I am planning to buy a Toshiba Canvio 3.0 Portable USB Hard Drive of 1 TB to use as back up device for all the photographs I have.

I do not intend to use DropBox or similar cloud service.

However, I would like to know if I can use it as a diff or else I will have to copy the files all the time, over and over.

I have been looking for this info but I have not seen it or I have missed it :)

Do you have any experience with this kind of equipment ? Would you please share it with us all ?

Thank you :)

Not sure if this is going to answer your question. I have 10 external hard drives that I use for my backup strategy. I use a backup program that does a "mirror" of the photos that I have on my desktop. ie only makes the changes since the last backup. Very quick as it is only dealing with new/changed files. (the disadvantage is if I delete a vital file on my desktop that I realise later I really wanted if I have run the mirror backup, it will be also gone from my backup drive. It hasn't been an issue so far).
I do have another synchronising program to sync my work USB with a folder at home. Free program unless you are syncing a large number of files and then you have to buy a "pro" licence ... but that is not expensive. After the first run, this is also very quick.
Not sure if I'm allowed to say what programs they are but PM me and I can tell you.

Originally Posted by AceCo55 Not sure if this is going to answer your question. I have 10 external hard drives that I use for my backup strategy. I use a backup program that does a "mirror" of the photos that I have on my desktop. ie only makes the changes since the last backup. Very quick as it is only dealing with new/changed files. (the disadvantage is if I delete a vital file on my desktop that I realise later I really wanted if I have run the mirror backup, it will be also gone from my backup drive. It hasn't been an issue so far). I do have another synchronising program to sync my work USB with a folder at home. Free program unless you are syncing a large number of files and then you have to buy a "pro" licence ... but that is not expensive. After the first run, this is also very quick. Not sure if I'm allowed to say what programs they are but PM me and I can tell you.

Ace. :)
Nice tip the one about the disadvantages ! Very important in fact. I had never thought about it myself.
Most probably I will go a simple (?) Ultra-portable drive which is supposed to allow me to have all the files everywhere I go.

You mean you are using diff, right I assume that Time Machine works like this.

So, the best is probably "sacrifice" the drive and make integral copies every week or so. It is not the best of the Worlds but looks reasonable, don't you think so ?

I started off doing incremental and differential backups but I often ran into a problem - hard drives filling up too quickly and couldn't fit the next backup run or I would lose my way in all the "versions". So then I would have to do a full backup again (about 130,000 files for one job); just a pain in the rear. Don't know if the problems were due to me or the software. Mirror backups have proved to be a lot less hassle and much more straightforward (I just need to check that the drive letter is still the same as the backup job setup).
Very quick and I am much more inclined to run backups more often than once a week.

For each of my backup jobs I have two external hard drive mirrors in my office; one always stays there whilst the other rotates with a third hard drive offsite. (hard drives are pretty cheap storage option - and I wait until there is a sale on!)
I generally run my main backup job at least once each week; and then about once per month, I rotate one of the drives with my offsite drive. So if my house burns down I will lose one month's photos at worst. Not perfect but has worked fine for me - keen amateur.

After a small search I ended buying a Toshiba 1TB by 120 € which uses USB 3.0.

It is sufficient considering the two other drives I have.

Thank you all for the trouble writing text :)

The problem with diff is that any file change will cause the file to be overwritten, or updated. And if you use Lightroom, NO photos will be changed. So depending on how you do your edits, this could be a problem or not a a problem. If you use LR, your LR database will be updated/appended every time you backup.

For backup, I am not a big fan of incremental backups, as they tend to get messy and very very large. I prefer to do what I call a 'net new' backup. By this I mean I want to make sure that any new files are added to the backup disk, but anything not changed is left alone, And, I want any files on the backup drive but not on the main disk to be left alone (archive). In addition, any changed files get overwritten on the backup drive. This way, my backup is essentially a snapshot of my working drive, in addition to providing an archive ability.

I use two programs to help with this: Synctoy for Microsoft Windows, and Sychron for Mac. Both offer this capability, and both are free.

Originally Posted by cmason The problem with diff is that any file change will cause the file to be overwritten, or updated. And if you use Lightroom, NO photos will be changed. So depending on how you do your edits, this could be a problem or not a a problem. If you use LR, your LR database will be updated/appended every time you backup. For backup, I am not a big fan of incremental backups, as they tend to get messy and very very large. I prefer to do what I call a 'net new' backup. By this I mean I want to make sure that any new files are added to the backup disk, but anything not changed is left alone, And, I want any files on the backup drive but not on the main disk to be left alone (archive). In addition, any changed files get overwritten on the backup drive. This way, my backup is essentially a snapshot of my working drive, in addition to providing an archive ability. I use two programs to help with this: Synctoy for Microsoft Windows, and Sychron for Mac. Both offer this capability, and both are free.

Mason. Important info !