# When hard drive with LR 5 or LR 6 catalog is full what to do?



## John Cicchine (Aug 29, 2017)

Hope someone can help. 

I am about to finally upgrade to LR 6. I have a 4 TB G Tech external hard drive where my LR Catalog is stored. My photos are stored on 2 other G Tech external hard drives. I may purchase a 10 TB drive when my 4 TB G Tech Catalog hard drive is almost full but I heard that on a Mac in Disk Utility I can make a hard drive's capacity larger by using what is called a "Concatenated" setup linking more then one drive into several drives set up to be one. I heard I can do that with my Time Machine back up drives but can I put together several drives to make one big Catalog drive? I prefer to do this because I do not want to start another LR catalog whenever my LR Catalog hard drive is filled. Please know also that I plan to finally upgrade to High Sierra in about a month too. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank You all very much. 

John


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 29, 2017)

You don't have to start another catalog. Lightroom can have photos from multiple disks all in one catalog.


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## John Cicchine (Aug 29, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> You don't have to start another catalog. Lightroom can have photos from multiple disks all in one catalog.



Hi Johan,

Always good to hear from you my friend. Yes that's great that I do not need to create another catalog. But when the external hard drive that contains my LR Catalog is full can I just join it to another drive that I made a Concatenated set up with in Disk Utility so that when the first drive is filled the catalog with just overflow into the next Concatenated drive and then the next to continue the same catalog? BTW I do have my photos on 2 other discs so I know what you mean. I just need to know what to do to expand the storage capacity for my LR Catalog hard drive.

Thank You Johan. 
John


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 29, 2017)

You don't even have to use the Concatenated setup. Just connect another (normally-formatted) hard disk to your computer, and let Lightroom place newly imported photos on that hard disk. Both disks will show up in the Lightroom folder panel. And if the drive with the catalog gets too full, just move some photos from that disk to the new one to make room.


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## John Cicchine (Aug 30, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> You don't even have to use the Concatenated setup. Just connect another (normally-formatted) hard disk to your computer, and let Lightroom place newly imported photos on that hard disk. Both disks will show up in the Lightroom folder panel. And if the drive with the catalog gets too full, just move some photos from that disk to the new one to make room.



Hi Johan,

If I remember correctly (I am not on my computer right now) the LR Catalog contains the smart previews which are very small files. If I just move some of them to the 2nd. "Catalog" hard drive I will then be making room in the 1st. "Catalog" hard drive then when I import photos they will simply be imported into the 1st. "Catalog" hard drive and I will repeat the process again and again. Am I correct Johan? I know that LR needs to know which hard drive the Catalog is located in and to do that I remember double clicking on the Catalog when opening it the first time as I did when I put it on the hard drive I am now using. I thought I needed to tell LR that the Catalog was on more then one hard drive due to it's size. Doesn't LR need to know which hard drive a particular smart preview is on? Of course if I have my "Catalog" on more then one hard drive I will need to have the correct hard drive connected in relation to the photo I am working on. BTW all my "Photos" and their Folders" are on two other separate hard drives. Please let me know if I understand you correctly on this. 

Thank You for all your help Johan. 
John


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 30, 2017)

John Cicchine said:


> If I remember correctly (I am not on my computer right now) the LR Catalog contains the smart previews which are very small files. If I just move some of them to the 2nd. "Catalog" hard drive I will then be making room in the 1st. "Catalog" hard drive then when I import photos they will simply be imported into the 1st. "Catalog" hard drive and I will repeat the process again and again. Am I correct Johan?



No, you are wrong. You are not going the move any smart previews, you are just moving some original photos if needed. There is also no reason whatsoever why Lightroom would have to import new photos to the first hard disk. You can specify the destination of the new photos, so you can choose any disk you want.



John Cicchine said:


> I thought I needed to tell LR that the Catalog was on more then one hard drive due to it's size. Doesn't LR need to know which hard drive a particular smart preview is on?



You are confusing the catalog and the images. The catalog is always on one single disk, even when the images are spread over more than one disk. Consequently, you do not have to let Lightroom know the location of the catalog each time; it knows already. And nothing is going to change about that location when you add an extra disk as storage for your photos. Smart previews are always stored inside the catalog folder, no matter where the original image is located. That's the whole point of smart previews: it enables you to keep working with the images, even when the disk with the originals happens to be offline for some reason.


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## John Cicchine (Aug 30, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> No, you are wrong. You are not going the move any smart previews, you are just moving some original photos if needed. There is also no reason whatsoever why Lightroom would have to import new photos to the first hard disk. You can specify the destination of the new photos, so you can choose any disk you want.
> 
> 
> 
> You are confusing the catalog and the images. The catalog is always on one single disk, even when the images are spread over more than one disk. Consequently, you do not have to let Lightroom know the location of the catalog each time; it knows already. And nothing is going to change about that location when you add an extra disk as storage for your photos. Smart previews are always stored inside the catalog folder, no matter where the original image is located. That's the whole point of smart previews: it enables you to keep working with the images, even when the disk with the originals happens to be offline for some reason.



Hi Johan,

I back up my LR Catalog weekly and at the beginning of every month I delete all the backups of the previous month except the last back up in order to make room on my Catalog hard drive. But when I import Photos the hard drive with the Photos and their Folders fills up with more files and the hard drive that has the Catalog fills up with more Smart Previews. I monitor how much is on my hard drives every time I turn them on and before I shut them off so I still need to know what am I to do when one day I import photos and I get a message that my Catalog hard drive is full? That is what I still do not understand. I apologize for this but I am still not sure. I appreciate your patience and your help Johan. Please just bear with me on this. 

Thank You Johan.
John


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 30, 2017)

John Cicchine said:


> Hi Johan,
> 
> I back up my LR Catalog weekly and at the beginning of every month I delete all the backups of the previous month except the last back up in order to make room on my Catalog hard drive. But when I import Photos the hard drive with the Photos and their Folders fills up with more files and the hard drive that has the Catalog fills up with more Smart Previews. I monitor how much is on my hard drives every time I turn them on and before I shut them off so I still need to know what am I to do when one day I import photos and I get a message that my Catalog hard drive is full? That is what I still do not understand. I apologize for this but I am still not sure. I appreciate your patience and your help Johan. Please just bear with me on this.



Your hard drive with the catalog folder also contains the smart previews in that folder. *It has to and you can't change that*. However, you do not necessarily need anything else on that hard drive (all your photos can be on different drives), so it is rather unlikely that it will get full just because of a growing catalog file and previews (unless this is a really small hard drive to begin with). To give you an idea: my own catalog contains 170,000 photos. My catalog folder is about 250 GB, so it fits on all hard drives except the smallest ones. And even if your catalog hard drive gets full one day that is no problem at all. You can simply copy the entire Lightroom catalog to another (bigger) hard drive, point Lightroom to that new location by double clicking on the catalog file (you only need to do that once) and you're all set again.

I'm not sure what catalog backups have to do with this. Yes, by default Lightroom stores its catalog backups in a folder called 'Backups' inside the catalog folder, but that is not a very good location. If your catalog hard drive fails, your catalog backups will also be gone. So in the backup dialog, click the button to change this location and choose one of the other drives. My advice would be to move that 'Backups' folder to another drive right now, and then when Lightroom asks you to confirm a new weekly backup, change the location to that folder on the other disk before you confirm the backup.


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## John Cicchine (Aug 31, 2017)

Hi Johan,

Thanks for the information. My Catalog back up hard drive is a 4 TB drive. Let's say if I were to keep my back ups in the same location at least for now if I properly back up my Catalog hard drive won't my Catalog be safe? I think your idea of moving it is a good idea but since my LR skills are still a bit weak I would like to wait a bit until I feel more comfortable. I am thinking about purchasing a 10 TB hard drive for my Catalog so that I do not need to be concerned for a while yet. I also plan to purchase a 10 TB hard drive for my photos and their folders. I welcome as always your thoughts.
Thanks again Johan.

John


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 31, 2017)

John Cicchine said:


> I am thinking about purchasing a 10 TB hard drive for my Catalog so that I do not need to be concerned for a while yet. I also plan to purchase a 10 TB hard drive for my photos and their folders.



John, I'm sorry if I sound too harsh, but it seems I'm not getting through to you. *Did you read what I said about the size of your catalog?* And did you understand my earlier remark about confusing the catalog and the images? *Your Lightroom catalog folder will not be bigger than a few hundred GB*, so why on earth would you think about buying a 10 TB hard drive for the catalog? You say you *also* plan to buy a 10 TB drive for the photos, so that would mean that you'd have *two* 10 TB drives; one with only the Lightroom catalog folder (taking maybe 250 GB disk space) and one with the photos. That 10 TB for just the catalog is a waste of money, but it's your money, not mine.

Maybe you could list all the drives you currently have, with their sizes and listing what's on them. Make screenshots if necessary.


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## John Cicchine (Aug 31, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> John, I'm sorry if I sound too harsh, but it seems I'm not getting through to you. *Did you read what I said about the size of your catalog?* And did you understand my earlier remark about confusing the catalog and the images? *Your Lightroom catalog folder will not be bigger than a few hundred GB*, so why on earth would you think about buying a 10 TB hard drive for the catalog? You say you *also* plan to buy a 10 TB drive for the photos, so that would mean that you'd have *two* 10 TB drives; one with only the Lightroom catalog folder (taking maybe 250 GB disk space) and one with the photos. That 10 TB for just the catalog is a waste of money, but it's your money, not mine.
> 
> Maybe you could list all the drives you currently have, with their sizes and listing what's on them. Make screenshots if necessary.



Hi Johan,

I truly appreciate your patience with working with me. My LR skills are just not yet as sharp as I would like them to be. Please know that I do understand that the Catalog and the Photos and their Folders are different. They correspond to each other but they are different. That is as far as I can tell. Also the Catalog contains the Smart Previews which are much smaller than the actual photo files. That's so that I can take my Catalog hard drive with me and still be able to work on my photos with some limitations. If I am on my computer tomorrow I will try to send you some screen shots of my hard drives to see what you think. I have not been on my computer for a few days because I was in the hospital for a couple of days earlier this week because of a diabetic sugar low and a drop in blood pressure and I have been recuperating for a few days. Also as I asked in my previous email if I properly back up my Catalog hard drive using Time Machine if my Catalog or the hard drive gets messed I would think I should be safe. Am I correct.

Thank You Johan.
John


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 31, 2017)

John Cicchine said:


> Also as I asked in my previous email if I properly back up my Catalog hard drive using Time Machine if my Catalog or the hard drive gets messed I would think I should be safe. Am I correct.



In principle, yes. There is a caveat however. Time Machine backs up everything at certain times, but it does not check whether or not you are working in the catalog at that moment. That means it could backup the catalog file at the very moment you are using Lightroom (and consequently changing that file). This may lead to an unstable backup copy of the catalog. Normally that should not be a major problem, because you have hourly backups of today, and daily backups of last week. There is definitely going to be a good backup among them! The reason why it's a good idea to let Lightroom make a regular backup as well, is that Lightroom has two extra options during that backup process: verify the catalog and optimize the catalog. It good to have that done from time to time.


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## John Cicchine (Aug 31, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> In principle, yes. There is a caveat however. Time Machine backs up everything at certain times, but it does not check whether or not you are working in the catalog at that moment. That means it could backup the catalog file at the very moment you are using Lightroom (and consequently changing that file). This may lead to an unstable backup copy of the catalog. Normally that should not be a major problem, because you have hourly backups of today, and daily backups of last week. There is definitely going to be a good backup among them! The reason why it's a good idea to let Lightroom make a regular backup as well, is that Lightroom has two extra options during that backup process: verify the catalog and optimize the catalog. It good to have that done from time to time.



Hi Johan, 
Thanks for writing back so soon. Ok then before I go to bed let me ask you this. When I do aback up I have all the hard drives I want backed up turned on and of course connected but all applications closed. That is what was recommended to me from an instructor at Apple. So if that's the case then there should not be a problem with LR backing up my Catalog while Time Machine is doing a back up because LR is not running. Am I correct? Also I have LR do a back up and I think it's called "Optimizing the Catalog" once a week and then at the beginning of the month in order to save hard drive space I delete all of the previous month's backups except the last backup of that month. Sound like a good plan to You Johan? I'll be going to bed now my friend. I will check your reply tomorrow and hopefully send you some screen shots. 

Thanks again for all your help Johan.
John


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 31, 2017)

John Cicchine said:


> Thanks for writing back so soon. Ok then before I go to bed let me ask you this. When I do aback up I have all the hard drives I want backed up turned on and of course connected but all applications closed. That is what was recommended to me from an instructor at Apple. So if that's the case then there should not be a problem with LR backing up my Catalog while Time Machine is doing a back up because LR is not running. Am I correct? Also I have LR do a back up and I think it's called "Optimizing the Catalog" once a week and then at the beginning of the month in order to save hard drive space I delete all of the previous month's backups except the last backup of that month. Sound like a good plan to You Johan?



I think that's fine.


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## Roelof Moorlag (Aug 31, 2017)

John Cicchine said:


> When I do a back up I have all the hard drives I want backed up turned on and of course connected but all applications closed. That is what was recommended to me from an instructor at Apple. So if that's the case then there should not be a problem with LR backing up my Catalog while Time Machine is doing a back up because LR is not running. Am I correct?


 Yes, that's correct.



John Cicchine said:


> Also I have LR do a back up and I think it's called "Optimizing the Catalog" once a week and then at the beginning of the month in order to save hard drive space I delete all of the previous month's backups except the last backup of that month. Sound like a good plan to You?


. There is no need for saving all previously back-ups but i would save some more than just te last one. I'm saving the last of every month for one year myself.


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 31, 2017)

Roelof Moorlag said:


> There is no need for saving all previously back-ups but i would save some more than just te last one. I'm saving the last of every month for one year myself.



He's already doing that via Time Machine.


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## John Cicchine (Sep 1, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> I think that's fine.


Thank You Johan.


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## John Cicchine (Sep 1, 2017)

Roelof Moorlag said:


> Yes, that's correct.
> 
> . There is no need for saving all previously back-ups but i would save some more than just te last one. I'm saving the last of every month for one year myself.


Thank You Roelof.


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## John Cicchine (Sep 1, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> I think that's fine.


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## John Cicchine (Sep 1, 2017)

Hi Johan,
Not sure if you received my previous message. I was finally able to get to work a bit on my computer today. I took a few screen shots of my Catalog Hard Drive and when LR was doing a Back Up. I also included another screen shot and I was wondering what do you think is best in "File Handling" should I choose "Embed with Fast Load Data" as I have been doing or should I use "Embed Original Raw File". Hope the files upload properly this time. Looking forward to hearing from you my friend. 

John


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## Johan Elzenga (Sep 1, 2017)

John Cicchine said:


> I took a few screen shots of my Catalog Hard Drive and when LR was doing a Back Up.


Screenshots of Lightroom doing a backup tell me nothing. Unfortunately the first column of the disk window screenshots is so small that I can't see much about what's on that disk. Can you post some screenshots again after you've made the first column wider (place your cursor on the divider between 'Name' and 'Date Modified')? And if you have to make multiple screenshots because the list doesn't fit on one page, could you make sure that the first item on the second screenshot is the last item of the first screenshot, so it becomes clearer what I'm looking at? Finally, to be able to see the size and the free space on the disk, go to the Finder 'View' menu and select 'Show Status Bar' (or press Cmd-/) when this window is the front most window.

I get the impression that you have multiple Lightroom catalogs and lots of backups of these catalogs, and also other stuff like images on this disk. That means there should be a lot you can do to make sure that Lightroom doesn't run out of room for its catalog so you don't have to buy a new disk for that.



John Cicchine said:


> I also included another screen shot and I was wondering what do you think is best in "File Handling" should I choose "Embed with Fast Load Data" as I have been doing or should I use "Embed Original Raw File".


Are you converting your images to DNG when you import them? If not, these settings are completely irrelevant.


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## John Cicchine (Sep 1, 2017)

Hi Johan,

I did a few more screenshots. I tried to make them larger. I also tried to keep the information from the other columns in the screenshots. I hope this is better. Also when I import I import as Copy not Copy as DNG. Which do you think I should go with? There may be some overlap in the screenshots but I thought it would be better to include just a bit. From your expert point of view I am sure it look like a bit of a ness that I have but for me this is a lot of information to absorb. Also please let me know what you think is best about Importing. Should I just continue to choose "Copy" or "Copy as DNG". Which do you feel is better and why? Need to go to bed now Johan. Still recovering from my illness. Looking forward to hearing from you my friend.

John


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## Johan Elzenga (Sep 1, 2017)

So why on earth are we having this discussion? That disk has 3.47 TB free space!!!!
_As long as you do not copy original images to this disk_, it will take you a few centuries to fill this up with your Lightroom catalog and (smart) previews alone.


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## John Cicchine (Sep 1, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> So why on earth are we having this discussion? That disk has 3.47 TB free space!!!!
> _As long as you do not copy original images to this disk_, it will take you a few centuries to fill this up with your Lightroom catalog and (smart) previews alone.



Hi Johan,
I am asking for advice because I have it for less than a year and it seems to be filling faster than I thought and since I think long term I just want to know what to do if that day when it's full happens. I know it just may not happen in my lifetime but what if I am wrong? I think what I should do is monitor my Catalog and Previews daily as I already do with my hard drives. If you have any other suggestions to help me clean up what you think needs to be cleaned up please let me know. I always welcome you opinion. And I will try to monitor my Catalog and Previews more closely. Do you think LR is also backing up my other Catalogs when I do a back up even if I did not open those Catalogs? Finally what about the DNG matter? When I import should I choose Copy or Copy as DNG? Looking forward as always to hearing from you.
Thank You Johan. 

John


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## Johan Elzenga (Sep 1, 2017)

John Cicchine said:


> I am asking for advice because I have it for less than a year and it seems to be filling faster than I thought and since I think long term I just want to know what to do if that day when it's full happens. I know it just may not happen in my lifetime but what if I am wrong? I think what I should do is monitor my Catalog and Previews daily as I already do with my hard drives.


John, I'm sorry to be so blunt, but I'm not going to waste any more time on this. I explained clearly that *your catalog and previews aren't the problem*. If this disk fills faster than you thought, then that's because it does not only contain the catalog and previews and backups of those catalogs, but also other stuff like images. Move these to another disk *if and when the time comes*. Right now, you have 80% free space, so there is really nothing to worry about. If you drive your car, do you also stop at every single gas station you pass on the way, just to make sure that you won't run out of gas? Or do you use the gauge to decide when you need to fill it up again? It's always good to keep an eye on things, but this is over the top. Let it go, and start shooting some pictures instead!



John Cicchine said:


> Finally what about the DNG matter? When I import should I choose Copy or Copy as DNG?


That is a never ending discussion, and I have no desire to start it all over again. Search this forum about converting to DNG and you'll find lots of argument in favour and against converting to DNG.


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## John Cicchine (Aug 29, 2017)

Hope someone can help. 

I am about to finally upgrade to LR 6. I have a 4 TB G Tech external hard drive where my LR Catalog is stored. My photos are stored on 2 other G Tech external hard drives. I may purchase a 10 TB drive when my 4 TB G Tech Catalog hard drive is almost full but I heard that on a Mac in Disk Utility I can make a hard drive's capacity larger by using what is called a "Concatenated" setup linking more then one drive into several drives set up to be one. I heard I can do that with my Time Machine back up drives but can I put together several drives to make one big Catalog drive? I prefer to do this because I do not want to start another LR catalog whenever my LR Catalog hard drive is filled. Please know also that I plan to finally upgrade to High Sierra in about a month too. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank You all very much. 

John


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## Roelof Moorlag (Sep 1, 2017)

John Cicchine said:


> Finally what about the DNG matter? When I import should I choose Copy or Copy as DNG?


Lots of argument pro and con DNG (do a search on this forum) but in the 'free space' discussion it wil hardly play any roll


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## John Cicchine (Sep 2, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> John, I'm sorry to be so blunt, but I'm not going to waste any more time on this. I explained clearly that *your catalog and previews aren't the problem*. If this disk fills faster than you thought, then that's because it does not only contain the catalog and previews and backups of those catalogs, but also other stuff like images. Move these to another disk *if and when the time comes*. Right now, you have 80% free space, so there is really nothing to worry about. If you drive your car, do you also stop at every single gas station you pass on the way, just to make sure that you won't run out of gas? Or do you use the gauge to decide when you need to fill it up again? It's always good to keep an eye on things, but this is over the top. Let it go, and start shooting some pictures instead!
> 
> 
> That is a never ending discussion, and I have no desire to start it all over again. Search this forum about converting to DNG and you'll find lots of argument in favour and against converting to DNG.



Hi Johan,
Not a problem at all. I understand your point and I appreciate your patience. In the meantime I will just continue to monitor things on my Catalog hard drive and take it from there. As for the DNG matter I will do as you say and I have in fact began already online and from the little I have found so far there does in fact seem to be quite a bit of Pro and Con discussions about it. For now I will put this matter to rest. But I hope you will not mind it if I ask your advice on other matters in the future. 
Thank You once again Johan.

John


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## John Cicchine (Sep 2, 2017)

Roelof Moorlag said:


> Lots of argument pro and con DNG (do a search on this forum) but in the 'free space' discussion it wil hardly play any roll



Thank You Roelof.

John


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## Johan Elzenga (Sep 2, 2017)

John, feel free to ask me anything if you have a problem. I'm always willing to try to help. But it has to be a realistic issue, not something that may or may not happen ten years from now.


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## John Cicchine (Sep 3, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> John, feel free to ask me anything if you have a problem. I'm always willing to try to help. But it has to be a realistic issue, not something that may or may not happen ten years from now.



Hi Johan,
Yes I see your point. As always I truly appreciate your help and I will for sure be seeking your advice in the future. It's good knowing that I can. Chat with you soon my friend.

John


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