Brian

Yep. Just plug in the External HD, and save directly to it. You just have to navigate to the drive. Most EHDs will have a letter like D:\ or G:\ you just have to figure out drive letter is assigned to it. Or if you want to save to the main drive while you are working on something, then copy it to the external, all you would need to do is select the file(s) and right-click-choose-copy. Then open your EHD to the appropriate folder that you want to save and right-click-paste. It will then copy the files leaving the originals intact on your HD. When you are satisfied that everything is copied over correctly, you can then delete the files on the main HD. By using copy/paste and NOT cut/paste, you are keeping the original files in-tact so that in the event that something goes wrong, or you screw up, you can try again. Believe me, I've screwed up. I lost photos from 2007-2010 and still haven't gotten all of them back. Always Copy/Paste your files. If you do purchase that G-Drive, create a new thread. I want to make sure it's setup and partitioned correctly before you use it.

Here is a better laptop, for a little more money: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/msi-stealth-15m-15-6-144hz-gaming-laptop-intel-core-i7-nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-1tb-ssd-16gb-black/6448274.p?skuId=6448274 It comes with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB HD. Even though I'd prefer a RTX 3070 card, I'm not having you spend $2600 on a stupid laptop. Everything is $1000 to $1500 more than it should be.

What games does he usually play? If it's something like Minecraft, it's OK. If it's anything like a Simulation game or First Person Shooter, forget it. One thing that jumps out at me is "i5," that's too old technology-wise today. You really want an i7 or better. Gone are the days of upgrading things. You can't buy something more affordable and then bump up the RAM, replace the HD like you did years ago. Nope. Manufactures want you in the market sooner or later. My son purchased a laptop similar to those specs, he is complaining that he now needs a new one because it's "Too Slow." He is kicking himself for wasting the money and should have waited. I'm sorry, I'd pass on that one. Even for Photo Editing.

I’m a bit confused. So the real question I think you are asking, is you want to copy changed files over automatically or backup one drive to another automatically? Personally, WD software has sucked since the 1990’s and it does not surprise me at all that you have lost stuff. So how do you want to do you backups?

But they're ALL critical!! I had to upgrade my Wife's computer to 16GB, just for the browser tabs. Looking back, I should have bumped her up to 32GB instead. Chrome is terrible when it comes to managing memory. Each browser tab is like having a separate browser open at the same time, very much like the situation with the Mac Desktop and storing files, which results in performance issues.

Why not? The worst that will happen is it won't work. I'm really thinking that since you updated, Adobe is going to be the first people you call. I'm out of ideas. Sorry.

Call Adobe or call Dell It's not liking your video card and/or video drivers. We went in a complete circle and I'm out of ideas. You may need a better Graphics Card, or un-install this version of PS CC and use an older version. Like PS CC 2019.

Just remember to turn off VR (If your lens has it) when shooting on a Tripod. Once you get the hang of it, the technique is pretty straightforward.

Just remember, when Bracketing with the D850 and it's 45.7MP...steady hands. Elbows to your chest, take a breath than exhale and then squeeze the shutter button. ClickClickClick!! Or use a tripod if you have one.

Ah. How much RAM does it have and how many Chrome Browser Tabs does she have open? My wife likes to have 50+ and hates rebooting as well. The more browser tabs she has open, the more resources are required (especially RAM) and the slower it runs. Check to see if there are any Windows Updates pending and how full is the HD? I have found that if lots of Windows Updates are pending, that will slow things down. Full HDs aren’t good by any means, but if she only has 8GB of RAM, the Windows Swap File (pagefile.sys) starts to be utilized more. Of course, there sometimes is a Driver Update from the manufacturer that could help if available. I wish there was one fix for the dreaded “Too Slow” problem. It could be one thing or usually a lot of little things. I always start with the basics. Oh, try logging into it with a new profile and see if things speed up. Sometimes screwed up Windows Profiles will cause things to come to a crawl.

Windows treats the files the same? No. Is it risky? Absolutely!! The Windows Desktop, is assigned to your profile. If anything were to corrupt your Windows Profile, which is the username you log-in as, the files on your Desktop could be lost or get corrupted. It's not a good idea to store things on your Windows Desktop permanently; sure, the occasional file that's to be uploaded is fine. It's just not a good idea to store your files on the Desktop. I know it's probably something you have always done. I know it's convenient, but the truth is, it's better to have folders contained within your HD and create shortcuts to be placed on your Windows Desktop. Still want to save on your Desktop? That's your choice. Basically if you can live without the files stored on your Windows Desktop forever if something bad were to happen, then go ahead. If it's something important, like the Smith-Jones Wedding...I'd say you shouldn't have them on your Desktop.

Hell, I'd remove both and reboot.

Display Adapters. Click the Arrow, and you should see a list of your Video Drivers. Right click and choose, "Uninstall" Then reboot. Windows should detect them when you log in next.

Yeah, you are in the wrong spot. This is the part of Windows 10 I really hate. You need to be in Device Manager.

Windows Update ALWAYS LIES!! It will say that there are no updates, and that it checked on blah-blah-blah date/time, but as soon as you click "Check for updates," it magically comes back with updates. I agree, you have a driver issue. I'm thinking the Microsoft Driver is not 100% compatible and is screwing things up. Dell Computers and MSFT Drivers don't always play-nice and the Microsoft Drivers sometimes royally screw things up. That's why I always tell people when they have Dells, is to got to the Dell website and get the Dell Drivers. Especially the "Optional" MSFT driver updates, I never trust those and learned the hard way. Case in point, my Wife has a Dell XPS and I went onto her computer to do basic maintenance when she was away on a trip with friends. Against my better judgement, I installed an "Optional" update that immediately caused her computer to lockup, produce a Blue Screen of Death, then reboot. I spent the next 6 hours yelling, "Shit-Shit-Shit!!" and "God Damn Microsoft!! She's gonna be home tomorrow!!!" etc. etc. I eventually was able to figure out what driver that caused the whole mess and her computer was fine. Moral of the story: Don't trust Microsoft Drivers, especially the ones that relate to Dell's Hardware. You might have to un-install the Microsoft Video Drivers, reboot and then re-install the latest Dell Video Drivers. I'd use the Dell Drivers first, before the NVIDIA OEM ones. Those are a last-resort.

OK, load another CMD box, run as administrator and type the following command: DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth (actually, just copy/paste that line above to keep things simple.) Hopefully it finds something. Otherwise it could be a hardware issue or software corruption that Windows isn't detecting. Also, have you run Windows Updates recently? If not try that. I have found that a lot of Windows Computers will behave oddly when there are several Windows Updates pending.

Bwahahaha!!! Yeah, it's a little intense, isn't it? The answer is No, you just buy a HD that is way larger than what you think your needs are now and consolidate everything onto one HD. So that's either a 12TB or 18TB capacity. I'm guessing you have around 4TB-6TB of data so far, so a 18TB HD would give you 12TB-ish of free space. Not too shabby. Yep. This is by far the most costliest option in the long run, but gives you the most flexibility and the most options. Say you went with two 18TB HDs, the Western Digital Reds are $550 a piece. So that's $1100. Then another $700 for a 4-Bay NAS. We are now up to $1700 before tax and possible shipping. Then there is the setup of the damn thing. You will learn a lot if you go this route, AND learn even more when it breaks connectivity and you need to fiddle. Don't forget about Firmware and Software Updates and such; a NAS is almost like having a "Baby Home Server." Downside: Cost and Geek/Nerd Territory. Noise. Power Consumption AND you will need to have it on a UPS. (Uninterruptible Power Supply). Plus the other stuff I mentioned in the above paragraph. Upside: You will have whole-house storage. But when everyone starts saving things to the NAS, I'm wondering how quickly the space will be eaten up? Though if you aren't storing Blu-Ray Movies and creating a Plex Server, 18TB should last you awhile. If you are thinking about doing this, you need to buy lots more stuff than just the NAS. Brian knows that the G-Drive that he recommended is a high-quality Enterprise-Grade Drive. It's nothing like the Big-Box Store HDs that people are used to buying. He would recommend you buy the G-Drive 18TB Thunderbolt 3 EHD and be happy. Consolidate all your existing HDs to that one HD. But more importantly, come up with a file structure / hierarchy NOW so you can find things easily!! No sense in dumping everything onto one HD and not be able to find your files. Even if you have to write it out on a blank piece of paper, or dry-erase board. Come up with something first, then create it on the new EHD. "But what about portability? I can't be chained to a desk!!! I must be free!!" How about buying one of these? 2TB should be more than enough space when you are out-and-about. Even if you are on a 2 week trip taking all sorts of photos. Remember, the files don't have to stay there, you can cull things that will never see the light of day, then copy the data over to your 18TB drive. "But what about redundancy? I'm so afraid of buying a HD that will fail!" Sure, anything Man-Made can fail. That's reality. But the G-Drive that I recommended is a pretty solid HD. I only have ONE 12TB sitting on my desk, and I'm not THAT worried. If you are really that concerned, you should buy a 2nd Hard Drive and clone one to the other, then keep that 2nd EHD off-site. That's really the only way I can think of in covering your ass. RAID Setups can fail too, it just takes more things going wrong before it crashes, unlike a single HD. Final thoughts: Whatever EHD you decide, create a new thread when you do. I want to make sure that it's formatted and partitioned properly. All too often Manufactures will format their drives with a exFAT Partition setup, which works with both Macs and PCs. Sounds awesome, right? Well, it's not. Personally, exFAT is one of those Microsoft "Side-Projects" that works for the most part, but is NOT bullet-proof. Meaning, I'm not going to tell the "Average Person Computer Type" to use exFAT. Too risky. >> I << don't even use exFAT. Pick a format, Mac OR Windows and stay there. No sense in having a beefy HD only to have it partitioned with an unpredictable scheme. Leave exFAT to the Geeks / Nerds who know what to do when things go wrong.

Two ways to combat this: Either Speed up or slow down the Shutter Speed until the lines go away. Turn on Flicker Reduction. Out of the two, turning on Flicker Reduction is the best bet. To accomplish this, hit the Menu Button on your D780 >> Photo Shooting Menu (Little Camera Icon) >> Flicker Reduction Setting & Flicker Reduction Indicator >> SET BOTH TO ON <<. More info: https://onlinemanual.nikonimglib.com/d780/en/14_menu_guide_03_20.html You are correct, this is exactly why.

Go to the Start Button, type CMD, but before you open the Command Box, click "Run as Administrator." You can also right-click on CMD.exe in the Start Menu and select "Run as Administrator." Then when the command box appears, type: sfc /scannow Press Enter. This will run the Windows System File Checker. Let it do its thing when it runs, it will take awhile. It's a basic test and hopefully it finds something wrong and repairs them. If not, I have a few other commands. Oh, one more thing, try disconnecting any external hard drives or other peripherals and see if the locking-up issue goes away. Isolate your computer.

You have other issues than just Photoshop. Oh boy. Alright, are you familiar with opening a Command Box as an Administrator? I will warn you, there is only so much I can do in a Hardware Forum. You might have to take your computer into a repair faculty, not Geek Squad. Or you might just want to call Dell and see if they can help.

Un-install the current version, use the Photoshop CC "Phone Home to the Mothership Thingy" to download the older version. If you click the three dots next to Photoshop in the App, you should see "Other Versions or Older Versions." That's how you get the older versions.

It's worth a shot. It could also screw your computer up even more. Hard to say. You might have to bite-the-bullet and go back to an earlier version of PS CC. Let me know what happens.

With one of these, silly. Nope. It doesn't work that way. You can not buy externals and then do a RAID Setup. They all have to be in the same enclosure of some kind. Now, some external drives are setup as a RAID, such as this one: G-Drive RAID Enclosure. Now remember, that enclosure has two 12TB Drives. So if you configure it as a RAID1, it's only 12TB large, (One 12TB Mirrored to the other 12TB Drive) before formatting. In a nutshell, a RAID setup is required when you need absolute data redundancy. Otherwise, you could purchase two 12TB external Drives, buy & use a program like SuperDuper! for Mac, which schedules cloning from one HD to the other on a scheduled basis. Then you keep the 2nd Drive Off-Site in case of Fire/Flood/Theft, etc. etc. RAID is involved. Like I said above, this is Geek / Nerd Territory. Your average user does not mess with a RAID setup; normal computer users tend to have multiple Hard Drives laying all around their house, when one HD gets too small, they buy another. Then another...then another. In which case they will end up with four or more HDs over the course of 10 years and then they wonder how they can wrangle all of their files/data. The truth is, they need to spend the money on a larger hard drive to begin with; a person who has a 1TB drive now thinks 4TB will be enough, when they really should be looking at 10TB or 12TB. You aren't necessarily buying for "now" but 5-10 years from now. Otherwise you are buying multiple HDs over a period of time. Yep. Four spinning Enterprise Grade HDs in a cheap enclosure will be loud. Buying Four 4TB SSD Drives at $480 a pop is $1920, plus Tax, is a bit stupid. Then you need to spend the money on a NAS box, so that's another $600, conversationally speaking. As for your Wi-Fi...you are right, most people aren't comfortable in messing with their Wi-Fi. I'd recommend buying one of these: AmpliFi Gamer’s Edition WiFi System by Ubiquiti. A Mesh Wi-Fi allows devices to jump to the strongest access point seamlessly to cut down on poor connectivity issues. Because things like walls, Heating/Cooling Ducts, fancy Stainless Steel Appliances and floors between levels can affect your Wi-Fi Signal. Not to mention the more devices that you have hooked up simultaneously the harder the Wi-Fi has to work. But again, how far down this Rabbit Hole do you want to go? Most people aren't like me and run Ethernet Cables in their home: This is a storage area behind where my computer is. My Wife remarked, "We don't need a Commercial Grade Ethernet Setup." My response, "...yes we do. I hate Wi-Fi." She still won't let me put holes in the walls to get the Ethernet up to the second floor where her Office is. Oh well. So again, how far do you want to go with this? I can assure you...it won't be cheap. So what do you do? I'd honestly buy a 12TB G-Drive and call it good.

I just had a thought, you could buy 4TB SSD Drives and set them up in a RAID Configuration. But that is not going to be cheap and will not give you the best storage capacity but it will solve the noise issue. What do I mean about storage capacity? If you purchased Four 4TB HDs, a total of 16TB worth of HDs, you will get 8TB Mirrored. Remember how I mentioned above about RAID 1 and cut the total capacity in half? RAID 10 is really RAID 1+0 and not "Ten." Play around with this calculator: RAID Calculator to see how you'd configure a NAS.

I almost forgot, with a NAS, it's not going to be quiet. I will need to be in a well-ventilated area and as I've mentioned before, hooked up directly to your Router via a Cat 6 Ethernet Cable. One thing that I've noticed over the years is the manufacturers are using cheaper and cheaper plastics. So imagine having 2 or more 7200 RPM Beefy HDs working simultaneously, and you are gonna hear them. LOL!! Now it wasn't that bad years ago, but some members who went out and bought current NAS Systems reported back on how loud they were. So take this into consideration. Everything is cheap and crappy across the board. These guys have a whole YouTube Channel dedicated to NAS Units and such. Give their channel a view: YouTube - SPANdotCOM