I have been saving the backups of my catalog since the get-go and it occurs to me that I really don't need all those backups. I figure I can save maybe 1/2 a dozen of the most recent and delete the others. Is there something here I'm missing? Is there any reason to save older versions??

Thanks,

Marco

Generally speaking, you only need the most recent catalogue and preview data.

What sense would it make to have a two month old catalogue.

I always hand copy my catalogue and the preview data to the external hard drive.

Now I'm getting another external hard drive for double back-up (just in case something happens during the back-up process).

But I understand your feelings. It is always weird to erase back-ups. I haven't done it myself. Possibly digital photographic superstition.

Be careful if you delete the old ones if you earlier have used one of these backups to restore the catalog. If this is the case, I believe your working catalog will remain in that backup catalog. My advise is to check the File -> Catalog Settings to find out if your catalog is placed in one of the backup folders.

Glad to have my sense confirmed. So I'll let go of the superstition in favor of my inherent tidiness that has me eliminate a zillion backups that I don't need.

Cheers,

Marco

Absolutely. Personally I'd rather have one or two back-ups on OTHER media than a few dozen older, out dated ones on the same media.

If you're updating the catalog often, OK, keep a few (so you can, if you'll excuse the Apple metaphor go back in time). But copies of a catalog that haven't changed? Waste of arguably cheap hard drive space.