Odd Hard Drive/Workflow Question - Simple Solution?

Report · Feb 15, 2025

Hi Everyone,

It's been a long time now since I learned Lr (2012), and even longer since I learnes Ps (2008), so please forgive my outdated understanding of things. I was taught an Lr workflow based on archival data protection through the photo program at RIT, which has perhaps overburdened my workflow with redundancies, etc.

I have a catalog of roughly 400,000 images, at about 17TB. I have an individual 2TB external drive for about every or every other year since 2015. The last two are SSDs, and I saw a dramatic improvement in speed, though I understand that others feel that that shouldn't be true... Maybe my external HDDs are slower RPM than what I should have. Regardless, I have wanted to streamline/integrate everything for years. I would love a RAID (NAS?) system, i.e., 32+TB of storage with spread redundancy that automatically backs things up, all in one place, arranged such that I can easily replace a drive if/when it fails, etc. I would love to ditch my 20+ Seagate external drives (split in two locations, doubles of everything etc.), but don't feel capable of setting up such a system. I'm also unsure of the total cost. But the project that I would like to entertain by having all photos in one storage location is to sort all photos by a date, build previews, then sift, then use the faster drive to actually work on the photos. I'd be able to see where I was on, say, Christmas, every single year within my catalog.

My short term solution (I thought) was to buy a big 16TB HDD. I backed everything up with the same naming convention, thinking I could trick Lr's directory to "see" the image locations, but, alas, I am presented with the problem of having to "point" Lr to the new drive for each and every folder. If I were to do this, I assume, I would then have to point it back to the external HDD/SSD to work on the selected photos after making a collection or whatever. I don't think working from the 16TB HDD is a great idea, as it's one disk that can fail, whereas I have duplicates (or triplicates) of the other external drives...

So the question is: should I just break down and set up some huge RAID, or is there some work around for me with the 16TB HDD? If this is what you suggest, could you also please refer me to the guide you deem best so that I can teach myself how to set it all up?

The main other factor I have to consider: I do not have a "home office," per se. I travel often, and work seasonal outdoor work, so it's easy for me to carry a couple SSDs, but can't really transport a RAID array. Is that the deal breaker? I have everything in one place (with a monitor, too!) for about a month or max two months per year. I could make the transportation of the 16TB HDD possible, at least sometimes.

Total aside - if anyone knows of one of those all-in-one SD card backup hard drives that's still made, please link it! While traveling, I've been duplicating my SD card to an SSD through my phone and it's a real PITA.

Report · Feb 16, 2025

My short term solution (I thought) was to buy a big 16TB HDD. I backed everything up with the same naming convention, thinking I could trick Lr's directory to "see" the image locations, but, alas, I am presented with the problem of having to "point" Lr to the new drive for each and every folder.
By @Lizz24971607dzjd

It‘s definitely best to try and always work from the same volume or set of volumes whenever possible, not having to reconnect amoung duplicate volumes.

If all of the folders are organized under a single parent folder on a volume, you should never have to reconnect “each and every folder,” only to the top level parent folder that contains all of the others. Once a top level folder is reconnected, Lightroom Classic should be able to reconnect all folders in the hierarchy within it, as long as the organization is exactly the same as on the previously connected volume.

I don't think working from the 16TB HDD is a great idea, as it's one disk that can fail, whereas I have duplicates (or triplicates) of the other external drives...
By @Lizz24971607dzjd

I always assume that if I get a new drive, I must buy three: One to be the original, and two for regularly updated backups of the original. In your situation I might re-centralize everything on a 16GB volume, backed up to at least two other identical 16GB volumes.

The 16GB HDD can fail, but…all of the other solutions also involve hard drives that can fail. A RAID is just more hard drives that can also fail. The only difference with a RAID is that if one drive fails there’s enough redundancy to keep working (preserve uptime) until you have a chance to replace the failed drive, but…you are still going to need to replace that failed drive, because (depending on the RAID level it was set up with) if one more drive fails the RAID is as lost as any other failed hard drive. You can’t skip the step of “if a hard drive fails, you’re going to need to replace it with a new hard drive.”

The main other factor I have to consider: I do not have a "home office," per se. I travel often, and work seasonal outdoor work, so it's easy for me to carry a couple SSDs, but can't really transport a RAID array. Is that the deal breaker?
By @Lizz24971607dzjd

It could be. As SSD prices have gone down and SSDs have gotten smaller in size but with larger capacities, I’ve been moving to SSDs for the sheer convenience of easily carrying lots of storage in a pocket, in a tiny drive that doesn’t need a wall power adapter.

A possible option for you is one of the portable 16TB SSD solutions that are used by professional photographers/videographers. Those teams need fast, reliable, large capacity storage that will hold up to the rigors of being transported and used on commercial location shoots. These options include:

Oyen Digital 16TB SSD MiniPro RAID V4 USB-C Portable Solid State Drive

Glyph Blackbox Plus 16GB Rugged Portable Drive

OWC ThunderBlade 16GB NVMe RAID External SSD

This is not an endorsement or recommendation because I haven’t used those specific models, but I have bought several other products from two of those companies.

And if the speed of your 16GB hard drive is actually OK, compare its size and weight with those three SSD solutions to see if any will really save that much space or weight, since all three of those solutions are on the pricey side.