# NAS & multiple editors at once



## jddphotographydsm (Nov 12, 2019)

Hi all, anyone have a larger operation where you have multiple people editing projects for you, who may need to backfill for each other and edit another person's project? I have a friend in that situation. I'm thinking of going with a NAS (synology 918+), bonding the two ethernet ports together using LACP, and working off of that NAS?

know anyone with that type of setup? videographers even - what's the performance like?!


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## clee01l (Nov 12, 2019)

Welcome to the forum.  The Lightroom Catalog  file will not run on a network drive.  The database in the Lightroom Catalog is single user and protections are integral to prevent multiple access and simultaneous update to the database that would be in conflict and corrupt the database file. 

All of the image files can be stored on a network drive and often people do this.  But each user needs to run their LR catalog locally and you need to prevent two user from working on the same files.  
If you get a group effort where individuals work their catalog on a unique subset of all of the images, you can merge all of the subset catalogs int a master catalog at the end of the project.


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## jddphotographydsm (Nov 12, 2019)

_Welcome to the forum. The Lightroom Catalog file will not run on a network drive. The database in the Lightroom Catalog is single user and protections are integral to prevent multiple access and simultaneous update to the database that would be in conflict and corrupt the database file. 
 All of the image files can be stored on a network drive and often people do this. But each user needs to run their LR catalog locally and you need to prevent two user from working on the same files._
OK, thanks. Will make sure CATs stay local to the editing PC, while photo files can go on the NAS.

_If you get a group effort where individuals work their catalog on a unique subset of all of the images, you can merge all of the subset catalogs int a master catalog at the end of the project. _
Hmm, Merging the catalogs? COOL!

thanks clee


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## jddphotographydsm (Nov 12, 2019)

Next, my question is: If the NAS is connected to the network via multiple ethernets, bonded together in a "LAG", or using the LACP protocol to turn it into a 2gbps, 4gbps, or 20gbps connection... Does anyone have experience with this? Is performance acceptable?


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## clee01l (Nov 12, 2019)

jddphotographydsm said:


> Next, my question is: If the NAS is connected to the network via multiple ethernets, bonded together in a "LAG", or using the LACP protocol to turn it into a 2gbps, 4gbps, or 20gbps connection... Does anyone have experience with this? Is performance acceptable?


I don't have any experience with these protocols.  However, a Gigabit connection is fast enough.   It is for this reason:    When you import, Lightroom creates both a Preview and a Smart Preview which is always local to the catalog.   Almost all development works off of the Preview especially the Smart Preview.   You don't need the mast image during most develop operations .   You so need the Master when a) you export a derivative file. b) when you make a print.   All other times the speed of the network is irrelevant.


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## jddphotographydsm (Nov 12, 2019)

Niiiiiice. Really?! wow! So it's only reading/caching the file itself during import and export operations? That should mean that the NAS solution will be totally FINE for editing then? *woohoo!


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## Selwin (Dec 16, 2019)

I’ve used a single UTP (thus  gigabit) synology NAS 415play (4-bay) for years. Performance is adequate  for my needs. However, creating those preview files off the NAS can be a lot more time consuming than when the images reside on local hard drive. So yes, once the smart previews are built the images folder connection speed becomes irrelevant. But particularly full size previews of hi res images take a lot of time.


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## Linwood Ferguson (Dec 16, 2019)

It may be obvious but... Most lag group protocols will not run faster than the underlying single port speed for a single client.  Two clients might get 1 gb/s each, but one client is likely to get 1gbs only.  Which is likely enough, but is substantially slower than most hard disks today and certainly than SDD's. 

Also, on many implementations, the multiple ports are only statistically likely to balance.  In other words if you have 100 clients on 4 ports they are likely to be about 25% each, but if you have 4 clients you stand a good chance getting 50%, 0%, 0%, 50% as often the mac address is used as a hash.


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