thumbnails load slowly

Question

I'm using Lightroom 14.3.1 on a 2017 iMac Pro. I have about 10k picture files stored on a 4TB external drive, taking up about 210GB on the drive.

I have a number of folders in lightroom, typically organized by the place pictures were taken. The number of files in a folder range from just a few (under 5) to many (over 1,500).

When I select a folder to open in the Library that contains few or many pics, it takes some time for the thumbnails to open. This has not always been the case.

Anyone have suggestions about how to make them load faster? Thanks.

Conrad_C · Answer

Thumbnails are previews, stored in the preview cache, which is in the same folder of the catalog. So one thing to look at is which volume the catalog folder is stored on.

Is the catalog folder stored on the Mac’s internal storage, or the external 4TB drive with the photos?

If it’s stored on the external 4TB drive, is that a hard disk drive (HDD) or a solid state drive (SSD)?

If it’s an external SSD, how is it connected? Such as:

USB 3 using a 5 Gb/sec enclosure/cable

USB 3 using 10 Gb/sec

Thunderbolt using 40Gb/sec

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