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Lightroom catalog be stored on USB-C external SSD hard drive


4 years 9 months ago #650953 by Orlando Bohland
Just as the title asks, can I set up Lightroom catalog to be stored on USB-C external SSD hard drive?  To free up local hard drive space?  

Understanding that I would always need to have the external hard drive plugged in when accessing Lightroom.  Can this be done?  
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4 years 9 months ago #650971 by Nikon Shooter
Sure, no problem.
Light is free… capturing it is not!
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4 years 9 months ago #651042 by Orlando Bohland
Good news.  Thank you for verifying.   Can I assume I just plug and route or assign the external drive?  Anything tricky I need to do?
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4 years 9 months ago #651053 by Nikon Shooter
If you work in session like me, no. Just drop your folder
on the destination drive and you're good to go.

If you work in library or catalogue… can't help you there.
Light is free… capturing it is not!
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4 years 9 months ago #651061 by garyrhook
Since I use the product, let me see if I can be helpful.

The catalog must be on a local drive; it can't be on a network drive. That means it must reside on an internal or otherwise physically attached drive.

The catalog is where all of the LR metadata is kept. It's not your files.

Your files can reside anywhere on your system, including network-attached storage. You always manage your images from within LR, never in the operating system. That way, LR knows where to find things.

As you can see, there are two parts here. I'm guessing from your question that you hadn't considered this.

If you have an external drive, you can move your images to that drive, and leave your catalog on the internal drive. You can configure LR to use smart previews, which allow you to work on images even when the original file isn't available. Thus, if you had a laptop, and left your external storage at home, you'd still be able to edit. Once you get back and plug in the drive, LR will do whatever housekeeping is necessary to sync everything up.

In short: you can put your images wherever you want, local or external or network. The catalog must be local, but that can be internal or external; just not network.

I think most folks keep the catalog on an internal drive, as it's usually faster to access that way. Even when images are elsewhere.
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4 years 9 months ago #651106 by Carry
Didn't know that!

"If you have an external drive, you can move your images to that drive, and leave your catalog on the internal drive. You can configure LR to use smart previews, which allow you to work on images even when the original file isn't available. Thus, if you had a laptop, and left your external storage at home, you'd still be able to edit. Once you get back and plug in the drive, LR will do whatever housekeeping is necessary to sync everything up."

How does it do that if it doesn't have the complete file and data?  
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4 years 9 months ago #651113 by Shadowfixer1
It's magic!
www.betterphoto.com/?ramshots
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4 years 9 months ago #651188 by garyrhook

Shadowfixer1 wrote: It's magic!


:rofl:

The previews are stored in the catalog. It doesn't read the file every time you access it. You can build "standard", "1:1", or "Smart" previews, depending upon your needs.
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