What do you back up?

JimClark

Just started using Lightroom 3 and also have photoshop CS4 and Bridge is installed.
I was wondering if you backup the Bridge Cache, Camera Raw cache?
I am going to backup my images (DOH) and the lightroom catalog for sure but not sure about the Caches?
What say you?

Jim

AceCo55

Personally, I wouldn't bother with the Bridge cache. It really only stores the thumbnail previews and 100% view. If you ever need to use your backup files, Bridge will automatically rebuild the cache for that folder. I completely wipe my Bridge cache regularly (about once a month) to stop it getting too big. It just takes a few minutes to rebuild the previews if I need to open up a folder again. Can't help you with the others.

Dan7312

Unless space is an issue just backup everything. Not because you might need it but because once you start picking and choosing what to back up you run the risk of missing something. I know this from personal experience :cry

JimClark wrote: »

Just started using Lightroom 3 and also have photoshop CS4 and Bridge is installed.
I was wondering if you backup the Bridge Cache, Camera Raw cache?
I am going to backup my images (DOH) and the lightroom catalog for sure but not sure about the Caches?
What say you?

Jim

Richard

Caches are rebuilt automatically and usually in very little time. I set my backup software to ignore Bridge and CS caches, as well as all my browser caches. You lose nothing of persistent value if you lose a cache, so why waste disk space and processing time saving it every day?

Dan7312

Yes, there is no purpose in backing up stuff that isn't really persistant anyhow, but unless space is an issue a mindless backup stratagy that backups just about everything makes it less likely that you will mistakenly skip something you really need.

For example backblaze.com makes it very easy to backup just about everything, but the UI for being selective is a pain to use. They do that because they want to insure that users don't mistakenly skip something they really need. At least that was the explanation they gave me a year ago or so as to why their UI for being selective was so tedious to use.

If space is an issue then you have to be selective. I used to be very selective about what I backed up years ago when I was using CD's or DAT (or other) tapes for backup, and ended up losing stuff because of that that I skipped by mistake. Now with the price of online backup and disks so low I backup just about everything, even temp files. That's just my strategy, YMMV.

Richard wrote: »

Caches are rebuilt automatically and usually in very little time. I set my backup software to ignore Bridge and CS caches, as well as all my browser caches. You lose nothing of persistent value if you lose a cache, so why waste disk space and processing time saving it every day?