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Brent Guiliano
Known Participant
May 1, 2022
Question

New external drive for Lightroom library

  • May 1, 2022
  • 2 replies
  • 296 views

Hi everyone,

My new computer should be arriving tomorrow.

With it, i've purchased a 16TB external thunderbolt drive.

I was thinking about set up - its a 4 drive raid unit.

The drive will be backed up via cloud back up.

I was initially thinking i was going to choose RAID 5 - which should leave me with about 10 TB of useable space.

But i have been thinking about maybe using it in RAID 0 and have no redunancy protection - but have more space to use.

Currently, the 8 TB drive i use it just a standard usb external and has my LR library from 2016 - current and still has about 1.8 TB left....

Also - as a secondary question - i was thinking of moving my 2022 library over to the new thunderbolt drive or maybe just using the older drive till its filled up then moving - not sure what is best

 

thanks

 

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Chris 486
Community Expert
Chris 486Community Expert
Community Expert
May 2, 2022

Hi Brent!

 

If uptime is important to you, I would recommend the RAID 5. For me, nothing is worse then losing the whole array over a single disk. If you have a good backup situation already in place and don't mind rebuilding the whole array in the event of failure then RAID 0 will work just fine to get the extra storage. Some disk arrays can give you a predictive failure alert which will allow you to swap the disk before it actually fails so that may work for you if you have that feature. hope taht helps guide you to a choice.

 

I would 100% also recommend a separate drive you can setup as a dedicated backup to your files in the event you lose your array due to another issue. You could re-use the 8 tb drive as a stop gap until you want to upgrade that to a larger capacity. as @KR Seals mentions, local and off site backups are ideal to cover in worse case disasters. Happy to provide more detail if needed! Good luck and congrats on the new tech!

KR Seals
Community Expert
KR SealsCommunity Expert
Community Expert
May 2, 2022

Are you using a Mac or Win machine? I assume Mac since you mentioned Thunderbolt.

This is my opinion only, but if you are not doing video and need the speed, there is no need for RAID. If it has 4 four TB drives in it, you would be better off with just one 16TB  Thunderbolt drive and another for backup. If your main use for storage is for files that have been imported into Lightroom Classic, drive speed hardly matters, except in import and export operations. LrC will not look at those files again except for import, export, print and when you need 1:1 previews.

Ken Seals - Nikon Z 9, Z 8, 14mm-800mm. Computer Win 11 Pro, I7-14700K, 64GB, RTX3070TI. Travel machine: 2021 MacBook Pro M1 MAX 64GB. All Adobe apps.
B
Brent GuilianoAuthor
Known Participant
May 2, 2022

yes. It's a Mac 

I wasn't really thinking about it for speed. Though I would it help while editing the photos on the drive? initially I liked the redundancy part of it if one of the drives failed 

dj_paige
dj_paige
Legend
May 2, 2022

Though I would it help while editing the photos on the drive?

 

Drive speed does not help with editing, except in the most trivial sense.

 

initially I liked the redundancy part of it if one of the drives failed

 

I don't understand, the partitions don't help if the entire 16TB drive fails

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