Switching from Lr CC to Lr Classic - Storage Advise Needed

[CDAPhoto]

I currently have an Adobe Lightroom CC subscription which includes the ability to view/edit my photos on the go via the Lightroom CC app and the 1TB of cloud storage which is great since I’ve only used 300GB as of now, but I know when it fills up I’m going to need to find a better way to store my files because additional Adobe cloud storage is outrageously overpriced imho...

I would much rather be using Lightroom Classic because of the ability to tether, easy control of metadata, and the many other reasons Classic is better than CC.

I’m all ready to switch but I don’t know how or where I should store my files! My computer is an HP laptop but because it’s hard drive is SSD it only has 250GB of localized storage; I use a Nikon D850 so my RAW images are HUGE (nearly 60MB)!

I know Lr uses some sort of a catalogue system that I don’t completely understand, if I open Lightroom Classic and my files are stored on an external drive that’s not attached how does that work when it comes to the catalogue?

I was hoping to hear input on what methods others use, whether it’s cloud, external drives, disks, or local storage; and also how you go about accessing your workflow (do you upload images to local drive for post production and backup to external afterwards?) and how do you access your images when your on the go if you need to.

 

[jaomul]

No option but buy a good external hard drive

You can edit photos without hard drive attached once you've set it up to make smart previews on importing.

You obviously then need the hard drive attached to export them where the edits are auto added

 

[smoke665]

I was hoping to hear input on what methods others use, whether it’s cloud, external drives, disks, or local storage; and also how you go about accessing your workflow (do you upload images to local drive for post production and backup to external afterwards?) and how do you access your images when your on the go if you need to.

I have an external SSD that I use as a scratch disk for PS. I can tell a difference with it on speed. LR on the other hand supposedly likes to have the catalogue on the same disk. I haven't tried it yet to see how it responds. Just checked my latest catalogue and it's up to 300MB. I do know unless you have a USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt, you'll have a bottle neck. I did an unscientific test on a large file 500MB transfer over my USB 3. It was blazing up to about 8MB and then it started slowing down eventually slowing to a crawl.

 

[Braineack]

I think a 10TB drive should be a requirement for purchasing a >=36MP sensor and shooting raw.

Problem with external drives is they are typically slow with read/write speeds of about 60 MB/sec.

The "HD my passport" seems to have decent read/write speeds of about 120 MB/sec read/write.

I just bought a 6TB 7,200 RPM drive that's giving my about 250 MB/sec and has significantly sped up LR for me once I filled my older 5,200 2TB drive.

 

[n614cd]

A few basics.
Lr Classic has multiple pieces that if you are creative you can likely manage within the 250GB. Here are the basic parts:

• Catalog, this is a SQLLite database. This is where all meta data, including development directions live. As a general rule, placing this on an external drive is the primary cause of data corruption and loss of data.
  
• Previews folder, as long as Lr is not running you can delete this to recover space. However, when you scroll through the images in the catalog or open one to view it, if a preview does not exist, Lr then goes and builds it... So deleting the previews folder buys time but does not solve everything. You can through preferences set this to a smaller amount to help control it. Especially the 1:1 previews.
• Smart Previews. This is a jpeg, up to a roughly 2K pixel resolution that was originally intended for viewing images which are huge and have been taken offline. Since then, it has expanded into performance boosts in a few other locations. Considering you are space constrained, and the changes Adobe has made to the core preview cache, I would not use this feature.
• Image files. The actual image files, and based on 60MB I would think you are looking at raw image files (which you should be using). These are NOT stored in the catalog, and when you "import" them into Lr Classic they are not copied into the catalog! They can live on a local internal disks, external disks, kept offline after editing(cannot view/edit them without smart previews then), or network attached.

With that stated, You do NOT want the catalog on an external disk or on the network. That is begging for data corruption problems. Your image files can either be on a network drive or on an external disk. Personally, if you move the laptop around your home, the external drive is a pain. If you travel and want to take images with you, network attached is a pain. So determine first if you are going to travel, or if you a just going to move around the house more often. From there you can determine how you attach the additional storage.

Lastly, join Lightroom Queen Forums
This is a user only community, not Adobe affiliated (although they have a few staffers who occasionally post), and know the system very well. They can also advise you on how to migrate from CC to CC Classic (yes, I know the names stink).

Tim