo and video files from the Organizer into Premiere, and edit the photos with PSE. I also use PSE to verify that photos are roughly 2500 x 1875 pixels, as Steve recommend for a high-def project.
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