My Photo Storage System: External Hard Drives and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
Author’s Note: There are many different ways to put together a digital photography image storage system. Image storage is not a “one-size fits all” problem. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom allows for multiple solutions to the “image storage puzzle.” With Photoshop Lightroom, you are always free to choose where to store your digital images and where to store your Photoshop Lightroom Catalog database files. I urge you to carefully study this tutorial on Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog Creation and Image Storage Fundamentals before proceeding on to the rest of this article. Please understand that the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog and image storage system that works wonders for me may not be the ideal solution for you.
My Image Storage Solution: External Hard Drives
Right now, I have 40,000+ digital images in my Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog. Among the 40,000+ images are photos that have been published in magazines, pictures that have been used in national advertisements, precious family photos, and important personal work. The hard drive space required to store all of these images, plus my Photoshop Lightroom Catalog database files, exceeds the total storage capacity of my MacBookPro’s internal hard drive. I considered replacing the hard drive in my laptop with a bigger disk, but more storage space is not my only need. After pondering the issue for a little while, I came up with this list that takes other issues into consideration.
My Image Storage Hardware Needs:
- I want to store all of my existing digital images, and my Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog, on a single hard drive.
- I need an image storage system that is easily expanded, or replaced, as I add more images into my holdings.
- I need an image storage system that is easy to backup before a disaster strikes.
- I need to be able to work with my images, and my Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog, using either my laptop or my desktop computer. I need a storage system that makes it easy for me to switch from one machine to another.
- Finally, I need an image storage system that is easy to transport from place to place since I am often out on the road teaching Adobe Photoshop Lightroom seminars and leading digital photography field workshops.
After careful analysis, the answer was clear that storing all of my images and my Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog on the right type of external hard drive is the best way to meet all of these demands. After much experimentation, I have come to rely on a professional-grade RAID-0 (stripped) external hard drive for my primary image storage.
OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Mini RAID External Hard Drive
There is an enormous difference in performance between a professional-grade RAID-0 external drive, like the OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Mini (7200rpm Version) that I use for my primary image storage, and the average low-cost consumer-grade USB external hard drive. Obviously, a “pocket-size” RAID-0 external hard drive is not the right storage solution for everyone, but this drive works well for me. Our article on brands and models of external hard drivesoffers more advice and specific recommendations on this topic.
My 1.5 terabyte external hard drive provides the enormous amount of storage space that I need to hold a decade’s worth of digital images. I splurged on the fancy RAID-0 external disk because it can read and write at a much faster rate then an ordinary hard drive. A FireWire 800 port is currently my fastest option, so this is the port that I use to connect my RAID-0 external hard drive to the main computer which gives it a bit of a performance boost. With newer hardware, I could get even more performance out of an eSATA or a Thunderbolt connector.
Another reason I chose to pay a premium for a “mini” external RAID-0 drive is because it fits beautifully in a waterproof, impact-resistant, military-grade protective Pelican 1200 Case 
Because all of my images and my Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog are on the external drive, my entire photographic library is portable. This is an important detail for me because I occasionally get phone calls, or frantic emails, from photo editors who want to license one of my images for immediate use in their publication. Due to the wonders of “Murphy’s Law,” I seem to only get these emergency phone calls when I am out on the road instead of when I am sitting at home with my main computer. Telling a potential buyer that I cannot deliver the file they want for weeks, or months, usually kills the deal. This was a major source of stress for me until I moved all of my images and my Lightroom Catalog over to the external hard drive. Now I can travel around teaching workshops and seminars without this fear. As long as I have my primary image storage disk with me, I have access to all of my images!
Using an external hard drive for my primary image storage also makes it easy for me to switch back and forth between multiple computers. I need to make it clear here that Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is not a network-ready application. You cannot use your Photoshop Lightroom Catalog with more than one machine at a time. This program is not designed for simultaneous use by multiple workstations, but this limitation is not a problem for me because I only need to use one computer at a time. If I can connect my RAID 0 drive to my desktop computer, then I have instant access to all of my photos and my Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog. When I connect this external disk to my laptop, I immediately enjoy the same capabilities.
Since I have the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom application installed on both computers, I can pick up right where I left off in my one Lightroom Catalog as soon as the RAID-0 disk is connected. I tried using separate Photoshop Lightroom Catalogs on each computer, but it was confusing, inefficient, and clumsy. Now I don’t need to deal with the confusion of multiple catalogs, or mess with sophisticated synchronization routines, to work with more than one computer because all of my photographic information is stored on one external drive and this makes my life much easier.
There is great danger lurking in my image storage system. If I don’t prepare for disaster, then I will lose everything when my RAID-0 external hard drive fails. My external hard drive, like all other hard drives, will eventually fail. Their meltdown is inevitable. Thus, part two of my image storage system is to plan and prepare for total disk failure. Sitting right beside my RAID-0 external hard drive are other lower-priced external disks. These disks, which work as my backup hard drives, do not need to be fancy RAID-0 drives. They are “clones” of my primary storage disk and my computer’s internal hard drives. I have Professional-Grade Backup Plans that I stick to everyday. Our storage systems may differ. Our hardware, software, and our style of photography may differ. What is universal, though, is the need for a backup system. Do not let the failure of one electronic device destroy a lifetime’s worth of precious photography.
Filed Under: (01) Getting Started • (04) Computer Hardware Advice • Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Tutorials
About the Author: David Marx is a digital photography instructor whose engaging teaching style inspires photographers of all skill levels. David is an Adobe Certified Photoshop and Photoshop Lightroom Expert. David has led Adobe Photoshop / Photoshop Lightroom seminars and digital photography field workshops for The Rocky Mountain School of Photography, FirstLight Workshops, The American Society of Media Photographers, and the world-renowned Blackberry Farm Resort. To learn more about David's software seminars and field photography workshops, please visit 
Dear David,
I have a question about my setup, and about performance.
I have just moved from PC to mac and am about to set up the system. At the moment I have all my photos (files) + catalog on an external (NTFS) drive, and I plan to move all this to a new external drive which will be mac os formatted.
I plan to get a Time Capsule to do the backup via time machine.
The idea was to work only with an external drive since we have two macs at home and I want to be able to work on both.
However: My laptop is an MB Air (with extra everything in terms of RAM etc) – I know that it might be a bit weak for heavy editing, but my main concern is that it only has USB 2.0 ports.
So – three questions:
1) if I keep the lightoom catalog on the external drive, and the interface is USB 2.0, will it not be painfully slow to work with?
2) should I instead put the catalog on my internal drive, is it possible to transfer it to the external drive when I need to, and then transfer it back when I am on my computer? Or will this create a lot of problems?
3) given my slow setup, and that I have some 25000 photos in the catalog – is it still wise to use a single catalog?
kind regards, Lisa
Dear Lisa,
Good questions. Let me answer them in reverse order. 3) I strongly suggest using a single catalog for all of your images. Lightroom can easily handle 25,000+ photos and the complexity of maintaining additional catalogs does not warrant the minor performance boost. 2) You can move your Lightroom catalog from drive to drive at any time. See our tutorial on how to move your Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog to an external drive. Reverse the process if you want to move it back from the internal to the external. The only catch is that your drives can only connect via USB which means that this transfer will be slow going each time. 1) Keeping your Catalog on the internal drive dodges the transfer slowdown in question 2 and it dodges the slow read / write speed inherent in USB drives. I think this is the best solution for you! Keep the Catalog on the internal and the images on the external!
Enjoy the new toys!
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David Marx
David,
I found your sage advice quite compelling and decided to try working from an external drive to test performance and my comfort. What I found after I had moved my library files to the external drive was that some of my DNG files were corrupt and unreadable by LR. This wasn’t a huge deal because I still had my original files to move back to.
Before I moved the files I erased and formatted the drive (a WD MyBook FW400) so the drive should have been properly prepared.
My question is can you suggest a method for verifying files once they have been moved. The corruption appeared to be random and I would hate to check each image in my library before committing.
Thanks.
Dear Wes Cargill,
It is possible that moving the files created the corruption but it is also possible that the dng files on your internal hard drive were already corrupted…. Data validation techniques vary from operating system to operating system. This is a huge topic but fortunately you can find an excellent discussion of data validation methods from the dpbestflow.org project that the American Society of Media Photographers created a few years ago.
Best of luck and I am glad to hear that you had redundant copies of every file so that nothing has been lost!
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David Marx
Hello David,
Thank you for the advice on managing images – I have been searching for a solution like this for a while !
Just to add something about disks: what counts is the overall read / write transfer rate. There are various components to take into account; the actual R/W speed – this can be increased with RAID 0 striping – the more disks in the array and the faster speed gets. A 2 disk array is a good start but 5 is better. The R/W caching speed of the controller plays a part too, along with the data transmission system ( serial cable link). Then there is the issue of file size. Im my case each file is a 300MB – 800MB image, for which I use two internal eSATA drives spinning at 10,000 RPM.
Is there a good way or any benefit to utilising Time Capsule? I’m considering adding a MBP, and would like to be able to work on images or key wording/file management with either my iMac or MBP
faling that I guess Im looking at purchasing a portable ext as per your configuration and then using TC for back ups?
J
What about when you eventually run out of hard drive space capacity and then you have the problem of having not enough room (1TB/2TB/3TB as time goes on) to do a duplicate backup of a single hard drive storing all of your original data?
Dear Michael,
When I outgrow an external disk I buy a bigger one and then transfer all of the data from the old drive to the new one. It’s a lot easier to replace an external drive then an internal disk especially if you are using a laptop!
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David Marx
I use LR3 with one main folder that holds all of over 16,000 images. I store them on a 1TB internal drive in my PC. I am swiftly running out of storage space & need to find a solution to my problem of having more data than one drive can hold. I am not aware of anything larger than 1.5TB…
I have gone through all my image folders & added keyword denoting the year taken so I can put each year of images on a separate external drive as necessary. I would like to have only one catalogue & simply attach the appropriate drive to access images in years other than the current one.
Is this possible to do? All the info I can find assumes the images will fit on a single hard drive…
Help Please!
Dear Cal Mitchener,
Moving each year to a separate drive is an adequate solution. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom has no problem indexing files on multiple drives. There are no technical barriers to your solution but it is not my first choice. I think that you will eventually find it cumbersome to turn on / off each and every disk when you want to put together a project that spans multiple years. Each drive too will require a backup.
I am surprised though that only 16,000 photos fills a 1TB drive. It’s possible if you are working with huge scans or medium format digital files but that seems like an awful lot of disk space for such a relatively small number of images. Are you sure that there aren’t other things filling up that external disk?
Finally, I would suggest searching a little harder for a bigger drive. My favorite drive, the OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Performance RAID 0 Drive, is currently available in sizes up to 6.0TB! You might find our article on recommended external hard drives useful in your search.
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David Marx
I’ve been using your strategy for a few years. An external drive with a backup at my work and home computers works like a dream (I sleep better).
Can you share your thoughts about using multiple catalogs and the need to do so as your catalog grows? Also, when creating a new catalog, is it possible to create it with the look of the last one, with all the presets, user templates etc. I have been using?
Thanks.
Dear Peter,
Single catalogs vs. multiple catalogs is a classic Adobe Photoshop Lightroom dork debate. Both options have advantages and disadvantages. I am convinced that maintaining one all inclusive Lightroom catalog is the most efficient solution to my image storage needs. Again, not all experts agree.
Lightroom version 1 had a cap on its catalog size. Lightroom v.1 catalogs were capped at 100000 images but this I believe that this capacity limit has been removed in Lightroom version 3. My suggestion is to improve your hardware before breaking a coherent image library apart into multiple catalogs. In my opinion, buying a better external hard drive, adding more ram to your system, or purchasing a computer with faster processing cores is a better way to handle catalog growth.
There are two reasons why I am opposed to multiple catalogs for most Lightroom users. First, having to search through multiple catalogs to find a file is inefficient. This problem is compounded when you want to pull together images from multiple catalogs for a single project like a portfolio or a slide show. Imagine, for example, that you want to put together a web page of your favorite images. If all of the images are indexed in a single Lightroom catalog then it’s easy to find them and link them together with a Collection. This process is not easy when you have to open up multiple catalogs, perform multiple metadata searches, and still figure out a way to tie all the files together for the web site.
My second argument against multiple catalogs is complexity. Most–perhaps not you–but most of the Lightroom users I teach and tutor have a hard enough time maintaining a single catalog. I maybe underestimating my audience but I don’t think most Lightroom users understand what data is stored at the file vs. catalog level and how to back this information up. Using multiple catalogs just magnifies this problem. I am a big believer in the old adage “Keep it Simple Stupid.” Backing up one set of images and one Lightroom catalog is easier then backing up two catalogs…. Again, these are all opinions and no two photographers have the exact same needs.
Your last question is a tricky one. It’s easy to copy all of your presets and templates from catalog to catalog but there are certain preference switches particularly the ones in the Catalog Settings panel that you need to set every time. For some reason these switches are not stored in a global preference file so you have to check them every time you create a new index.
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David Marx
Are you suggesting that the LR Catalog should be on a dedicated external hard drive, nothing else on it?
Is the reason portability? Any reason not to store LR on internal MacPro with text docs & other data? Adding external backups of course, one being OS/apps/bootable.
Revising my b/u system and find it confusing.
Thsnk you.
Dear Libby Collins,
I suggest storing your Lightroom Catalog wherever it makes the most sense. An external drive is the best solution for me with my hardware and my workflow. It may not be the best solution for you. I use a RAID 0 (stripped) ultra-fast external hard drive to store my Lightroom Catalog and all of my photographs. This drive is connected to my computer’s fastest port (Firewire 800). This disk can read and write faster then my internal hard drive and it offers way more storage space. Plus, I can connect this disk to my desktop computer and have instant access to my Lightroom catalog and all of my photos. I am delighted with the speed, portability, and ease of backup that I get from this setup but I am not sure that this is the best setup for you!
Data storage is not a “one-size fits all” question. Fortunately it is easy to move a Lightroom catalog from one drive to another and to move images from an internal to an external disk. I encourage you to think about your needs– be they speed, storage space, or portability–and find your own ideal solution. No matter what though please don’t forget to back everything up.
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David Marx
Excellent and useful article. I have forwarded it to others.
I assume that there is no reason NOT to store the LR Catalog on my MacPro, with external drives to back it up. Except for portability of an external which holds the LR Catalog.Put another way, is there any reason inherent in the LR Catalog for not storing LR Catalog on a Mac Pro. And do you consider a Mac Pro as reliable as externals. (I’ve had 3 externals fail, so far Mac pro hums along.)
Am revising my b/u system. All drives are maxed out. Thinking of Main HD to be Mac Pro since it has 2 free bays (accept 3GB each?), and redundant backups: one 2 TB external and one RAID. This of course isn’t a portable system, and doesn’t allow for a b/u disc to go to fireproof safe/closet/neighbor. Hard to design a b/u system that does it all and is affordable.
Thanks for your good information.
David,
I’ve been using LR from the get-go and am LR3 today. I was not the most experienced beginner in database building and file naming and now I’d like to rebuild the catalog with a renaming/renumbering scheme that makes a lot more sense. The problem seems is that the import doesn’t carry the file edits along with it! I get the current file, but can no longer reference the edit steps of my old edits. (l haven’t used the auto-write metadata to XMP option)
There files are mostly RAW and the early ones could really stand updating with new techniques/tools. But so far it looks like I have to go through all the files in the old data base one at a time and do any reworking before importing to the new catalog.
I’m hoping you can tell me of a way to move photos to the new catalog without losing visibility to the old edit actions.
Enjoy your work/advice very much…
George….
I recently upgraded to LR 3 from LR 1 and had it set up so the catalogue and images are on MY Photos on the PC – not knowing any reason not to. Upon seeing your excellent set up video today I went and bought 2 ext. harddrives. How can I now undo my mess and move everything onto the ext. harddrives?
Dear John,
Easy! We have a couple of videos on ways to move your images from drive to drive with Lightroom and another video tutorial on how to move your Adobe Photoshop Lightroom catalog over to an external hard drive.
If I were you though I would backup your entire internal drive first. Back everything up before you make major changes like this so that you can revert if something goes wrong. Once you are convinced that everything worked then you can reformat the backup disk and use it to protect your primary photo storage.
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David Marx
Hi David,
I work with both a PC and a laptop at seperate locations and after working on one machine I wish to update the other by using a flash drive combined with the copy & replace facility. I then need to back up the pc to an external hard drive using Sync Toy.
This method worked quite well when I used PS7 with Tiff and Jpegs but now that Iam using Lightroom 3 and shooting raw files I am having trouble working out how to cope with the intricacies of the various LR files.
Can you advise on how to set up for my specific needs as most people try to sell me the external hard drive solution but for many good reasons this would not be suitable for my purposes.
Dear Geoff,
Sorry about the delay. I am not sure how you were keeping two computers synchronized using a flash drive. I am guessing that you used the flash drive to move only the images that you had just changed from one machine to another. This may have worked before you started using Lightroom but it is not going to work now. It’s not going to work because Adobe Photoshop Lightroom creates a database that references (indexes) your images. From here on you need to synchronize both your image files (regardless of file format) and your Lightroom Catalog files. This is why a high-quality high-speed external hard drive that you can use with either computer is probably the best solution.
If an external disk is truly out of the question then you might consider setting up Lightroom so that it stores your catalog inside of a folder which automatically synchronizes to all other machines through a cloud application like Dropbox. Gene McCullagh has a great article on using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Dropbox on his LightroomSecrets blog.
You will also want to study up on when and how to save your work down to the file level using Lightroom. My advice would be to turn on the Automatically Write to XMP preference switch and never turn it off but this may slow down the synchronization process.
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David Marx
Thanks for sharing.
I am also using Photoshop & Lr3 in my daily work. I have been for a long time desperately looking for a way to store and work on my images on a network environment, and could not find any!!!!
I need to be able to color correct the images on Lr and do the design on Photoshop and then print the images back from Lr.
Please I need your help.
PS: I not the only user on the LAN.
Thanks
Dear AbuAbdullah,
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom can read and write to images that are stored on a network drive but the Lightroom catalog must be stored on a non-network disk. In my opinion this makes the program a poor choice for network environments. You might find that using synchronized folders and a cloud application is an adequate solution. I am a big fan of Dropbox for this sort of workaround solution. Click here for an excellent article on how to use Lightroom and Dropbox together from Gene McCullagh.
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David Marx
Hi David,
Love your tutorials, especially setting up right. I have watched these over and over and installed correctly on my desktop with external hard Drive. I got a new Laptop for Christmas and now want to be able to operate Lightroom 3( same Lightroom for desktop )with same external drive. In this way I will be able to carry Laptop +external with me an operate away as normal. My problem is when I try to get Lightroom to auto open/store to my Catalog a message come up telling me ” Lightroom cannot use the Catolag named ——- Catalog because it is not writable and cannot be opened”. “This could be caused by incorrect permissions or because another Lightroom application is using the catalog. You may try to correct the problem or you may select a different catalog” When I installed Lightroom into Laptop double click +ALt, because the catalog is already on my external drive I press Choose a Different Calalog and select it. Then the above message crops up. Can you help. Sorry for the long way of explaining. Continue with the good work.
Regards
Bernard
Dear Bernard Fitzgerald,
If I understand your setup / question correctly then I have to ask how is the external drive formatted? Are both of your computers using the same operating system and did you format the external drive for that optimal use with your operating system before you started using it? I suspect that you are trying to use a drive that has been formatted for a PC with a Mac or vice versa. If I am right then you either need to pick a new format for the external drive or add some additional software so that one of your machines can both read and write using the other operating systems data block style.
My other thought is that you are trying to use a network attached drive. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom catalog’s cannot be stored on NAS disks. If these guesses are completely wrong or if you are still having trouble please write me back and tell us more about each machine and the drive’s setup.
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David Marx
David,
I’ve been working on images in Lightroom and Photoshop that are stored on my internal MacBook Pro hard drive then manually backing up images onto two hard drives for years. I do extensive work in Photoshop to my images. Some files are 3GB. For this reason working from my internal drive then backing up using CCC set to incremental backup of selected items seems to make sense (onto two external drives). Any reason why this approach isn’t recommended?
Thanks
Dear Erik Schmitt,
I think that using Carbon Copy Cloner to make incremental backups for you is safer, easier, and far more efficient then trying to drag files from drive to drive yourself. I can’t think of any reason why this, or some other backup utility, wouldn’t make your life easier! You might also find that using working from a fast Firewire 800 RAID 0 Stripped External Hard Drive is faster then your three year old internal hard drive for such big files. Still “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it….”
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David marx
David,
I use to be able to Edit image in Photoshop from LR (photo>Edit in>PS) and the selected image will open in PS (and save it back to LR) but now the image won’t open in PS (the PS opened but no image in it) when I use the LR from the new HD.
Did I miss a step somewhere when I transfer old HD to new HD? I do use Carbon Copy Cloner when I do backup.
David,
I am also need to replace a old external HD with a new larger one. I follow what you told Joel to do but it didn’t show any images/files were missing. It only ask me if I want to do catalog backup.
It seems I can use the new HD right away without the step 4 (In the Folders panel right-click on your top level folder and then click on the “Locate Missing Folder” button. Guide the dialog over to this folder on the new drive and then you are all done).
I upload a few new images to the new HD but I do need to make sure they upload to the right place at this step.
Did I missing something?
Dear Sabrina,
What are the name’s of the Hard Drives? Are you sure that your Lightroom catalog is looking for files on the new disk rather then the old one? If so, and if nothing is missing, then I would say that you are all set. If you are in the right catalog, and Lightroom is referencing files on the right drive, then there is nothing to worry about.
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David Marx
Dear David,
I was contemplating you solution, which i like. There is one thing that botheres me though. As you mentioned, when on the road it is very easy to bring a small/portable drive with you. Although, when you get home, if this is not your primaty storage system, then you end up saving as catalog and importing it into the primary storage drive (the one thats heavy and always stays at home). HOw would you propose to deal with this problem if you wanted to maintain one catalog for all your files? Thanks so much for your time.
Dear Darya,
You are right about the added complexity that traveling without my main catalog creates however the solution is just to create a temporary catalog while I am away from the office. While I am out on the road I create a “Road Catalog” and when I get home I import (meaning merge) this catalog and all of its files into my main photo library catalog. Once everything has been successfully merged, and the new images have been backed up to another external drive, I wipe out the road catalog. It’s really not hard as long as you turn on the Automatically Write Changes to XMP preference switch and stay away from features like Collections, Pick / Reject Flags, and Virtual Copies while you are working in the road catalog.
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David Marx
Hi David,
Thanks so much for your tutorials…I would be lost without them. Question for you…you said that once we set up the hard drive with the Photos Go Here folder and the “my name” catalogue I can simply go into the catalogue and click on lrcat to get into photoshop. I guess I am just confused because I have moved some of my photos to the Photos Go Here folder, but the pictures aren’t showing up when I open LR from lrcat. I don’t know if they are supposed to or not…my understanding is that I work on LR from my laptop not the HD? Can you explain.
Thanks!!
Dear Bailey,
I can think of two reasons why your images might not show up in your new Lightroom catalog. One possibility is that you are opening the wrong catalog. Make sure that you are double-clicking on the right .lrcat file and that you set this one to be the new default in the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom preferences menus.
The other option is that you moved the files into your Photos Go Here folder but never added them into your index. Did you use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom’s Import and Move feature to get these files to your external hard drive? If not, did you use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom’s Import with Add option to create a reference point for them inside the Photos Go Here folder without moving or copying them again? I suspect that you dragged them into this folder using your operating system but have never Imported them which means that there is no reference point for these images yet inside your Lightroom catalog.
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David Marx
Hello.. I thought I would mention for Acronis True Image Home 2011; I found an unadvertised deal good till November 30th for a (2) License pack including the plus pack for $79.
http://www.acronis.com/specialoffers/
David, I suppose you could probably shed light on the Plus Pac, but what I have been told by techs at Acronis is that; unlike using True Image Home without the plus pack, with it enables seamless restoration to totally different hardware. If that is so, it appealed to me for my off site image… If my computer gets stolen or burned. I can get a complete new system even if it has a different operating system and restore it right where I left off. Are you familiar?
I use Photoshop Elements, and I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t learned how to use the organizing features yet…but I desperately need to as my photo library is getting very DISorganized. Should I invest in Lightroom or is Elements all that I need? By the way, I do lots of nature/underwater photography and would like to be able to cross-reference my pictures…dates, sites, subjects, etc. THANKS!
Dear Cheryl,
We will need to know a bit more about you before we can help you with this decision! Both Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop Elements are wonderful programs. Both will allow you to sort through your images using metadata. Check out our video on Searching with Metadata in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for a quick demonstration of this powerful concept. Our movie is about Lightroom but I could have made a similar one using Elements!
We have a post on how Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop CS5 differ that might help. I should add too that for some photographers the solution is to use both Lightroom and Elements! Each program has its own strengths and weaknesses.
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David Marx
Being quite new to this I understand that LR Software should be on the main C: drive while LR catalog and photos should be on an external drive?
Dear Magne,
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is a professional-grade image management program. This means that there are no rules only possibilities. Yes, the application need to be installed on your internal drive but you can decide where to store your images and your Lightroom index. This tutorial on Adobe Photoshop Lightroom catalog creation might help you with this mechanics involved in this decision.
Since I am a laptop user, and a traveling photographer, I advocate storing your images and your catalog externally. Not everyone agrees nor does this system make sense for every photographer. This is why I love Adobe’s products. They have the left the choice up to each user because this is not a “one-size fits all” world. I should add here too that these decisions are not permanent. You can try storage systems and then move to another method. It’s takes some work but thanks to Adobe the choice remains flexible.
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David Marx
Hi David,
I have taken your advice and set up Lighroom 3 with the use of 2 external hard drives (2.0 Lacie USB)
I had already set up LR…and then I saw your video and I now have a LR catalogue on my internal drive and my first external (storage drive)but have instructed LR to always use the first external drive.
So far so good I hope….but I have two main questions for you please.
1.) I ticked the back up LR pictures on import box and I intend to store these on external drive no 2. (in addition to the pictures being put in a ‘my lightroom pictures’ folder on hard drive no 1). However, with my first catalogue ‘Bulgaria’ it just scattered them in there individually. Shoud I have manually set up a separate folder called ‘Bulgaria’ on the second external hard drive. And would I need to do this each time I import new pictures into lightroom – ie create a file for them in hard drive no 2. (I thought by ticking the back up pics on import box this would be done automatically – but I think I may have been mistaken.Please advise.
2.) Could you please tell me how to back up my catalogue (as opposed to my pictures) as I find this part of housekeeping a bit confusing.
Thanks,
Phil
Dear Phil Shanahan,
Sorry about the delay. Your questions got buried. Apologies. First, I don’t like the backup on import option. As you point out it does not automatically mirror your folders names from the primary. Unless you take the time to create the same folder structure on import this can cause unnecessary confusion. Second and far worse, the files that go to that drive are not automatically updated. As you work in Lightroom– adding keywords, removing dust spots, etc– this information is never passed on to the second copy :<. This means that if you had to go back and use one of these files (the ones on the second drive) that you will have to do every bit of work over again. In my opinion, it is a stupid switch and a poor substitute for a real backup system.
You would be far better off using good backup software to automatically mirror everything from your primary external hard drive over to a backup disk. See this article and video on Backing up a Mac with Carbon Copy Cloner or this one on Backing up a Windows Computer using Acronis True Image for more advice on how to mirror one external hard drive to another.
Using good software to mirror one drive to another also answers your second question assuming that your catalog lives on the primary external drive. If you followed our advice in Lightoom 3 Setup and Catalog Creation or if you moved your catalog over to the external disk then you should be all set since the backup software will copy everything from the primary disk to the secondary.
If you want additional piece of mine then you can set up Lightroom to make additional copies of your catalog file on a daily, weekly, monthly schedule. See Getting Started Right: Lightroom 3 Critical Preference Menus for a little bit more on this switch. I don’t make a big deal though about Lightroom’s integrate backup switch though because it only protects your .lrcat file. It does nothing to protect your precious images and it will allow you to put it’s catalog backups onto the same disk as your working .lrcat file. This is helpful if your catalog file gets corrupted but it is totally useless if the whole drive fails…..
The best thing you can do is to use two hard drives and have good software backup everything for you everyday.
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David
Scott,
If you are looking for an eSATA in a laptop the Dell 1558 laptop [Although it is not a MAC :< )] I recently purchased does have an eSATA connection.
Jack
david, thanks for the quick reply. as a follow up question… i am not trying to connect the external HD simultaneously (so not via a network?) but what i am trying to do is to say, i have both the external HDs connected to my imac at home but occasionally, when i travel, i take my macbook pro with me, and if i take one of the external HD with me, connect it my macbook pro, and download some of the new pics into the external HD, when i return home and connect the external HD back to the imac, would it cause any prob? the LR3 in imac should be pointing to the same catelog BUT some new pics has been added using another computer with its installed LR3 also points to the same catalog. is it possible to do that?
also, thanks for the tips on CCC. when you say daisy-chain, do you mean i can use firewire to connect like this: ext-ext-imac, instead of the obvious ext-imac-ext? i would assume imac has to be on for CCC to run, right? would the process slow down the computer a lot (if say, i am editing word documents at the same time)?
i hope i am making sense out of the first question. many thanks for your expert advice!
Dear Bryan,
1. There are lots of ways to move both your catalog and your images from drive to drive. We have video tutorials on how to move files from your internal drive to a new Lightroom catalog on your external here. We also have a video on how to move your catalog from an internal disk to external disk here. If your files were already on an external disk then I would suggest using Carbon Copy Cloner to copy everything from the little drive to the bigger one.
2. I would verify that all of your photos are on the new external and then I would make a complete backup of this disk to another external before I delete anything. I like the idea that you always have two copies of any file on two separate hard drives. See http://thelightroomlab.com/2010/03/backing-up-a-mac-with-carbon-copy-cloner/ for more on how i backup one external drive to another.
3. Once your catalog and your images are on the external you can start to work with the same catalog on both computers. The catch though is that you can only work with one machine at a time since the drive must be connected to that computer. Lightroom is not a network ready program and it does not allow multiple machines to access the same database at the same time. I think this may wreck your plans to “edit your pics while you are away” but it makes it really simple to pick up where you left off when moving from machine to machine. The only thing you need to configure is the preference switch that tells Lightroom what catalog to load on startup. You will want to tell Lightroom to always load the catalog on the external drive as its default. See http://thelightroomlab.com/2010/06/getting-started-right-adobe-photoshop-lightroom-3-critical-preference-menus/ for more details on this switch and on the automatically write to xmp option.
Thanks to you for the good questions.
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David
sorry, i accidentally pressed the submit button before i finished typing the last word… THANKS!!!!
hi david, excellent article!
i have been using lightroom since 1.0 and have about 20000 pics in the folder (one single folder that lightroom created in my mac HD). i have been backing up all the pics into an external HD for several years. but, as you said, my HD is now filling up and almost full.
since i am really not very computer literate, can you give me some details on the following?
1. how to “correctly” move the pics and catalog from the HD to a brand new external HD?
2. what do i need to verify before i delete the files from the mac HD? specifically, what files do i delete to reclaim the files?
3. since all my pics are in the mac HD, i could only use my desktop to access lightroom. but with the external HD route, i would be able to use my macbook pro to edit some of the pics as well. how can i set up lightroom on my imac and macbook pro so that i can use both to edit my pics (esp while i am away)? are there anything i need to watch out for? does lightroom need to “reconfigure” every time i plug in the external HD?
any information on the above
So what happens if you are on the road and in the hotel room at night the external drive goes south? You don’t have anything on your laptop, but your client in NY is screaming for those shots you took on Monday before you got on the plane. You don’t have time to wait for your assistant to fedex the backup DVD’s, anyway you have a big shoot in Chicago tomorrow and couldn’t deal with it anyway….If you are a pro, you know this scenario is not implausible.
Am I missing something here? Seems like you would be SOL, not only for the tight ad schedule of your NY client, but also for all the photos of the swimsuit models you shot today in Aruba.
Dear Chris Jones,
All sorts of disaster scenarios are possible. A clever professional might set themselves up with an online backup system like Amazon s3, MobileMe (iDisk), or even a VPN or remote desktop connection to their home computer. Assuming that the files your client wants exist somewhere and that you can access this machine via the web then there is hope. Another option would be to upload the raw files to a site like Photoshelter which allows for password protected client access. Now your client could download the files themselves even while you are on the plane to Aruba.
All things are possible and their are no guarantees. The only guaranteed outcome is that your hard drive will someday fail. If, as the ASMP, recommends you maintain three copies of every file on two different types of media with one copy off-site you increase your odds but even then there are no guarantees. In your scenario I think a third copy that we can access online is the best possible option.
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David
Hi, David. This is a great resource — thank you. Quick question, do you prefer CCC to Time Machine? If so, why.
Lux,
Sorry to hear you had trouble. I assure you that “it” works. Perhaps you could be more specific with your issues and we could help out.
-Scott
bad advice!
just tried this with LR 3 and completely didn’t work!
Scott,
Thank you for the reply. I read your other comment and that helped explain things. I’ll have to look for an eSATA drive. I do have a FireWire port, but it is one of the small ones.
Kent,
You’ll get decent performance with the FireWire 400 connection (the small one on your laptop). An eSATA drive would require an eSATA connection…something that is not built into most laptops yet.
-Scott
Kent,
Since your internal drive is partitioned, it is stilly, functionally, a single drive. If that drive fails, all data will be lost (on both partitions). When reading from or writing to one partition, read/write speeds to the other partition will be invariably affected.
I’ve not found a good reason to partition drives, though I’m certain there are many who are smarter than I who do have good reason to do so.
Take a moment to read this comment I left on the article Recommended External Hard Drives. In that comment, I acknowledge that there are some speed gains to be had by using internal drives and “hacking” drive setups to get faster read/write speeds. My conclusion, however, is that few photographers will notice the difference.
My final advice is to use external drives to store your photos (particularly on a laptop which typically only has room for one physical internal drive). Those external drives should be fast (7200 RPM) and connected via a fast connection (FireWire 800 for those using Mac, FireWire 400 for those on Windows…eSATA if you have the capability).
Best of luck,
Scott
Hi David,
I’m just returning to photography as a hobby and have never used Lightroom before. I am really glad I found this site. The information has been very educational!
I’m curious about using an external drive as your primary photo drive. Wouldn’t an internal drive always be faster than an external? My laptop (Windows 7) has the internal drive partitioned, one for the OS and the other I store my music files on. I was going to store my photos on this drive. I have two external drives, both USB 2.0. It just seems that read/write time would be faster on the internal and best to use the external drives as backup along with a copy to optical disk.
Your thoughts appreciated.
I have already imported my photos into lightroom3 , but they are on my c-drive.I would like to move to my external drive how should I do this?
Dear David,
Two methods:
1. See our article and video tutorial on Moving Folders from within Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. This method is a little cumbersome and tedious but not very difficult.
2. If all of your photos and folders full of images live inside a single top-level parent folder you could add this folder to Lightroom using the right click “Add Parent Folder” button in the Folders Panel. Once added you could quit Lightroom move this folder over to the other drive and then remove it from your internal hard drive. When you restart Lightroom it will tell you that all your files are missing but all you need to do is right-click again on the parent folder’s name in the Folder Panel and reconnect it using the Locate Missing Folder button.
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David
[...] their index (the Lightroom Catalog files) and all of their photographs on an external drive. See My Photo Storage System: Two External Hard Drives for more details on my file storage [...]
Dear Scott,
This is an excellent question and there is no absolute answer. If I am traveling say by car where space is not and issue, and if I need access to all my files, then I will pack my primary drive in a Pelican Case and take it along. The backup system never leaves the house though. It is too bulky and too risky to have both drives with me.
Since the backup drive is staying home I think its doubly important to burn a copy of each memory card to a CD / DVD. In my routine, I copy the new files into Lightroom then add the most basic metadata– where I shot the pictures and who specifically was photographed. After just a few minutes of data entry I burn all the new files to a disk using Lightroom’s integrated CD / DVD burning software. See Archives and Backup Copies for more details.
If, on the other hand, I need to travel lighter then I take the laptop, some DVDs, and a LaCie Rugged Hard Disk pocket sized external hard drive. When I am traveling light I don’t worry about bringing all of my old work along so I create a new (temporary) catalog on the computer and back it up to the LaCie.
When I get home I import this temporary catalog and all of the new photos into the main photo storage drive and then wipe it off the laptop. Martin Evening has a good tutorial on this technique here.
I hope this helps,
David
Hi David,
A big thanks for all these articles. They are fantastic. This might be a silly question, but Ill ask anyhow. I understand you two hard-drives. One is your working drive and the other is a back-up of it. When youre on the road. Do you take both of these drives with you? I have two new Western Digital 1TB drives looking to follow your system. But they are both big and bulky and each require a powered wall connection.
So do you take both drives with you? How do you provide redundancy if you had both drives in your hotel for example and they were stolen, or some other type of disaster.
Just curious is all.
Scott
[...] the table from the moment that you first start up this program. They assume that you already know what proper photo storage is and how to backup all of your precious digital [...]
[...] this program. If you need the additional background information then please click here for more on why Lightroom is best used with external drives and then click here for more information on my favorite external [...]
[...] I use external hard drives to store all of my photos and for my backups. External hard drives are great, but they must be formated properly for before you start filling them up with important information. Here’s a link to an article that I recently wrote on my storage and backup system. [...]
Hi David,
Sorry if I missed this one bit of crucial info. Now that I have 2 drives, one being set up as the ‘home’ for all things photography, the other being it’s back up… How to make the switch so when i open Aperture from my computer (i know, this is a lightroom blog but…) I can have ‘it’ recognize the photos new home in the hard drive.
This set up is obviously quite new to me so thanks for any info and all your patience. much appreciated.
Pete
Software for backing up to an external hard drive.
I use SyncToy from Microsoft, it is free and easy to use.
See this site for info http://www.pchell.com/support/synctoy.shtml
Thsi site to download http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
Dear Pete,
You are most welcome. Just one tiny semantics detail though. In my system one hard drive is the working disk and the other is its mirror image ie. its backup. I am pointing this out only because you wrote “next week I get my 2 backup drives.” I think you meant to say 2 external hard drives and maybe I am splitting hairs but there is a big difference to me between the primary external storage disk and its backup.
David
Great info! I’ve been doing the archaic thing of storing all my files on my laptop with a 250GB backing up using ‘Time machine’ but with lots of photos and editing, the space is quickly running out. Next week I get my 2 (both 1tb) back up drives and will be following your system… with my 250 still for the laptop generic backup. Thanks for the links as well!
Pete
[...] can read all about how external hard drives fit into my workflow here but that’s not the purpose of this post. This post is all about which external drives are [...]
[...] My Photo Storage System: Two External Hard Drives [...]
[...] can read all about how essential external hard drives are to my Lightroom workflow here but that’s not the purpose of this post. This post is all about which specific external [...]
Interesting…
Do you find that this technique has a significant impact on performance?
Best,
Djuna
Dear Djuna,
Performance depends upon the drive’s rotational speed and its connector. With a fast rotational speed (7200 rpm) and a fast connector (eSATA or Firewire 800), an external hard drive can perform as well or better than an internal drive. If you are looking for a top performer consider using a RAID disk like this one: LaCie 301350U 1TB 2big Quadra 2-Disk RAID Hard Drive.
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David
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