Using NAS drive for your images.

[StricklySpeaking]

As you work in the digital world you accumulate a growing number of images and therefore data to be stored and backed up. The ever increasing camera resolution and capability add to the exponential growth of your data. The result is you must move your files off your laptop or desktop computer. A desktop can be expanded for a while but you will eventually max this out too.

While working with Lightroom 2015.9 I have recently experienced problems generating XMP metadata files for PSD files in my Lightroom library with originals stored on a NAS system. I made sure the PSD files were created with the  Maximize PSD and PSB File Compatibility set to ALWAYS.  I contacted Adobe on a chat session and I was told that Adobe recommends not using an NAS or external drive. They recommend keeping all your data on the local computer. I could not believe what I was hearing.

I see references to people using NAS drives and External drives. I have well over a tera bite of data and it is growing at a fast rate. I have a 10 TB NAS drive system with a second one doing backup images using a robust network. It does slow me down a little but I can live with the speed to get the advantage of the storage and the automated backup.

Lightroom is a database driven package that is typically working with smaller files. I keep the catalog on my local system.

I am searching for a solution for this issue but the path is not clear to me.

[gfamclg]

Can you please provide a link to that post you made?

I am using a Synology NAS with WD Red 7200 And Seagate NAS drives to store my images. The Synology is configured with RAID 2.

I use Lightroom, Photoshop and Adobe Bridge for editing, management etc.

I posted separately to this forum on my experience of transferring my images (c 100,000) from multiple other drives on several devices to the NAS.

[Kennewt]

Hi Paddy.  You wrote in this thread in March 2018 and this is now March 2021.  

My Girlfriend has about 80,000 images in her catalog which was a mess, so I consolidated the image files in her .lrcat file so she could easily find them.  2 weeks of work.  The catalog is about 7 Tb.  This was done and put on a new Synology DS920+ with 4 X 4TB WD Red NAS drives at 7200 Rpm.  Her connection to the TP router is via gigabit ethernet, and the TP (ARcher 9) is connected the the NAS via a gigabit ethernet.  

We have tested the speeds and everything is operating at the proper speed.  

The problem is that the .lrcat file has to be local on whatever computer you wish to operate  LRClassic on.  The .lrcat and .lrdata (help and Preview) files are stored on an external SSD and then downloaded to the internal HD of her new iMac or New MacBook Pro.  You can open the LR Classic app and it looks for the .lrcat file where it is always stored (Prefernces), on her internal HD. 

1. You can open a RAW image in LrC from the NAS.
2. You can Photo>Edit in Photoshop 2021
3. Edit in PS and "Save", 
4. The resultant .tif file will save and appear in the LR catalog.  
5. Now take the .tif and export it to the same folder in LrC as a .jpg.
6. It doesn't appear in the catalog.  
7. On a Mac, open Finder and you can see the .jpg file in the proper folder.
8. Go to PS 2021 and open the .jpg from the location on the NAS,'
9. Edit the .jpg and save it
10. You get an error, that the file cannot be saved because it already exists in the catalog.  It doesn't ask if you want to overwrite, or keep both.  

This has been a problem that neither Synoloogy or Adobe have been able to fix.  

Are you still using your NAS with the current Adobe LrC and PS 2021 programs.  If so how have you set it up?  I need specific instructions and settings as this is something I need to fix or send the NAS back to the seller, as Synology and Adobe aren't supporting what I want to do which is

1. Store the .lrcat and .lrdat (preview and Help) locally on a desktop mac or macbook by copying and pasting the latest version of these files from an external SSD .
2. Access and edit photos from the desktop iMac or MacBook Pro 
3. Have the file updates saved on the NAS. 
4. Then close LrC and save the .lrcat and .lrdata files to the external SSD.  

It's very simple but nobody seems to be able to get it to work.  

If this can't work, I'm going to have to send the Synology back to the seller, and just store the 7 Tb or data on an external HD that is set up for Raid 5 or 6?  

[Munwetsa]

As aside, on the video side - I use the NAS for video storage and as source and destination for quite a lot of video functions such as encoding ( Kompressor and Adobe Media Encoder tools) and don't have any issues with that. I copy files to local storage for editing- Final Cut edit and Adobe After Effects with output via Kompressor and Adobe Media Encoder to NAS.

Works for me. Workstations are Macbook Pro and iMac.

Synology offers a lot of nifty software, which is free to use with the NAS, for managing the NAS, streaming, publishing etc, for videos and images, which I also use.

[Eywa5EE2]

You can try 'Bulk photo editor Eywa' from MS app store if you use PC. It's similar to lightroom, but built for NAS.

[Kennewt]

Thanks. I am on a Mac. It was impossible to get by the blocks adobe
placed in their products, so I sold the NAS and got a RAID

[ESTABLISHED]

So when you say, "got RAID", do you mean locally attached RAID to your Mac?

[ESTABLISHED]

Are you sharing your RAID files with anyone else on the network?