Moving LTR catalogue and photos from an old external HD to a new external HD.

[titusm91264998]

Dear Sirs,

I decided to buy a new, faster and bigger external HD where I keep the Lightroom catalogue and all the pictures. Everything is working fine, but I've been using the old HD for many years so I thought it was a good idea to changhe it with, a new one, to avoid problems.

I'm wandering what's the safest and best way to move all the contents from the old HD to new one.

I work with an iMac 27" which has got an internal SSD where I installed just the applications. Photos and catalogue are, at the moment, in the old external HD. The new HD is a Lacie with a thunderbolt3 usb-c which should be faster than the old HD connected via USB-3.

What way would you recommend to move everything?

Thank you.

T.

[99jon]

I would normally copy the entire folder/sub-folder structure to the new ehd and then it should be possible to re-link everything, especially if you have everything nested under a top level folder.

I always keep the actual catalog in the Pictures folder (on fast SSD) as Lightroom is constantly writing to the catalog but this is a personal preference and you may be happy with the performance you have been seeing.

If you find you end up with missing files or folders with question marks, the link below shows how to easily re-connect everything.

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm

[titusm91264998]

Dear 99jon,

I followed your clear instructions, but it's not working.

when I try to inform LTR about the new path to follow, in order to find the new link, the highlighted picture with "?" badge, simply disappear. If I do the same with a folder, it also disappear.

I'm not concerned because I have a safe copy of the pictures and catalogue somewhere else, but I' annoyed by these problems.

Thank you anyway for your support.

T.

[99jon]

If you have a folder with ? it should be possible to right-click and choose “Update folder location”

Then navigate to the folder on the new drive and choose it. The LR Library then gets updated.

[titusm91264998]

After trying three times, I decided to use an other way, to solve the problem, suggested by other users. I simply clicked the top of the folder/sub-folder structure and I exported it, to the new external HD, as a catalogue. 
It works!

Thank you anyway for the time you dedicated to me.

T.

[titusm91264998 · Accepted solution]

I did it, but the link is still with the old HD which, if on and connected, makes LTR CC work, If it is not connected, the systemrefuses to accept the link to the new HD with all the photos in it. Of course the catalogue was moved with the preview as well.

[Alex_Affonso]

I'm constantly moving my catalog from one HD to another since I use to teach students how to deal with their catalogues and what to pay attention to in such operations.

Since you're mantaining your catalog and photos all in your external HD, all you should do is to copy your catalog folder with all its files and subfolders (just copy the parent folder to avoid mistakes) from the old to the new and faster HD. Onde you've got everything copied, open your catalog folder in the new HD and double click your Lightroom catalog file (the one with the .lrcat extension) to open it in Lightroom Classic. From now on, when you open Lightroom Classic the next time it will look for this new catalog and will load all your folders and collections as they were in the old HD. And voilà!

As mentioned by @99jon if you keep your catalog file inside your internal SSD everything will work faster with Lightroom Classic because it will write and read all catalog info and files from the fastest storage from your computer. The only cons about this approach is that the Lightroom catalog stores a lot of preview files besides it and it could take too much space of your system SSD and that's why I too prefer to keep my catalog in an external storage too.

Please let us know if everything worked fine for you after the catalog migration.

[titusm91264998]

After trying three times, I decided to use an other way, to solve the problem, suggested by other users. I simply clicked the top of the folder/sub-folder structure and I exported it, to the new external HD, as a catalogue. 
It works!

Thank you anyway for the time you dedicated to me.

T.