# lightroom and external drives



## rjrbigdog (Sep 12, 2012)

Hi,
Have a problem And I need some advice. Have lightroom 4 and photoshop cs6. I have my pictures on my imac and want to put them on a external hard drive. How many drives will i need for back up and whatever? Is there a workflow I should use? what happens when the hard drive that has my pictures gets full, I assume I can add another hard drive and point lightroom to the one I need. Please help me as I am really confused


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## GBM (Sep 12, 2012)

Try this one first :
http://www.lightroomqueen.com/commu...y-library-in-2-different-external-hard-drives


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## rjrbigdog (Sep 12, 2012)

I don't understand what that has to do with my question. I want to take my photos off my imac and put them on a external drive. do I keep my catalog on my Imac, and then back up both photos and catalog to one drive ,then back that up on another drive? If and when the time comes my drive gets full I know I must buy another drive. But lightroom dosen't have to see all my pictures on both drives does it?  Just trying to get a work flow that works for me.


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## Jim Wilde (Sep 12, 2012)

If you keep the catalog on the internal drive, you can put your photos on as many external drives as you need. No those external drives wouldn't always have to be connected at all times....if a drive is disconnected you will still be able to see the previews in the Library module, and still do metadata work such as keywording and rating, but you wouldn't be able to do any develop work, or export, or print. However, as soon as the drive is reconnected all functions are restored.

You can, if you prefer, keep some of your photos on the internal drive (for example the last _n_ months), then "archive" the older ones to an external drive on a regular basis.....that keeps the internal drive 'lean', but gives you best performance and full functionality on your recent work. I know of others who work that way.

In terms of backup, yes you'll need to backup both the catalog and your photo files to a different drive(s)....how many you'll need will depend on the size of the files being backed up, and the size of the drives you're using as for the backup, and the number of different backup copies you want (I have a minimum of 3).


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## rjrbigdog (Sep 12, 2012)

what do you mean archive the older ones to an external hard drive? so the catalog and the photos can not be on the same drive? i just got a nikon d800 which has huge file sizes in raw. Have 2 2TB WD hard drives and A Lacie 500 gb drive which I do not think would be large enough. just looking for the best way to use lightroom. Pictures on external drive (with catalog) ,back that up to a another external drive and then have a third to back up my computer?  I use time machine but was told it is not very good. please help me as I really am confused. bottom line though I must get my pictures off my computer to avoid running out of space on my computer. can lightroom move my pictures to the external hard drive? how do I do this?


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## Jim Wilde (Sep 12, 2012)

There are loads of different permutations of how to organise the catalog and photo files. Yes the catalog and photos can be on the same drive, or different drives, or you could have catalog and *some* of the photos on one drive, with the rest of the photos on one or more external drives. 

I'm just trying to explain to you that you have many options, but it's down to you to decide which way you want to organise things. When you've decided, we can help you do it. If you've already decided that you just want to move all the photos off the internal drive to an external drive, it's a relatively simple process:

1. Close Lightroom.
2. Copy the photo folders to the external drive, maintaining the same folder structure.
3. Start Lightroom, then ctrl-click on the top-level folder(s) in the Folders Panel in the Library Module, select "Update Folder Location" and in the resulting browser window navigate to and select the corresponding top-level folder on the external drive. Click OK and Lightroom will redirect all references for that folder and all its sub-folders to the external drive. Repeat for any other top-level folders (if you only have one, all well and good).
4. Job done. At your leisure you can start removing the photo folders from the internal drive.


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## screscenzo (Sep 12, 2012)

You're asking a big question that takes alot of time and research to get to a persnoal way of using LR.
I'll tell you what I do and you can try and apply it to your workflow. There just isn't one awesome workflow we can all use. I learned and am still learning alot for the people on lightroomfourum.net. I also picked up quite a bit from thelighroomlab.com He has some great tutorials to get you threw a few of your questions and then some.
I run a small photo studio for a company in Boston. I run it all off of a 15" Macbook Pro with Lightroom 4. I shoot tethered and all my files goto a 500GB LaCie rugged via FW800. My catalog and all of my images are in one folder on the LaCie. When I have LR4 do backups I tell it to save them on a separate drive such as my desktop. For me this keeps my laptop clean and my catalog portable with the images. Then to make sure it is all backed up I have a second 500GB LaCie and I use Carbon Copy Cloner to make an exact duplicate of my working LaCie. At the end of the day I take home the backup drive and leave the working drive in the studio. I haven't gotten to the point where I need more space yet but I am guessing that will be any easy transfer for my current set up. I am also working on setting up a Google Drive account to backup the *lrcat file, LR4 backups and even the CCC backups. THat way if anything should happen on the road I can access them for a quick swap out.
I hope this helps a bit. Don't forget to check out www.thelightroomlab.com in addition to researching older threads here on the forum.
Good Luck!


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## GBM (Sep 12, 2012)

RJR, I think the ' catalog' is just a data base which refers to the photos.  The photos are often huge each...so when you get a lot of them that is a huge amount of information.  If you put the photos themselves on their own hard drive... then you do not risk them slowing down the other things you want to do ...You don't have to do that... but some of the wisest LR people on this forum do it that way...


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