Drive failure--luckily I had a backup

[kallisti]

I keep my Lightroom catalog on an external SSD drive. Tonight it failed. The disk will mount and the files are still accessible, but nothing can be saved to the disk. Apple disk utility couldn't repair it.

Luckily I have a cloned backup drive of my photo library. So it was easy to turn the backup drive into the main drive for my LR catalog and I was then able to import images taken since the last time I cloned it (which was actually at the end of August--I haven't been cloning the drive as frequently as I should).

I dodged a bullet in that I could still access the files on the failed drive since my last clone.

Interestingly, my 2019 MBP recently crapped out and needed the logic board replaced. Luckily I also had a clone of that drive, so once I got the repaired machine back from Apple it was easy to restore all my files and applications from the cloned backup.

Moral of the story: always have your files backed up. Random bad things will happen (it's 2020 after all ). Always have a backup for your photos (assuming they are important to you). Always have a backup of anything else on your computer that is important to you.

 

[Fishrrman]

You've just learned how important having "a cloned backup" (instead of a time machine backup) can be in a "moment of extreme need".

The cloned backup can be "moved right over" and now become your "primary external storage" drive.

Of course, you still need to get ANOTHER SSD to become the "new backup" of the primary external storage drive. One drive IS NOT ENOUGH.

Having said that...
Your SSD seems to have "failed" to "read only mode". I've heard of some failing in that manner.
I've had a couple of SSD failures where the drive just "went dark", never to be "seen again". Finished and done.

Once you have the backup SSD "in full service", can you try erasing the failed SSD with disk utility?
If disk utility shows it as being "locked"... my guess (and it's ONLY "a guess") is that you might as well toss it away... it's dead.

 

[kallisti]

You've just learned how important having "a cloned backup" (instead of a time machine backup) can be in a "moment of extreme need".

The cloned backup can be "moved right over" and now become your "primary external storage" drive.

Of course, you still need to get ANOTHER SSD to become the "new backup" of the primary external storage drive. One drive IS NOT ENOUGH.

Having said that...
Your SSD seems to have "failed" to "read only mode". I've heard of some failing in that manner.
I've had a couple of SSD failures where the drive just "went dark", never to be "seen again". Finished and done.

Once you have the backup SSD "in full service", can you try erasing the failed SSD with disk utility?
If disk utility shows it as being "locked"... my guess (and it's ONLY "a guess") is that you might as well toss it away... it's dead.

I was able to erase the failed drive with disk utility and it came back as functional. So I cloned my new main LR photos library drive over to it and it seems to be functional. HOWEVER, I have a third cloned backup drive that I keep offsite at work. I just cloned that drive to my new main drive. Not sure how much I trust the failed drive as a backup. But I have a second backup drive should it fail again. So I think I’m good.

Agree with all of your comments about cloned drives vs time machine backups. Carbon Copy Cloner is a *very* good investment. Being able to swap in a cloned drive without any lost time or hassle is priceless when bad things (inevitably) happen.

 

[Clix Pix]

Absolutely it is important to have more than one backup drive, and preferably three or even four.....at least one being placed in a location away from the others, too. As for Time Machine, I don't use it and have never used it as I have my own method of backing up my valued files. I do keep intending, though, to check out Carbon Copy Cloner, too, to use in addition to my current method. We photographers not only have important data files (say, tax returns, personal and family members' medical history, additional important data about each member of the family to have readily available and also securely backed up) but we also of course have our photo files, which are a whole entity unto themselves. For me those photo files have their own drives dedicated to them, and only the images I actually process and edit wind up also being included in the "regular" backup files as well. Trying to cover all my bases, here!