Moving to new computer - local copy originals on SSD?

[bd2047]

Hi folks - I have a new laptop and want to move to that as my primary LR (cloud) device. On the outgoing laptop I use the  'store a copy of all originals at specified location' feature with a portable SSD as the location. Does anyone know what happens when I set up LR on the new laptop?

I'm thinking I just input the SSD, open LR, set the 'store a copy of all originals at specified location' as the external SSD, and am hoping it will recognize that the files all align with what is on the cloud and not need to do anything. Is this correct? I'm hoping it doesn't have to redownload everything or make changes that will take time. 

Any help woud be great befire I migrate. 

[Jim Wilde · Accepted solution]

It might be OK, I've seen one or two reports from users who have tried this and it apparently worked. I would think the key thing would be to get the sequence of events right, i.e.:

1. Logon to your Creative Cloud account (obviously with the same details as used on the old system). Use the CC app to install Lightroom.

2. Once installed, connect the portable SSD and start Lightroom on the new system and check the Preferences>Local Storage tab to first make sure that the option to "Store a copy of all originals...." is and remains UNCHECKED for now.

3. Then use the option to change the "Storage location for originals", and set the new location to be exactly the same folder on the SSD that you had specified on the old system. Do NOT drill down into that folder to find the "Originals" sub-folder, you must make sure to select the same parent folder as selected on the old system.

4. Restart Lightroom to fix that new location.

5. It might then be worth selecting a few images at random and checking the "Info" tab for each of them, at the bottom of the Info panel it will tell you what it thinks is stored locally. With luck, it will tell you that the "Original" is now stored locally.

6. Whatever the result of that, you now need to check the "Store a copy of all originals..." option. Hopefully you won't be faced with a complete redownload of all your originals.

[Mcni]

I tried this but with an internal SSD. So the files where there all along.
I installed Lightroom and signed in.
Set the location for the originals to exactly the same as it was on my old computer.
I closed and opened Lightroom again.
It's currently downloading everything again.

So, it's putting 755 GB of unessesarry writes on my SSD, and bogging down my network for ages for absolutely no reason. I'm lucky I don't have a meeterd connection.

Does Adobe read this? How can we tell them this is an issue?

[Jao vdL]

Jim is right. It is essential you do this in the right sequence or otherwise it is extremely likely that Lightroom will download all the images anyway, even if it is already pointing at the correct location. Even if you follow the sequence detailed, you might still end up redownloading all images. 

[bd2047]

Update - this worked really well. And was fairly quick. 

I did as described above, when I updated the location of the HD on the new computer I think it did two things: 1: scan all the images to make sure they were there, but it didn't re-download them. 2: I think it did download smart previews or something as it did some downloading but it was pretty quick, 15-20 mins, not the amount of time it would take to download 500GB of originals. All in all, a smooth process and I'm pleased with how it worked.