I understand now from the input: the name of the External HD in the index should be the same as the name of the external HD. IMO, all you need to do is turn on TimeMachine to run in the background and make sure that it includes not only your primary disk drive but also your EHD containing your LR catalog file and your your master image files.ġ. It will do everything that CarbonCopy Cloner will do to make and maintain a copy of ALL of your critical user files including your LR catalog file and your master image files. Another such app (free with OS X) is TimeMachine. Carbon Copy Cloner is one such app that will do this for you. It makes and maintains a copy of all of your critical user files including your financial files and your important document files.

This is where the Backup app comes into play. What you are wanting to do is make an archive copy of all of your critical user files so that you can restore from that archived copy when your disk drive fails or is destroyed by fire, flood or other disaster. A Database engine (part of the LR app) is necessary to understand and interpret the indexed information that is the LR catalog file. It references or 'indexes' information about your master image files stored in those other folders. The LR catalog file is a special file type called a database. There are other files necessary for LR to function properly but I won't describe them here. What you are calling a 'photo database' is a folder structure containing your master image files. By default this is stored in a folder alongside a folder containing your preview files.

Time machine vs carbon copy cloner