# Storing lightroom on server to access anywhere



## dudemanla (Feb 27, 2015)

If anyone can help it would be appreciated.  
I have a client that wants to be able to access all her photos from anywhere in the world. So I assume I need to put that on a server. Can Anyone recommend a server that's really good.? 
One of the main concerns I have is if she is in another state and the server is in Los Angeles wouldn't it be slow when she tries to access the photos in lightroom if she's access then from the server within lightroom? I assume that when she tries to open a photo from a server from Los Angeles while she's in another state that it might take several minutes especially if it's a raw file for it to download and open. 

We want redundancy like a back local backup on that server perhaps like a Drobo or maybe synology disc station? I'm just really confused how it works with the server but that would be really cool if she can access that from anywhere in the world. She has over 5 TB of photos in her lightroom.  Is it not a good idea to put it on the server and try to access it remotely. My client travels a lot so she really would like to have that. 


Oh and one more burning question what if the server is in Los Angeles and she's in Florida and she wants to import five gigs of photos. Can she use the import feature in lightroom and choose her light room on the server that's in another state to import the photos to?


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## clee01l (Feb 28, 2015)

Welcome to the forum.  The LR catalog file (the part that has all of the information) can only be accessed from a Locally attached drive. (*i.e. no network drives*).  This is because the database engine (SQLite) that is used for the catalog is single user only and if the file is placed on a network drive, it could be opened by several users and when saved, the last user saving overwrites all of the work of others. 

Mosaic has a plugin that will let you access your complete LR catalog for viewing from anywhere.  http://www.mosaicarchive.com

Lightroom Mobile and The Photographer's bundle will let you store Smart Previews of designated Collections in Adobes Creative Cloud which can then can be accessed from a website or from a mobile tablet of phone (iOS or Android) On the mobile tablet you can add additional images and you can perform many editing functions on the mobile device.  Your biggest importing limitation is going to be the available storage on the mobile device.


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## dudemanla (Feb 28, 2015)

clee01l said:


> Welcome to the forum.  The LR catalog file (the part that has all of the information) can only be accessed from a Locally attached drive. (*i.e. no network drives*).  This is because the database engine (SQLite) that is used for the catalog is single user only and if the file is placed on a network drive, it could be opened by several users and when saved, the last user saving overwrites all of the work of others.
> 
> Mosaic has a plugin that will let you access your complete LR catalog for viewing from anywhere.  http://www.mosaicarchive.com
> 
> Lightroom Mobile and The Photographer's bundle will let you store Smart Previews of designated Collections in Adobes Creative Cloud which can then can be accessed from a website or from a mobile tablet of phone (iOS or Android) On the mobile tablet you can add additional images and you can perform many editing functions on the mobile device.  Your biggest importing limitation is going to be the available storage on the mobile device.



Thanks for helping.  That's really nice.  It will mainly just be one user using two computers.  One iMac will be in California, and the other will be on another mac while traveling or wherever.  
We'll probably store the LR catalog in dropbox so it stays in sync.  
I'm mainly wondering about storing the lightroom photos on a server so when traveling we don't need to bring the hardrive with us as it's like 5TB of photos.  
Want to be able to access the photos in lightroom anywhere and have access to the files and not smart previews.  Also will import raw photos too.  I am assuming it would take a really long time to import photos to a remote sever esp if it's many GB.  I wonder if it can even be done with lightroom as the import process would be super slow if it was 
imported to a remote server.  
I guess my concern is would it be really slow to have the photos accessed in lightroom on a remote server.  
Perhaps we can use the smart preview and then when lightroom needs to access the original it can just download it.  
Also I assume it's really slow to upload so many raw photos to a remote server, if it's even possible.


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## dudemanla (Feb 28, 2015)

Thanks for helping Cletus.  That's really nice.  It will mainly just be one user using two computers.  One iMac will be in California, and the other will be on another mac while traveling wherever.  
We'll probably store the LR catalog in dropbox so it stays in sync.  
I'm mainly wondering about storing the lightroom photos on a server so when traveling we don't need to bring the hardrive with us as it's like 5TB of photos.  
Want to be able to access the photos in lightroom anywhere and have access to the files and not smart previews.  Also will import raw photos too.  I am assuming it would take a really long time to import photos to a remote sever esp if it's many GB.  I wonder if it can even be done with lightroom as the import process would be super slow if it was 
imported to a remote server.  
I guess my main concern is would it be really slow to have the photos accessed in lightroom on a remote server.  
Perhaps we can use the smart preview and then when lightroom needs to access the original it can just download it.  
Also I assume it's really slow to upload so many raw photos to a remote server, if it's even possible.
We also want to keep the local copy on a really good redundant backup system, perhaps a drobo maybe.  
Some kinda bullet proof backup


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## clee01l (Feb 28, 2015)

The Dropbox solution will work.  However 5TB of images is a lots of cloud storage to pay for.  There are cheaper solutions: 

I will begin with then that I use for travel.  I keep all of my images in a master catalog on my iMac.  I also have a rMBP and keep a travel catalog on it.  When I return from a trip, I use the "Import from Catalog" function to merge the contents of the travel catalog into the master catalog.  The travel catalog can contain images and LR adjustments of images from the master catalog if I need to work on these during travel, Plus any new images that I acquire on my trip.
You can store your master images on any drive, even a cloud drive.
iCloud folders are represented as a local folder inside "/Users/cletuslee/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/".  You can create an Alias to these folders to make them accessible to the LR Folder panel or the Import Destination panel.
Dropbox cloud storage folders are already duplicated locally. As are Google Drive and 1Drive folders.
None of this cloud storage is free above a few GBs. However it is backed up and secured by the cloud storage provider.
There are only certain instances when LR actually needsWhen you export to read the master original image.
When you export or print, LR retrieves the original RGB from ACR cache or the original JPEG if the original was not RAW.  Failing to find the data it needs in ACR cache, it calls the ACR function to create a new one.
When you are actively post processing the image, LR refers to the original in ACR cache or the original JPEG.
Having the original image stored remotely does not affect performance unless you are printing, exporting or doing post processing develop.  If you store master images on a fast local drive initially and then transfer them to a remote drive when post processing is complete, the lag that might be induced during export or printing is only a trivial delay that most can tolerate.

Adobe's Creative Cloud can be used to store a catalog that can be accessed by LR (again through an alias.)

LR requires that the catalog file and the Preview Cache and Smart preview cache (if used) be stored in the same folder (or appear to LR as being in the same folder).  The Preview Cache can be 20 -50 or more GBs.  This is a lot of volatile storage to put on a cloud drive.  If a cloud storage solution is used, I would recommend storing the Preview Cache locally and using an alias to make it appear to be in the same folder as the catalog.

The Mosaic plugin or Smart Previews would be my solution for viewing my completed LR work remotely.  The master images remain locally, they are available through a browser using any internet connected computer.  Smart previews can be used for remote processing through a mobile tablet or phone. They can not be used this way with a real computer like a MBP. 

So, to summarize, here is what I would recommend. 

Maintain all of the images with a master catalog on a master (home base) computer.
Keep a travel catalog for travel and resent that catalog when the two are together at home base. Syncing catalogs across even a local network is tediously slow. So, I have found it best to copy the travel catalog and images data to a EHD that can be shared between the master computer and the travel computer.
If it is essential to view completed images while traveling, either export these to the travel catalog before traveling or use Mosaic or Smart previews make them available through the web browser.


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## bachi (Mar 1, 2015)

*java library to access LR catalogs server-side*

This might be out of scope, but beneficial for some. I've just released a java library which gives you easy access to an LR catalog and preview store: https://bitbucket.org/bachi76/lightroomcatalog
There's also a small demo web application. Contributors welcome.

- Bachi


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