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Changing my LR Configuration

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Elliott

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Jan 3, 2017
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There are 2 G-Technology external 4TB drives that are FireWire 800 daisy chained off of a iMac 27. The 1st drive is my working drive and the 2nd drive is a backup of the 1st drive. I am on LR CC. My catalog, develop presets all sit in my Library Folder on the 1st drive. I've used this setup for a long time and it works for me. I've inherited another 27" iMac. In my office I also have a MacBook Air and and iPad. I want to be able to have all these Mac's access a NAS (network access server) at any given time. I realize that LR is not networking s/w. I am the only one that works on LR & PS CC or any one of the Mac's at any given time. My objective is that if I sit down at any Mac, I can bring up LR or PS and access anyone of these drives that contain images and work on them. All of these Mac's are pumped out with RAM, Graphic Processors, and CPU processors so performance is not an issue. I do use a lot of plug-ins and many of these manufactures store their plug-ins on the local drive but I can duplicate this on all the computers so it is the least of my concerns.

The interfaces on the G-Tech drives are 2 FW ports, 1 eSata port and a USB port. According to G-Tech, what ever daisy chain configuration I use must be constant across the 2 drives. In other words, I can't use FW to daisy chain the 2 drives and then use USB to Ethernet adapter to go to an Ethernet hub. I want to keep the drives daisy chained if I can because it makes backing up easy to do.

I've researched cable interfaces but haven't come up with any firewire to Ethernet adapters?

Does anyone have any idea how I can preserve my existing equipment and still achieve my objectives? Or, will I have to bite the bullet and go buy an NAS w/drives?

Would appreciate all and any input.
 
It is my understanding that you can only daisy-chain with the FireWire. eSata or USB require separate ports, either from the M/B or in the case of the USB a HUB. You do not need to daisy-chain devices to access both. You could for instance mount one on a USB port and the other on a F/W port on the iMac and still see each of them on the iMac

The NAS device can only be accessed on a LAN and not through the internet cloud. IOW, all of your devices need to be on the same home network. If that is the case for you, then you can use one of the Macs as a NAS and accessed the volumes with the other iMac and MBA. You will need a special file sharing app on the iPad to see the network volumes from the iPad.
An ethernet hub will only attach devices that have a NIC and the computer intelligence to communicate on a network (i.e. a real computer or a NAS). So the ethernet option is out.
A NAS is nothing more than a drive enclosure with a tiny LINUX computer. If you decide to buy a NAS for your home network, you don't need to buy one that comes with additional drives. You can install the existing SATA volumes from the G-Tech drives.

A word of caution, ethernet (even Gigabit) ethernet is dramatically slower than F/W 800 as these charts can demonstrate:
peripheral-speeds.png
transfer-speeds-usb-b.gif
 
My objective is that if I sit down at any Mac, I can bring up LR or PS and access anyone of these drives that contain images and work on them.

Your big problem with this, I think, is that the Lightroom catalog has to be on a local disk and cannot be on a network drive including, I believe, a shared drive on another Mac. This is a limitation of the database used within Lightroom. Storing the image files on any external storage devices is fine but subject to the speed limitations as Cletus has shown.

So in the scenario above you would either have to have a portable drive that had just the catalog files on it and attach that drive to each computer that you want to work on or copy the latest version of the catalog to the local hard drive. Using a portable drive is probably the easiest and safest way to allow you to move between computers.

You could automate copy process by putting the catalog files in a DropBox folder that is available on every computer. This works because DropBox maintains a local copy on each system of all the shared files. You would have to be very carful that you close Lightroom on each computer when you are done and wait until all the catalog files ( the catalog it self and all preview files) are fully updated on the computer you are moving to. This also would only really work for computers that only you work on. If someone else has access to the catalog there is nothing preventing them from simultaneously starting Lightroom on another computer. That would certainly corrupt you catalog on DropBox and any computer has the same shared folder.

Network access and multiple user access to Lightroom have been a frequently requested feature since its inception. There are rumblings about some kind of new cloud based sharing that may be partly addressing this. But what is and how it will work is still to be determined.

-louie
 
It is my understanding that you can only daisy-chain with the FireWire. eSata or USB require separate ports, either from the M/B or in the case of the USB a HUB. You do not need to daisy-chain devices to access both. You could for instance mount one on a USB port and the other on a F/W port on the iMac and still see each of them on the iMac

The NAS device can only be accessed on a LAN and not through the internet cloud. IOW, all of your devices need to be on the same home network. If that is the case for you, then you can use one of the Macs as a NAS and accessed the volumes with the other iMac and MBA. You will need a special file sharing app on the iPad to see the network volumes from the iPad.
An ethernet hub will only attach devices that have a NIC and the computer intelligence to communicate on a network (i.e. a real computer or a NAS). So the ethernet option is out.
A NAS is nothing more than a drive enclosure with a tiny LINUX computer. If you decide to buy a NAS for your home network, you don't need to buy one that comes with additional drives. You can install the existing SATA volumes from the G-Tech drives.

A word of caution, ethernet (even Gigabit) ethernet is dramatically slower than F/W 800 as these charts can demonstrate:
peripheral-speeds.png
transfer-speeds-usb-b.gif
It is my understanding that you can only daisy-chain with the FireWire. eSata or USB require separate ports, either from the M/B or in the case of the USB a HUB. You do not need to daisy-chain devices to access both. You could for instance mount one on a USB port and the other on a F/W port on the iMac and still see each of them on the iMac

The NAS device can only be accessed on a LAN and not through the internet cloud. IOW, all of your devices need to be on the same home network. If that is the case for you, then you can use one of the Macs as a NAS and accessed the volumes with the other iMac and MBA. You will need a special file sharing app on the iPad to see the network volumes from the iPad.
An ethernet hub will only attach devices that have a NIC and the computer intelligence to communicate on a network (i.e. a real computer or a NAS). So the ethernet option is out.
A NAS is nothing more than a drive enclosure with a tiny LINUX computer. If you decide to buy a NAS for your home network, you don't need to buy one that comes with additional drives. You can install the existing SATA volumes from the G-Tech drives.

A word of caution, ethernet (even Gigabit) ethernet is dramatically slower than F/W 800 as these charts can demonstrate:
peripheral-speeds.png
transfer-speeds-usb-b.gif
 
You are absolutely correct. I ran a test by moving my extensive music library out to the NAS Drive and it was disastrous when playing a music file. The music was constantly interrupted with intermittent skips and jumps so I abandoned that configuration and went back to music on my external drive hanging off my Mac Air. The performance chart you included was also very helpful. I appreciate the time you took to explain this. There was a reason I joined this LR forum.
 
Your big problem with this, I think, is that the Lightroom catalog has to be on a local disk and cannot be on a network drive including, I believe, a shared drive on another Mac. This is a limitation of the database used within Lightroom. Storing the image files on any external storage devices is fine but subject to the speed limitations as Cletus has shown.

So in the scenario above you would either have to have a portable drive that had just the catalog files on it and attach that drive to each computer that you want to work on or copy the latest version of the catalog to the local hard drive. Using a portable drive is probably the easiest and safest way to allow you to move between computers.

You could automate copy process by putting the catalog files in a DropBox folder that is available on every computer. This works because DropBox maintains a local copy on each system of all the shared files. You would have to be very carful that you close Lightroom on each computer when you are done and wait until all the catalog files ( the catalog it self and all preview files) are fully updated on the computer you are moving to. This also would only really work for computers that only you work on. If someone else has access to the catalog there is nothing preventing them from simultaneously starting Lightroom on another computer. That would certainly corrupt you catalog on DropBox and any computer has the same shared folder.

Network access and multiple user access to Lightroom have been a frequently requested feature since its inception. There are rumblings about some kind of new cloud based sharing that may be partly addressing this. But what is and how it will work is still to be determined.

-louie

I believe you are correct. I was just sitting at my desk and thinking of making one of my iMac's into a NAS, and don't think this approach will work either. And the last thing I want to do is corrupt my LR catalogs. I too believe there has been talk about loading the catalogs to the cloud? I just haven't seen much progress in that direction lately. I'll play it safe and just continue using one of the iMac's as my primary LR workstation. Thanks for your input. Much appreciated. Cheers!
 
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