Best workflow for using lightroom on external drive? SSD?

[eadkins]

I started cloning two external seagate drives to store all my RAW files and keep a backup. The drives also have my LR catalog.

It's made organzing the images much easier and and I'm able to keep my internal stoarge on mbp freed up. 

However, It's a bit cumbersome to have a laptop but need to plug in the external drive anytime I want to edit. Kinda defeats the point of the laptop in the first place bc I don't want to risk damaging the delicate external hd toting it around to coffee shops or even to my couch. Anywhere but my desk feels like a risk since i've learned my lesson in the past over having a dropped external drive. Not only that, Since they are powered and I am working all day on the computer it feels like it could easily fail by just being overworked and powering the catalog.

Now that external ssd are getting cheaper (esp. since i buy them in pairs) I am thinking when these two fill up I will move over to ssd. But I also started thinking, does everyone plug in an external drive when they edit? I feel like there may be a better way that I am missing. 

Is there a way to work off the laptop with just the catalog, export, but have all the raw files stored on the external drive?

[williamdinbc]

Hello eadkins, I'm looking forward to reading the answer to this question of yours. LR Classic is trying to Sync/Copy my 25GB Photo Libray up to my Onedrive storage. I too would love to figure out how to work off of a single external drive.

[dj_paige]

Hello eadkins, I'm looking forward to reading the answer to this question of yours. LR Classic is trying to Sync/Copy my 25GB Photo Libray up to my Onedrive storage. I too would love to figure out how to work off of a single external drive.

By @williamdinbc

Honestly, @williamdinbc I think this is a different question that belongs in a different thread. Also I really don't know what you mean for LrC to "Sync/Copy my 25GB Photo Libray up to my Onedrive storage". So please start a new thread for this.

[williamdinbc]

dj_paige, thanks for responding, I'll follow your recommendation on this.

[F. McLion]

Please read about using Smart Previews: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/lightroom-smart-previews.html

Come back here for further questions.

[Jim Wilde]

Yes, Smart Previews could be an answer, as that would mean access to the external drive would not be needed when editing the images. However, this would require the catalog folder to be moved from the external drive to the laptop's internal drive (the smart previews folder/package needs to be in the same folder as the associated catalog file). Also exports when using only the smart previews would be limited to 2560 pixels on the long edge (the size of the smart preview).

[yamato7]

一番スマートな使い方は、

家ではLightroomClassic。

外出先ではLightroom（クラウド版）。

両ソフトは写真のデータを同期する事で共有することができます。

[Pierce Rivers]

So....nobody had an answer for this other than "store smart previews on your laptop that will eat up the storage space on your laptop," as they once did to me?

Maybe there's an easy way to back up from your main SSD to another SSD, Time-Machine-style, other than just manually copying the *entire* Lightroom Catalog?  That's what I do, but it's awfully clunky.

[Jim Wilde]

Not sure what other answer there could be. The OP wanted to know how they could use LrC on their laptop without having to take an external drive, and the only way is to have catalog and previews (library and smart) on the laptop's hard drive.

Speaking personally, last year I switched from a desktop Mac Mini to a new MacBookPro laptop, and knowing that I would be away for 3 months I went for a 4TB internal drive which is big enough to store my catalog and image library with ease. Sure, I also took external drives with me for backup, but they only need to be connected as and when.

[Pierce Rivers]

Thanks for the answer.  Yeah, it seems that none of the options are inexpensive.