How Can I improve the time it takes to start PSE 9's Back up?

Question

PSE's backup to external HDD has always seemed to be clunky.
For example, when the process starts and you are taken step-by-step through browsing for your HDD and then creating your next incremental backup file and then browsing again to your last backup file, I have gotten used to this taking ages. e.g. often up to 45 minutes.
Because of this, I ignore the fact that the application shows no user sign of carrying out the task, but looks like the application has hung. (just the windows blue circle revolving!). Indeed, if I mouse click on the button again (or anywhere else on the open PSE Organizer window), then Windows provides the message that Elements is not responding. However, if I wait, and wait eventually the next stage kicks in. Tonight, I started this process and it took 2.5 hours to reach the point that Elements would start the backup.  It then took only just over 5 minutes to complete the backup!!
I am probably at least part of the cause of this problem.  My Catalogue has 38,103 images in it (+ 1, 804 items not shown) - What are these and are they additional to the 38, 103?
Can I do something to improve the process of backing up? 
I really like PSE and its organizer and this catalogue enables me to find any image very, very quickly which, for my work, is brilliant and incredibly useful and impressive.  This catalogue has been in existence for a number of years now back from PSE 6 through, 7, 8 and now, PSE 9, since last September.  Maybe this is part of the problem? 
When I upgraded to PSE 9, I did restart the back up process with a full backup. I am now up to incremental backup 5.  My images are spread out on my PC's HDD (2.95 gb on the internal partitioned drive C with 60.2 gb on its other partition D). The remainder 144 gb is on an external HDD. 
Whilst PSE finds any image quickly, as already stated, it IS getting very slow at generating the thumbnails when new images are downloaded into PSE.
Are there any steps that I can take to refresh PSE to speed up the backuyp process and generating the thumbnails?
Thanks for reading and considering all the above.
Elemt

Answer 1

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function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}elemt wrote:
Arising out of our discussion yesterday and my stated intention to replace the current internal HDD with one that has a significantly larger capacity, I wonder if you, Ken, or dj_paige, or both, have any suggestions as to if I should keep my copy of PSE 9 activated when I make a mirror copy of the existing internal HDD or deactivate it before I make the mirror copy?
Since installing PSE fresh is relatively quick and painless, I wouldn't bother with keeping it in a mirrored copy.  I don't know if activation is based on an ID  derived from the hard drive or not, but based on my conversations with Adobe when I replaced mine I think it is (at least in part).   The bottom line is that you'll need to deactivate your old copy before running the new copy (and activating that new copy), so to be on the safe side, I'd
Deactivate the old copy of PSE.
Uninstall that old copy.
Get your new primary hard drive set up.
Install PSE.
Activate PSE.
function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}
function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}elemt wrote:
Then, I would copy across from the temporary external HDD, the 60.2 gb of images previously stored on the old E partition.
From both your comments, I am thinking that this might well screw up the database and PSE Organizer would be thrown by this.  (maybe I could reconnect manually, but even if I could, that would be a massive task).  It would probably mean my back up of my catalog that I made yesterday, unusable?
It might screw things up.  I've never used the catalog Backup/Restore, so I'll defer to others who have, but I do know that Organizer's database (the catalog) stores a unique serial number ID for each volume that's used (C:, D:, etc.).  I suspect that that serial number is derived from the serial number of the unit, but I could be wrong.  I don't know how the database handles the situation where, e.g., photos on a Hitachi drive E: are then transferred to a Western Digital drive E:.  It probably will involve "re-connecting" all the photos, but this is just speculation on my part.
I suggest you ignore, for the moment, PSE and set up your new hard drives in the way that makes the most sense to you.  Then work in PSE to accommodate that setup.
Ken