Storage questions....

I am looking for some advice on storage. I have a 500G ex hard drive which I store photos on. I am worried about filling up the computers memory with photos and slowing it down. Right now I have the same photos stored on both the computer and on the hard drive.

Can I move the lightroom program to this hard drive also? If so how? How do I remove the photos from the computer instead of just copying them to the hard drive? :shrug:

I'm not sure what I should do to keep space open on my computer...any suggestions on what I should be doing would be helpful...please remember I am technically challenged here so please write in basic layman's terms....:thankyou:

Lightroom doesn't care where the photos are stored. I put mine on the external drive all the time. All Lr does is reference the files, it doesn't need to be in the same place as the files. With the drive disconnected you can still catalog, keyword and do some Metadata stuff I think, but you won't be able to edit them. Once the drive is reattached, you can manipulate the files again. make sense?

Ditto what WD said.

FWIW- for some reason I don't like to always have to fire up my external drive. My local internal drive is a decent size and dedicated to multimedia, so what I do is I have two Lightroom master folders, one on my internal C: drive called Current Work, which is usually the last few months of images, and one on my external called Archives, which is everything else. That way I can fire up LR and work on current stuff quickly without "bothering" the external drive. And as WD says all the images stored on your external drive are still in your LR catalog to look at previews, sort into collections, etc, you just can't edit them or view in full resolution unless you turn on the external drive. But as soon as you do turn it on, LR automatically re-links so you can have full functionality.

You probably already know this, but it's important that if you end up moving files around from drive to drive or creating new folders and such that you do it within the LR Library interface, not windows explorer (I guess same thing applies to Mac). It can save some headaches. Just remember that as of LR 2.x you can't move more than one folder at a time within that LR Library module. you can select-all or shift-click individual files, but doesn't work with folders. I found out the hard way when I decided to re-organize a library of thousands of images that were sorted into 100+ folders, each one a day of shooting.

Better to research a bit how others are structuring their libraries, plugins, catalogs, backups, etc, getting some different ideas and logic, deciding what works for you, then doing it right in the first place and sticking to it. I still don't think I have it right.

So is it okay to delete all the photos stored in my pictures then if they are also stored on the hard drive? Or should I keep some from say the last couple months on the computer in case I want the option of working on them?
Thanks for your advice...workflow is definitely not a strength (just one of many non-strengths,,,lol)..like so many things...I guess it's yet another thing I have to start learning! :rolleyes:

Not sure how Lightroom works but if it's like Picasa and it's non-destructive you may lose your edits if you move them from one location to another outside of Lightroom. So, check Lightroom to see if there is a Move function for a folder and move it to a new physical location within the Lightroom software.

With Picasa I have my most recent stuff on my local drive and my older stuff on a mapped drive it's a 1TB external drive attached to another computer in my house. While roaming around in Picasa I don't even notice it switch between the drives. That helps free up space on my local computer but still lets me access all of my images.

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Originally Posted by casil403

So is it okay to delete all the photos stored in my pictures then if they are also stored on the hard drive? Or should I keep some from say the last couple months on the computer in case I want the option of working on them?

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Well, if I am understanding your question correctly...
When you initially set up Lightroom you likely chose a master folder location to store your images in. It sounds like that location was a folder somewhere on your 500G external drive. So then I guess every time you import new images, you have LR set to move them from the memory card (if you do it the way I do) to that folder and add them to the LR catalog (database). Any further manipulation of the images and subfolders in that folder on your external hard drive should only be done from within LR. Don't delete, move, or add images directly to the folder through windows explorer, or you'll make the LR gods very unhappy.

But if you also had copies of those same images in another folder for some reason (not sure how or why) like your My Pictures folder on your internal C: drive, well I'm thinking those would be redundant duplicates. There's many ways to confirm this before actually deleting anything, and I'm sure you'll know at least one.

And the bit about keeping last couple months of work on your internal drive is only the way I chose to do it, but I doubt it's the popular method. You can just keep everything on your external to keep it simple. My reasoning for doing it my way is probably not even 100% sound, but it involved slower responsiveness through USB during editing and a philosophy that the more I use the external the sooner it will die, and it's mainly the more recent images that I am playing with every day. As they say, your mileage may vary. :)

I found that I had duplicates both in the computer and in the external while in Banff... I was able to go through all my photos in my pictures in the computer after leaving the hard drive at home.
I thought I'd moved the whole lot to the HD but I guess I only copied everything. :shrug:

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Originally Posted by F8&Bthere

Well, if I am understanding your question correctly...
When you initially set up Lightroom you likely chose a master folder location to store your images in. It sounds like that location was a folder somewhere on your 500G external drive. So then I guess every time you import new images, you have LR set to move them from the memory card (if you do it the way I do) to that folder and add them to the LR catalog (database). Any further manipulation of the images and subfolders in that folder on your external hard drive should only be done from within LR. Don't delete, move, or add images directly to the folder through windows explorer, or you'll make the LR gods very unhappy.

. :)

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I've been importing photos via Windows import tool...should i be using Lightroom instead? That might be why they are ending up in the My pictures folder on the internal HD?
Should I be using LR to import instead of Win?
Sorry if sounds daft but I am really not good at this sort of thing.

Copy my photos of the card into a folder on one of my internal drives. I then import the photos into lightroom without moving or copying them. This way it just adds them to the database in the catalogue. I then back up my files onto an external drive using EZBackup. These are my safety files that I keep in case of a hard drive failure. I actually have two external drives one is kept at work and each week I bring the one from home to work and exchange them. This way I actually have 3 copies of my images for peace of mind.

I agree with Greg: redundancy is good. The thought of losing all those beautiful photos you've taken would break our hearts. We should all make sure we back-up regularly. An external hard drive is good, but off site back up is priceless. I speak from the experience of having a hard drive failure that was unrecoverable and losing two years of work.
Mike

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Originally Posted by mbrager

I agree with Greg: redundancy is good. The thought of losing all those beautiful photos you've taken would break our hearts. We should all make sure we back-up regularly. An external hard drive is good, but off site back up is priceless. I speak from the experience of having a hard drive failure that was unrecoverable and losing two years of work.
Mike

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Not a fate anyone should repeat. DVDs are cheap, these days. Burn, baby burn!

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Originally Posted by kurtdriver

Not a fate anyone should repeat. DVDs are cheap, these days. Burn, baby burn!

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Just be careful with DVDs some don't last very long The Life-Span of DVDs
Do Burned CDs Have a Short Life Span? - PCWorld

Lately I've been using USB drives as back up to the back up. Not everything, mind you, just the cream of the crop - 1 -10 shots per session. An 8gb thumb drive is $20 and will probably go down even more before the $16gb becomes a better deal.

When you drag and drop files from one drive to another it usually only copies them (unless you use some keyboard shortcut). But when you do the same thing from one folder to another on the same drive it moves the files (does not make copies). At least that's the default on all versions of windows I've used. So I guess you ended up with a bunch of dupes.

Yes backing up is peace of mind, but saving duplicates on your internal drive as a back up of your external drive would be kinda backwards and counterproducive to your other goal which is to not clog up your system drive. For that you might need to burn dvd's or add a 2nd external drive down the road. So those dupes in your My Pictures folder are probably not worth keeping, at least long term.

Regarding how to import images into LR I'll say this- I was surprised to learn from another pro photographer podcast that there is a theory that importing directly from the card is not the best way. The idea is that the way LR ingests and transfers data from another drive or memory card is not 100% trusted, can lead to corrupt data, and there's even at least one Adobe guy that recommends first moving files from your card to your local drive, to a temporary folder, and then do the LR import from there. I don't care though, I'm still going to import from the card until I personally see some reason not to.

When you load a card into a connected or built-in card reader LR should recognize it and when you click import it should list that drive/slot as an option to import from.

I have been moving my images to an external drive because I am trying not to carry my notebook to and from work everyday, but still want my images available. I exported my images as a catalogue to make sure I had a copy of the files and edits. Then changed the location of the images from notebook hdd to the external one.

What about offsite/online storage like Smugmug? Any good? Advantages? Disadvantages?

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Originally Posted by casil403

What about offsite/online storage like Smugmug? Any good? Advantages? Disadvantages?

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I believe smugmug can handle RAW files, where as the others image based ones cannot.
I use windows sky drive for offline backup. 25GB free. You use your browser or you need a program to allow the drive to show up in windows, but it doesn't show up as a drive letter just a folder. I think the files are limited to 25mb in size, so no large zip files.

There are heaps of other options which you can pay for. Carbonite, mozy, Dropbox... The problem with all of them is your upload speed, hopefully this will become less of a problem as bandwidths increase. To me one of these would be the utopia of backing up.

Offsite is ok but if they go out of business overnight you lose your images and it has been known to happen. You should have at least two external hard drives that replicate each other should one fail. I am obsessive about redundancy and have 3 external HD's with exact copies of each other. As I mentioned in a previous post one is kept in a safety deposit box and is brought home once a week (if I am shooting that week) to back up my back ups and once I am done it is brought back to my safety deposit box and is never home longer than to back up my back ups.

My life's work is on those drives and if I was to lose them I would lose a lot of money. If my house burns down, floods or whatever at least I still have my photos and I can still earn a living. All my cameras, computers are all insured and can be replaced but once you lose your photos you cannot replace them. Right now I have 3 external 1.5 TB Lacie HD's. And when I upgrade the externals to larger drives I always keep the old ones I never give them away or wipe them clean and I just store them. Years ago it saved my ass keeping the old ones since then I never get rid of them and why I moved to a third and one why it is kept offsite. External drives are inexpensive enough now that redundancy should be something every photographer does, you can never have too many back ups.

This is always a hotly discussed topic. In reality all you can do is find a solution that works for you. You can have the best manual system in the word, but if you don't have the discipline to do it regularly it is useless.

Regardless of the solution, it really has to be automatic. If you have to do ANYTHING manually you are exposed to at least some risk. That said, now your manual task it to check it periodically and understand how to get your images back. In this regard, nothing beats actually recovering your images from your backup as a test. I have seen people follow excruciating backup routines, only to find out when they need them most, they have missed something or only been backing up shortcuts or don't have a copy of the software they used to do the backup....

Even with prompted solutions (ie.lightroom) how many times have you skipped the backup because you want to import your photos quickly before you head out the door or just want to get processing. Whilst this does not lose your images, it can lose you edits, which is often most of the work.

Certainly an offsite back up should not be your only solution for the reasons AL mentioned.

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Originally Posted by casil403

What about offsite/online storage like Smugmug? Any good? Advantages? Disadvantages?

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Actually one of the reasons I went for a pro account on Flickr. Flickr is probably the worst choice of them all for many reasons, and won't take RAW files, but storage is unlimited, max file size is pretty good, so I use it to back up most of my keepers at full resolution jpeg. At least if the unlikely happens and all goes to hell, I can still retrieve those. So it's not really a backup solution, maybe a last resort better-than-nothing solution, and another little perk for joining the Flickr community. It's inexpensive and I doubt they'll be going broke and disappearing with my images anytime soon.

Right now all I really have for backup is a dual internal RAID-0 HD config where one drive mirrors the other constantly and automatically, I ordered my Dell with that option, but I'm not sure I made the right decision since that took me down to 640GB drives (to stay at my price point) and boy oh boy does that fill up quickly. And as you kind of said, Lisa, I never want to have my internal HD that hosts my operating system more than half full, because it just seems to bog your whole system down.

So more recently I added a 2TB eSata external drive and started keeping all my archives on that as I mentioned previously. But I have nothing to back that up, and what I do have for the internal is still in-house which doesn't protect me from fire/flood/theft. So I plan at some point to do something like the external drive/safety deposit box thing AL does.

Of course, if you earn a living from your photography backup is even more critical.

I decided to use Flickr as a storage option as well a while back. You can change your permissions so those other than yourself only see a small version of the photo and I do not think it is right clickable either. Not the final storage but a handy place to keep photos on since I use it anyway.

Oh yeah, I had two external hard drives go funny on me. One my main computer will not recognize, the other just went weird but I was eventually able to use it. My light room goes directly to my external as well. I bring to my computer the photos I want to work on and edit further. I make a jpeg and tiff of the finals. I am now owrking on a backup external that has only my favorite photos in an organized format and I will eventually copy that as well. I tried making dvd's but that lasted ten minutes. More stuff to organize. Not my forte at all.

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Originally Posted by F8&Bthere

Right now all I really have for backup is a dual internal RAID-0 HD config where one drive mirrors the other constantly and automatically,

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RAID is not the be-all/end-all solution either. I'm not suggesting this is your case F*, but certainly do not consider your 2 RAID copies as a backup. I have seen RAID controller cards go bad. And try find your particular RAID card in 5years when you need to read that drive. I went down this road at work and ended up regretting it. I would rather a 2nd HDD with something like Norton Live State Recovery as at least it allows you to have different versions of files and also gives you protection against deleting stuff accidentally. With RAID, if you delete a file it dutifully deletes it on both drives.

Like I said for other solutions, it is good to have a practice run at restoring your RAID array. Every RAID card is different and so it the recovery process and understanding your card is important. It is not always clear which drive is the good one, which is the new one....I have seen people recover data from the new drive to the old and lose everything. So best to know how it works when you have an up to date back up on a separate drive and can afford to stuff it up. You really don't want to be doing a recovery for the first time with a drive that has your only copy of your latest work.

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Originally Posted by AntZ

RAID is not the be-all/end-all solution either....

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Yes, I guess most things have their flaws. In my case I was ordering a new Dell dedicated to multimedia and when I saw that dual HD/Raid-0 option, and the price being quite reasonable, I decided to go for it. It just gives me a bit more peace of mind

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Originally Posted by AntZ

Like I said for other solutions, it is good to have a practice run at restoring your RAID array...You really don't want to be doing a recovery for the first time with a drive that has your only copy of your latest work.

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Great suggestion, and as much as my good judgement says I should do that, my c'mon-this-is-Syd-we're-talking-about reality check says I'm just not wired that way lol. Sounds like too much work and time when taking my chances is so much fun. But I still think that since any drive can fail, having the RAID mirror at a small premium is still better than nothing. I could what-if myself into the poorhouse.

I have 5 letters for y'all (which is my longer term plan for a backup system)... DROBO

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Originally Posted by F8&Bthere

Great suggestion, and as much as my good judgement says I should do that, my c'mon-this-is-Syd-we're-talking-about reality check says I'm just not wired that way lol. Sounds like too much work and time when taking my chances is so much fun.

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Hey I am only stating theories here :). I guess I could pretend I follow all of what I have suggested.:angel: That said, at any time I really only have my most recent images at risk, and any recent edits.

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Originally Posted by F8&Bthere

I have 5 letters for y'all (which is my longer term plan for a backup system)... DROBO

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On my to buy list too. Although ironically DROBO is one of the cases where I heard of controller card failure writing garbage across the whole array and loosing everything. DROBO is also quite expensive.