Desktop drive storage advice

Question

I'm close to running out of space on my 4TB Sandisk SSD portable data storage disk.

I thought the solution would be to just buy another SSD portable disk and run two at the same time off my laptop.

This, it seems, was not such a good idea.

It's almost impossibly slow, with constant "Lightroom not responding" error messages and I've created a mess in my folder structure.

What I'm thinking is to now go out and purchase a desktop data storage solution, something with 10TB storage which seems pretty standard and surprisingly cost effective.

I would combine both of my SSD drives onto this desk top system.

My only hesitation is the speed issue.

A HDD drive is apparently a lot slower than my current SSD drive.

However, if I store my Lightroom application and the preview file on my laptop hard drive and just have my images on a desktop HDD drive will I be frustrated with the slow speed.

Any user experience would be appreciated.

Thanks

dj_paige · Accepted Answer

Please tell us the version NUMBER of your Lightroom Classic. We need the version NUMBER and not words like "latest" or "up-to-date".

I cannot explain why your current setup with two external SSD drives would be any slower than having one 4TB SSD, unless the new SSD is malfunctioning, or the USB port is malfunctioning. There are gazillions (well, a lot) of LrC users with several external SSDs who do not experience this slowness.

Speed of disk drives where the photos are stored should have only a trivial impact on Lightroom Classic speed, so trivial that you will never notice the difference. So whether you have two external SSDs, or old style HDDs, that speed difference will not affect Lightroom Classic speed (other than trivially). People have used external HDDs for centuries* to store photos without having LrC slowness.

* -- maybe not centuries but decades ...

Now if you put the catalog file on an HDD, then you might notice a speed difference.

AxelMatt · Answer

I'm fully agreed with @dj_paige post.You would see no perfomance disadvantages if you use a HDD for you photos.The catalog and the previews should be stored on  fast SSD, My drive configuration:SSD M.2 500GB - System and applicationsHDD 6TB (SATA 6G)- PhotosSSD 500GB (SATA 6G) - Lightroom catalog and previewsWith this I'm happy about the performance.

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