Catalog Backup to NAS - SLOOOW !

[MistD]

My setup:
- nas: Synology 1522+, RAID 6 ("classic" RAID 6, not SHR-2), 5 HDDs WD Red Pro 6 TB (7200 RPM)
- 10 GBe network: Mac Studio M1 Max + Synology 10 GB addon-card + QNAP 10 GB switch (QSW-2104-2T)

When Lightroom Classic performs a backup to a mounted (SMB) network share as destination the performance plummets to the ground. It's literally 10x slower than on local folder.

My catalog archive (zip file) is roughly 545 MB and it takes literally 1 second to transfer to NAS via copy/paste.
Lightroom Catalog Backup done on local folder: 14 seconds (full process)
Lightroom Catalog Backup done on NAS: 1 minute 38 seconds (full process)

* integrity test and catalog optimization enabled in both scenarios

The backup process seems to hang a lot on "Copying Catalog" and a little bit less slower but still slow on "Compressing Catalog Backup" when done on NAS.

There is clearly some inneficient process in the way Lightroom Classic deals with Catalog Backups to network shares.

Why don't you guys just "prepare and package" the backup locally and just do a simple file transfer to the NAS ? Maybe there are some technical reasons ... but it's simply 10 times slower.

Even if my time is not that long since the catalog is small ... the issue still stands. I can't imagine how this will perform on bigger catalogs, simply un-usable.

[GoldingD · Accepted solution]

There is clearly some inneficient process in the way Lightroom Classic deals with Catalog Backups to network shares

Yes, Adobe does not support LrC catalogs on a NAS or any other form of network share, so it is no surprise that they have probably done nothing to support efficient backup via LrC to a NAS.

I see you already know the solution, that being to copy the catalog from your hard drive to the NAS using your OS File manager (I would think compressing is optional)

Note, as it is best to have multiple backups, you might consider creating a normal local LrC catalog backup on to a connected hard drive. then copy that backup to the NAS, (or if you do not need it compressed just copy the catalog ) that would give you two copy's. Oh, and remember, place that local backup on a connected hard drive on a hard drive other than the one with your working catalog on it, do not store backups of working files on the same hard drive as the working file

P.S. on absolutely no circumstances, use that catalog on the NAS directly in LrC, copy it to a connected hard drive first.

[MistD]

Thanks for replying ! 🙂

Absolutely, the "live" / main catalog is stored on my internal SSD. I wished just to have my catalog backups to be saved automatically to NAS instead of any other local drive (internal or external/USB).

Since Lightroom works perfectly with RAW files stored on nas (even copying them from local to NAS within Lightroom itself), i supposed they can provide better support for catalog backups directly to the NAS (just the backup zip files ... not the "live"/main catalog). It works ... but crazy SLOOOOW ! 🙂
Something is not right in their implementation of the backup process directly to a network share.

I have to figure out a workflow for those catalog backups to be stored on NAS.

Currently i have them stored on an attached external SSD that is also my "working" drive but i would rather use my NAS to archive those backups since the NAS is configured to backup data in other places (cloud / off-site etc).

[GoldingD]

You will probably be better served by using a application meant for backup management instead of the fairly limited backup internal to LrC. Your NAS may have come with or have available to download a package for exactly that.

[26276001knle]

I'm having the same issue. When running Lightroom on a Windows PC it takes less than a minute to complete the backup to a Synology NAS. With a MacBook Pro (M2 chip) the backup takes 15 minutes. The zipped backup file on the NAS is 450 MB.

It appears there's something about the Mac version of Lightroom that is causing the issue.