How do you back up large (200GB+) photo libraries?

1. The iCloud Photo Library is not a back up. It's a sharing service. In the event of an issue it is quite possible to delete your images on iCloud by syncing with an empty library.

2: Back up: You need another external disk, formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or afps.

Most Simple Back Up:

Drag the Photos Library from your current location to the other Disk. This will make a copy on that disk.

Slightly more complex: 

Use an app that will do incremental back ups. This is a very good way to work. The first time you run the back up the app will make a complete copy of the Library. Thereafter it will update the back up with the changes you have made. That makes subsequent back ups much faster. Many of these apps also have scheduling capabilities: So set it up and it will do the back up automatically.

Example of such apps: Chronosync, SuperDuper, Carbon Copy Cloner - but there are many others. Search on MacUpdate or the App Store

somegirl_ wrote:

Apple chat told me that if your library is on an external hard drive it can't use iCloud.

See this from Apple Support, "Move your Photos library to an external storage device" section, Step 6. The external hard drive must be connected to your Mac for syncing.

Of course, as Yer_Man points out, iCloud Photos Library isn't a backup. SuperDuper it seems only works on internal drives and will not back up data stored on external drives. I haven't used CCC but hear good things about it. Photos Takeout is another option, it can incrementally export the Photos Library (items stored locally, in iCloud, and referenced) as folders by year, date or albums.

Personally I use time machine to backup both internal and external volumes. The software is built in to your mac, is incremental and just works in the background protecting your library, and keeps hourly backups for a day, daily backups for a month, weekly backups older than a month.

In addition, I do an infrequent (every 6 months or so) backup of the whole library to an external (formatted MacOS extended) volume, by drag/drop.

I use iCloud to sync my devices - not for backups.

Personally I use time machine to backup both internal and external volumes.

For me, the weakness with Time Machine is that you cannot recover the back up without Time Machine. My preference is for back ups that can be accessed simply, and that's only possible when the back up app doesn't manipulate the data into its own formats.

But by far the most important thing is to have some form of back up...

Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) can back up entire drives or selected items.

Photos Takeout is not a back up solution in that it automates exporting from a Library, and so does not back up the Library and so you lose version control and edit history. As they point out the app

Exports latest edited versions or unmodified originals [emphasis added]

A back up for the Photos library would contain both and their relationship. (In fairness it's worth noting that the makers of the app don't refer to is as a back up app when they describe the potential uses for it.)

That said, there are few economies with the truth in the paragraph:

Photos is a great program for organizing and editing pictures and videos, but it stores them in its opaque library structure. So you don't control your photo collection. Can't click open a folder and find all photos in it. Can't switch to another photo management program without losing your organization and photo edits. Can't even make a full backup on an external drive while retaining your album/folder organization.

The second sentence is entirely inaccurate. As is the third. The fourth is exactly as true using Photo Takeout as not, and fails to note that apps like Lightroom, OnOne Photo Raw and CaptureOne offer migration paths. And the final sentence is utterly inaccurate.

These inaccuracies are enough to make me doubt the makers of the app.