How to setup Lightroom to use two hard drives, one as a working drive and one as an archive drive?

[jamesp90896593]

I'm trying to setup lightroom so that my SSD is the drive I use for the projects that I'm actively working on.  I have a regular spinning eternal that currently holds all of my photos and catalog.  I like to use that drive (the one I'm currently using for everything) as an archive drive, to move my work to once I've completed the project.  I don't want to just move the images via exporting them. I'd like to have them still within the catalog.  Also, as part of this, I want the raw files that I import to be on the working drive while I'm using them, but then have them moved to the archive drive.

Hope that wasn't too convoluted. 

[JP Hess]

There isn't much accomplished by moving images around. Once the images have been imported and added to the catalog, Lightroom doesn't touch them anymore. All of the adjustments and changes made to the image are stored in the catalog; the image itself is left in its untouched state, the same as it was when it was imported. The primary concern is to have a backup of the images on a separate drive as well as a backup of the catalog. The catalog is the only file that Lightroom opens and manipulates.

[jamesp90896593]

As Lightroom gets more photos in the catalog it starts to get substantially slower, at least that’s the case in my experience. This is the reason I want to have a working drive and an archive drive.

when the images are imported, they’re saved to the drive that is specified and are linked to the catalog, correct? my drive/catalog has many tens of thousands of pictures... I’m pretty sure this is what is slowing it down.

[JP Hess]

I don't know how much free space you have on your SSD, but my recommendation would be to have your catalog and previews on that drive with your photos on the external hard drive. I would move your catalog to the SSD drive where they should function without any difficulty. As I indicated previously, that catalog is the only file that Lightroom opens and manipulates. The catalog and the associated previews file are the files that will affect performance the most.

[dj_paige]

jamesp90896593  wrote

As Lightroom gets more photos in the catalog it starts to get substantially slower, at least that’s the case in my experience. This is the reason I want to have a working drive and an archive drive.

when the images are imported, they’re saved to the drive that is specified and are linked to the catalog, correct? my drive/catalog has many tens of thousands of pictures... I’m pretty sure this is what is slowing it down.

This has nothing to do with the speed of the drive. Put the photos on the external drive straight out of the camera, and don't move them from here to there. If Lightroom is slowing down, it is because of something else.

The only way this could be slowing down Lightroom is if the drive is nearly full (again, it has nothing to do with the speed of the drive).

[dj_paige]

Adding: if you are concerned about the speed of Lightroom, you need to be extremely specific about exactly what steps/actions in Lightroom are slow. As stated above, the speed of the drive where the photos are located does not speed up LR, except by a trivial amount that you will never notice.

[JohanElzenga]

jamesp90896593  wrote

I'm trying to setup lightroom so that my SSD is the drive I use for the projects that I'm actively working on.  I have a regular spinning eternal that currently holds all of my photos and catalog.  I like to use that drive (the one I'm currently using for everything) as an archive drive, to move my work to once I've completed the project.  I don't want to just move the images via exporting them. I'd like to have them still within the catalog.  Also, as part of this, I want the raw files that I import to be on the working drive while I'm using them, but then have them moved to the archive drive.

Hope that wasn't too convoluted. 

Let me first answer the question, and then tell you why it's the wrong approach. To answer the question: that is easy to do. You can move images and entire folders by dragging and dropping them, so in order to move images from the SSD to the spinning disk, all you need to do is select the folder on the SSD (in the Lightroom folder panel!) and drag and drop it onto a parent folder on the spinning disk (all is done in Lightroom). Or select some images and drag & drop them onto a folder on the spinning disk. Done.

As others have said, this is the wrong approach however. Lightroom does not read the original images a lot, so having them on the SSD first does not offer a significant speed gain. Store them on the spinning disk right from the beginning. Having your catalog on the spinning disk is a disadvantage however, because Lightroom does read from & write to the catalog all the time. So the best setup is to have your catalog on the SSD, and the images on the spinning disk. And do make backups of both!

[jamesp90896593]

I think I'm tracking now. With the original files on the spinning drive and

the catalog on the SSD, will both drives need to be connected to the

computer for lightroom to function properly?

[JP Hess]

That depends. If you choose to generate smart previews (which would be housed on the SSD) then the external hard drive wouldn't have to be connected at all times. Here again, you need to take into consideration how much free space there is on the SSD.

[JohanElzenga]

Yes, with smart previews the disk doesn't have to be connected at all, except when you want to do something that requires the original, such as exporting at full size. And you don't even need smart previews if you just want to work with metadata changes like adding keywords. You can add a keyword to a 'missing' image just fine.