# External Storage for Lightroom Catalog and Pictures?



## Tinko (Dec 16, 2016)

Hi

After so much great recommandation to my first question (help to buy the right imac) I thought I give it another try with this one. Every recommandation or experience from you is very welcomed. My wife is the photographer and I just try to support her with the right work equipment.

Our 27" imac comes with a fusion drive. I also have a 8TB NAS at home for backup and long term storage.

But I was thinking if there is a reasonable way to outsource the lightroom content to an external thunderbold or USB3.0 drive, which can always be atteched to the iMAC.

Now the question for me is. Is it actually recommendable to do so? It would free up space on the iMACs internal fusion drive. After all the iMAC will not be used soley by my wife but by the whole family.

There are a lot of options:
-Thunderbold vs USB3.0
-HDD vs SSD
-Add the drive as an external medium or incorporate it into the fusion drive setup
-I actually read of prople buying external thunderbold hdd only to open up the case and through out the drive for a ssd substitute (makes me think why not directly buy a thunderbold ssd)
-What about speed and reliability in a non labor situation (real life)?
-There is also the option of 2 disk drives with the option of raid0 for speed or raid1 for redundancy even though they are pricier.

Bye Tinko


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## clee01l (Dec 16, 2016)

I have migrated away from slower EHDs to an environment that consists of a combination of Thunderbolt2 and USB3 EHDs. 
Akitio makes a Quad bay Thunderbolt 3 (and older TB2) enclosure:
Akitio T3Q-T3DIAS-AKTU Thunder3 Quad 4-Bay Storage Enclosure - Newegg.com

You can insert any type of Drive into it. Both 3.5" and 2.5" drives as well as HDD and or SSD varieties. 

USB3 is not out of the running either. 

Consider for the moment that your fastest drive is going to be the bus mounted Fusion drive.  This IMO is the place for the catalog file and the Previews folder.   After the initial processing, the original image file copy is rarely accessed by LR.  And when it is accessed for exports or prints, fast I/O is not critical.  I usually import to the Fusion drive and move cataloged images older than about 3 months to the EHD. 

I have a 6TB LaCie TB2 drive to store my older images.  My TimeMachine local backup goes to an 8TB HDD in an Akitio Quad bay Thunderbolt  2  enclosure.  CrashPlan backup the same data to a 3TB USB3 EHD.  Additionally, I  use WiFi to do TimeMachine backups to a Time Capsule and to the Crashplan cloud. (That's right — 4 backup copies of my data.)

Performance meets or exceeds my expectations.


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## Tinko (Dec 17, 2016)

Hi Clee

You know that you gave me the idea to this, right?  I gotta say your comments have been extremly helpful. Thanks

Lets start with the cheapest option. What if I would get a single USB 3.0 EHD. And I would just keep the pictures on it. If I remember correctly it is something you do via drag and drop in lightrooms's folder sidebar. Catalog and previews would stay on the internal fusion drive.

Would that give my wife sufficiant speed?


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## clee01l (Dec 17, 2016)

clee01l said:


> Consider for the moment that your fastest drive is going to be the bus mounted Fusion drive. This IMO is the place for the catalog file and the Previews folder. After the initial processing, the original image file copy is rarely accessed by LR. And when it is accessed for exports or prints, fast I/O is not critical. I usually import to the Fusion drive and move cataloged images older than about 3 months to the EHD.


USB at 5Gbps will work fine for image files that aren't going to be accessed on a regular basis  I'm repeating the above paragraph because I think it is important to understand and heed.  Remember most of us got along fine with USB2 EHDs and slower ethernet.


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## Tinko (Dec 23, 2016)

Would the seagate backup plus (portable) be a good choice for the images?

Another question. If I where to exchange the fusion drive... how does that work? Are there two drives installed (one hdd and one ssd)? Or is it just one drive which has both technologies? Do I order just one replacement ssd? Do I need to change some things in the os settings?

BR Tinko


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## clee01l (Dec 23, 2016)

Apple can build a Mac with a single Fusion Drive.  It is a hardware technology developed with Intel.  One physical unit with a standard spinning disk and additional SSD added onto the circuit board.  You can replace the disk drive in your iMac  Macsales has DIY install videos.  OWC DIY Kit: 2.0TB 7200RPM HDD... in stock at MacSales.com  Depending on the model of your iMac, the Job can be pretty intense. If you have an older iMac with an installed DVD, you can replace the DVD with an additional internal drive and have two drives internally installed. 
The Seagate Backup Plus is a 2.5" drive.  They are OK and I have two such 2.5" drives that I use for laptop backup and extra laptop storage. IMO, the 3.5" external drives with a separate power supply are more reliable and last longer than the small (read more delicate) portable drives  As long as your images are backups elsewhere, I see no reason the seagate backup plus couldn't be used as the primary storage device for your images


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## bob chadwick (Dec 23, 2016)

Consider a dual bay USB3 drive dock and a single hard drive instead.  It will be more expensive than an all in one solution like you are looking at but will allow you to replace a defective drive easily, upgrade drives, have a second slot for expansion, etc.

I've been using a Kingwin unit that got good reviews and is only around $35.


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## Replytoken (Dec 24, 2016)

clee01l said:


> Akitio makes a Quad bay Thunderbolt 3 (and older TB2) enclosure



Hi Cletus,

@clee01l I have seen that you have mentioned Akitio in this thread and another one.  I am looking to upgrade some USB 2.0 enclosures to USB 3.0 and was wondering what you thought of the quality of Akitio products?  I have been using Rosewill and have been reasonably happy, but I am open to suggestions.  Reliability is my primary concern in picking out new enclosures.

Thanks,

--Ken


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## clee01l (Dec 24, 2016)

Replytoken said:


> was wondering what you thought of the quality of Akitio products?


I only have the one.  It is of good quality and has proven reliable.  I use one of the bays for a 8TB disk for TimeMachine.


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## Tinko (Jan 21, 2017)

I have moved forward a bit but i'm not there yet.

I got two USB3.0 enclosures of Inateck FE3001. They are cheap but got very good reviews on the net.

I installed them underneath the desk where my imac sits. So they are out of sight.

I equipped them with a 2TB WD red and a 4TB WD Blue.

The 2TB are for the pictures.
The lightroom library stays on the fusion drive.
The 4TB are my time machine drive. I included the external 2TB drive into the time machine backup for now.

I'm happy so far but time machine backups will be taking up alot of space very soon if the pictures are included.
Either I have to get a bigger drive than 4TB or I exclude the pictures from time machine. Instead I could get another 2TB drive and set both up as software raid1.

Any advise if this sounds reasonable?
Bye Tinko


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## clee01l (Jan 21, 2017)

Tinko said:


> I'm happy so far but time machine backups will be taking up alot of space very soon if the pictures are included.


Including all of the pictures is the idea.  You only have to backup the originals one time.  That is why you don't want to save the metadata back to a JPEG, TIFF or DNG since the metadata is already in the catalog which is small and the catalog does get regular updated backups.  You don't keep derivatives created by LR. Any that you do generate locally can be regenerated from the original and the LR catalog file.


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## Johan Elzenga (Jan 21, 2017)

There is a lot of misconception about how Time Machine works. Apple says that it will make a backup every hour, then save a daily backup of last week, a weekly backup of last month and monthly backups after that. That is true, but it doesn't mean you will have 24 copies of your images from today, 7 copies of your images from last week, 4 copies of your images from last month, etc. Time Machine *runs* every hour, but it won't make a copy of files that haven't changed in that hour. The reason why it _looks like_ that you have a full backup of every hour, is because Time Machine uses so-called 'hard links' to files. Hard links are a little like aliases. While it seems that each backup contains a copy of all your images, in reality there is only one copy (unless you changed the image itself at one point, then you will get _one_ newer copy in the backup) and the rest is hard links. So indeed do _not_ use 'Save Metadata to Files', because that will create an new copy each time you edit something or change the metadata.


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## Tinko (Jan 21, 2017)

So... just for confirmation... the recommended way is to include the pictures into the time machine backup?

I intend to have lightroom set up in the way that it will always store the pictures on the external 2T hdd. Catalog stays on the internal 1TB fusion drive. Both are backed up to 4TB external hdd via time machine. Both external hdd are always connected via USB 3.0 and mounted underneath the desk.

I don't use "save metadata to file" anymore.

But how do I handle old pictures I want to archive? By archive I mean I don't need to be able to access them spontaneously. I would like to physically store them on a spare drive and put them in a shelf. If i take them off the 2TB external drive then they would still be part of the time machine backup. Right? Then the 4TB Time Machine drive will be too small very soon.

Do I also use LR catalog backup feature? I don't see why I would need it.


BR Tinko


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## Johan Elzenga (Jan 21, 2017)

If you take old pictures off the external disk, they will stay in the Time Machine backup only for as long as there is enough room on that backup. Sooner or later Time Machine will run out of space, and then it starts deleting old backup files that are no longer present on the source disks. So no, you can't use Time Machine for these archived files. You will have to back these up separately.

Most people continue to use the catalog backup too. The advantage is that Lightroom will verify the integrity and optimize the catalog, and your latest Time Machine backup may have backed up an open catalog (while you were using it), meaning it may be in an inconsistent state in that backup.


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## Tinko (Jan 21, 2017)

Dang! That is an art by itself. Thanks so much for you patience.

Anyhow that means I can take old pictures off the external 2TB hdd and by time they will also disappear on the external 4TB hdd for time machine. Understood.

Any suggestions on how ro archive pictures? I was thinking to store them on a bare hdd in one of these docking stations. Some docking stations have a two bays with a copy feature. So they could be stored on two hdds and put in a shelf. But if there is a certain time by when those magnetic bits on an hdd get ereased by itself then it would affect both drives almost at the same time. Not sure if that is a thing though.

How does one take pictures out of LR in order to archive them?

Do you export them with the metadata and all the adjustments into jpgs, store those jpgs on your archive media and deleting the original in LR? That is what my wife did in the past, i think.

Or do you somehow export the original pictures together with the corresponding catalog information to the archive media? And then delete them in LR.

Or do you just copy the original pictures to the archive media without the corresponding catalog data and delete them in LR afterwards? The catalog doesnt take so much space that it needs to be archived. It can just stay where it is and grow slowly?


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## Johan Elzenga (Jan 21, 2017)

The best thing to do is not to take them out of Lightroom at all. In Lightroom, they are only a database entry and some jpeg previews, so you do not gain much by removing them. Just store the originals anywhere you like, but do so by moving them in the Lightroom folder panel (drag and drop images or entire folders). That way Lightroom keeps track of them, so if you ever need them after all, it's just a matter of connecting that archive disk and they'll be available to you from within Lightroom.


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## clee01l (Jan 21, 2017)

Tinko said:


> But how do I handle old pictures I want to archive? By archive I mean I don't need to be able to access them spontaneously. I would like to physically store them on a spare drive and put them in a shelf. If i take them off the 2TB


I have images cataloged in LR and Stored on two separate drives  One drive is for current images and the other is used for images older that !3 months.  I can access these archived images in LR because I never remove them from the LR catalog   About once a month I move qualifying older image folders to the archive drive using LR's drag and drop function..

Here's what happens in TimeMachine: 

The original backup image file will be marked as deleted and eventually work its way out of the TimMachine system. 
When the image shows up on the Archive volume, Time Machine will back that up and it will remain in Time machine forever or until I remove it from the Archive volume. 
I use Time Machine to back up my LR backup catalog copies.  The reason for this is that Time Machine may run when my catalog file is open and the database is in an unstable state. This backup could be corrupt. You don't want to try to restore from a corrupt catalog file.  Catalog file backups are always made when the file is closed and all database operations are complete


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## Tinko (Jan 22, 2017)

clee01l said:


> The original backup image file will be marked as deleted and eventually work its way out of the TimMachine system.
> When the image shows up on the Archive volume, Time Machine will back that up and it will remain in Time machine forever or until I remove it from the Archive volume.



I remember that you store pictures for the first 3 month on your internal fusion drive and after that you move them to the external TB2 drive. In your case the pictures are always part of the time machine backup since time machine is backing up the internal fusion drive as well as your external TB2 drive onto a third external drive, Correct?

I have now a slightly different plan although it was inspired by yours. 
I only want to keep the LR catalog on the internal fusion drive. Pictures go directly onto the first external hdd. As in your setup my time machine is backing up both (internal fusion as well as first external hdd) onto a second external hdd. After understanding more about how LR and TM works (thanks to you guys) we will avoid "save metadata to pictures" and create catalog backups in LR and have them backed up by TM as well.

But here is the difference. I would like, at some point, to take pictures out of the time machine backup completely. That is what I meant by "archiving". I'm thinking after a year or so. I still want to keep them around somewhere but outside of the always accessible infrastructure.

internal fusion drive... for LR catalog (no pictures at all)
first external hdd... for pictures not older than 1 year and catalog backups created by LR
second external hdd... for time machine backing up the internal fusion drive + first external hdd
third external hdd... for archiving pictures (data eventually not on any before mentioned drives)

I understood from JohanElzenga that I should just do it within LR. So I want to temporarly connect a third external drive to my iMac. Drag and drop the folder within LR onto that third drive. Afterwards I can disconnect that third drive and store it in a cool and dry shelf space. The catalog information stays on the LR catalog on the internal fusion drive. But the pictures are deleted on the first external hdd with the pictures and therefore work their way slowly out of the second external hdd with the time machine backup. My wife can access the archived pictures by connecting that third drive again.

Do you think that could work? If yes I think I will go for it. I hope I'm not missing anything.

BR Tinko

PS: I had the idea to visualise my backup plan and post it here. Do you think other users will benefit from that?


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## Johan Elzenga (Jan 22, 2017)

Yes, that will work, but you have to remember that you are not backing up that third disk in this setup. So if that third disk fails one day (and it will) you will lose all your archived pictures except for the ones that just happen to still be in the Time Machine backup from when they were stored on the first external disk.


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## Johan Elzenga (Jan 22, 2017)

And by the way: you say your wife can connect to the archived pictures disk. That is true, but unless she is using Lightroom for that and a copy of your catalog, she will see the unedited originals. If you want her to have easy access to edited jpegs, you should export edited jepgs for her.


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## Tinko (Jan 22, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> And by the way: you say your wife can connect to the archived pictures disk. That is true, but unless she is using Lightroom for that and a copy of your catalog, she will see the unedited originals.


Sure. I'm not actually working with LR myself. My wife is the photographer and I'm just trying to create a infrastructure she can work with.  When I said "I will do this and that" I meant "my wife will do this and that". So there is only one LR catalog in our household and that is my wife's. She will have to drag and drop her pictures from first hdd to third hdd and store it in a shelf. This way she can pull it out again and connect to it when she wants. Since it is her LR catalog and her pictures she should be able to see the edits she made.

Sorry for not being clear.



JohanElzenga said:


> If you want her to have easy access to edited jpegs, you should export edited jepgs for her.


On the other hand she could also just export the jpg as you mentioned right away. Since it's about old pictures which she doesn't have to access anymore one could argue that it is enough to have the jpgs. I leave that up to her.



JohanElzenga said:


> Yes, that will work, but you have to remember that you are not backing up that third disk in this setup. So if that third disk fails one day (and it will) you will lose all your archived pictures except for the ones that just happen to still be in the Time Machine backup from when they were stored on the first external disk.


That would be a calculated risk I'm aware of. Im talking about pictures old enough that you want to take that risk. Let's say my wife guarantees in her contract with clients to hold photos available for at least 12 month. After that amount of time pictures could be archived without backup.

Thanks Tinko

PS: Next step is to get the time machine backup on a NAS and have that NAS synchronised with another one in a different location or instead using one of the online services with monthly fees.
PPS: I'm also thinking to build a tower just for holding big archive data instead of the blank hdd in a shelf. But thats a lot of whole other story.


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