Catalog limits on 2011 Macbook Pro

[Walter Palmer]

Operating System: Yosemite
Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info): CC 2015.14 [ 1149743 ]

Ok. So I have an old 2011 Macbook Pro that runs just fine. 8Gb of RAM, 512Gb SSD, I5 (dual core I think). Maybe 300K images over the reasonable past (Not going back to the 70s yet).

Will this machine handle 1 big LR catalog? I currently have a catalog for each of the past 10 years, but I have areas of interest that span years. Can this machine handle a big LR catalog well?

What would you suggest? Use the SSD or get a huge external USB drive?
Do I need more memory? Or is lack of sex affecting my memory?
Any other hints and suggestions? I'm getting ready for 2018.

Thanks.

 

[clee01l]

Welcome to the forum.
In reality, you should be using only one catalog file. You have already discovered the limitations of breaking your image inventory into yearly catalog files. Lightroom can manage catalogs as large as 500,000 images Your MBP limitations are the ones that need to be over come.

• Let's begin with the 500GB SSD. You need at least 100GB of that free at all time for working storage. For all apps, not just LR which makes extensive use of temporary files.
• Dual core — LR is most effective with 4-6 cores. You will see a performance hit here but not too drastic if working with JPEGs or smallish RAW image files. I use my MBP as a travel computer and process 36MP D810 images. I would m=not want to use this machine for these images in an everyday situation but I can manages some pretty hefty files if I need to.
• 16GB of RAM would be better than 8 and more if the MBP could accommodate more than 16GB. I manage to get by with 8GB on my MBP for travels So you could certainly do the same.

 

[Walter Palmer]

Welcome to the forum.
In reality, you should be using only one catalog file. You have already discovered the limitations of breaking your image inventory into yearly catalog files. Lightroom can manage catalogs as large as 500,000 images Your MBP limitations are the ones that need to be over come.

• Let's begin with the 500GB SSD. You need at least 100GB of that free at all time for working storage. For all apps, not just LR which makes extensive use of temporary files.
• Dual core — LR is most effective with 4-6 cores. You will see a performance hit here but not too drastic if working with JPEGs or smallish RAW image files. I use my MBP as a travel computer and process 36MP D810 images. I would m=not want to use this machine for these images in an everyday situation but I can manages some pretty hefty files if I need to.
• 16GB of RAM would be better than 8 and more if the MBP could accommodate more than 16GB. I manage to get by with 8GB on my MBP for travels So you could certainly do the same.

Thanks!

 

[Zenon]

I store all my files on an external drive and just updated my iMac from 8GB of Ram to 16 this morning.

 

[Walter Palmer]

Ok team, what is the considered wisdom of the sages here;
1) have all images on external drives and the catalog on the internal drive?
2) have a couple years of images on the internal drive and the rest on externals?
3) have a couple of years on internal, duplicated on the externals?

If I grab an image from a Collection, it can be several years old,If everything is on external drive (4Tb), no worry. But if I go sit in a coffee shop to play/work I would need to always bring the external drive (slight hassle). How do the wise ones organize things?

TIA,
Your humble servant,
...

 

[Zenon]

They say you should have 100GB free space on you HD. I keep my files on an external drive and catalogue on the HD in the LR folder. Also moved my cache folder into the LR folder. Here are some tips.

Optimize Lightroom performance

 

[Walter Palmer]

Thanks! Lots of good info there. Another question though. My disk fills up quickly when every time I use Photoshop on an image I add a .PSD to my folder (and catalog?). Those are 80-100Mb files being added to the original JPG file!!!
Is there any way to allow Photoshop to save a JPG back into the LR stack? It USED to do this, now it wants to make me buy more disk space.

On disk I will have:
1) P1234567.JPG - approx. 8Mb the original SOOC file
2) P1234567.PSD - approx. 85Mb the finished file
3) P1234567.JPG - approx. 2-3Mb the exported file in another folder.

That's nearing 100Mb where 10Mb would do just fine. I used to be able to edit in Photoshop and it would add P1234567-2.JPG to the stack; now the only options are PSD and TIFF - both huge file sizes.

 

[Hal P Anderson]

I haven't tried it, but I figure you could add PS as a second external editor and specify JPG for the file type. When you name the preset, you could call it something that indicates that it produces JPEGs. Barring that, make sure that you're writing 8-bit TIFFs or PSDs.