copying lcrat and backup folders only w\o previews folder to new ehd

[craig_k]

Operating System: windows10
Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info):6.13

1. due to the size of previews folder in my present catalog of 117,000+,.... in order to initially determine if this new transfer will be issue free,.... can't I just copy the lrcat and backup folders only to my other ehd Lightroom folder without the preview folder in order to determine that this particular transfer to the ehd will be able to do a successful backup. My previous LR folder transfer to this very same ehd -S was never able to successfully do a backup, over the last 2.5 weeks i've messed with it. I just copied my LR folder and top level folder from my main working ehd to another identical G-Tech 8TB drive- T and it works fine. The previous transfer to G-Tech 8TB -S along with my top level folder would have nothing but error prone backup issues. I have a contained system on my main ehd, and copies of that main working ehd copied to 4 other ehd's for backups.

2. should the new transfer be successful, then copy my previews folder over or just let LR rebuild them as they are opened?
Thank you for your time as always.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

As soon as you start Lightroom with a catalog that has no previews in the same folder, Lightroom will start rebuilding the previews folder. So yes, you can do this without any real problem. The only practical problem is that it takes Lightroom 1 - 2 seconds to rebuild a preview, so do the math how long it takes before you never have to wait anymore for previews that still need to be rebuilt before they can be shown.

 

[craig_k]

Thank you Johan, my main issue is to determine if the lrcat transfer will be a successful one that will allow for a proper successful backup event. if it will, then then ill transfer the previews afterwards . I don't wish to spend 4 hours for a LR Folder transfer if it wont backup successfully... is what I'm attempting to avoid, if that makes sense

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Yes, that makes sense and should work. Lightroom will start to create a new previews folder as soon as you test the copied catalog, but you can simply replace that later with a copy of the current previews folder after you have found everything works as it should.

 

[craig_k]

Johan, I can report that it seems successful, as I opened it (only once), then selected optimize and it successfully ran, then closed it with both boxes checked and it completed a successful backup...hopefully it'll continue without any undesirable incidents.

If you had LR "open" on that particular ehd without viewing any images, would it populate the previews over time or do you have to open a folder of images like you were viewing that folder in order for a preview to be built? The question is...will it auto-populate if its just sitting there open or do you have to view an image in order to get the preview built ?
if it wont auto-populate the preview then I guess copying the previews folder and adding it to the main LR folder is the way to get it in order?

Thank you for your time

 

[Johan Elzenga]

If you had LR "open" on that particular ehd without viewing any images, would it populate the previews over time or do you have to open a folder of images like you were viewing that folder in order for a preview to be built?

Unfortunately, it's the latter. Lightroom will only rebuild those previews that it needs right now. After those are done, it will stop rebuilding and could sit idle for hours without doing anything. When you start scrolling the grid, only then all of a sudden Lightroom remembers that it doesn't have the previews for that new view, so it starts rebuilding these. Very frustrating, because it means it constantly slows you down.

The only remedy would be to go to 'All Photographs', select all 117,000 images, and choose 'Library - Previews - Build Standard-Sized Previews'. Then you have to keep it running till every single one is built, because as soon as you quit Lightroom and start it again, it has forgotten that it's still supposed to build the remaining previews.

Or copy your old previews folder to the new location after all.

 

[craig_k]

copying and replacing the folder will be fine, no issue.... I just didn't want to go through that download process loop only to find out it wouldn't back up once again. thank you sir.

 

[Loose Canon]

Unfortunately, it's the latter. Lightroom will only rebuild those previews that it needs right now. After those are done, it will stop rebuilding and could sit idle for hours without doing anything. When you start scrolling the grid, only then all of a sudden Lightroom remembers that it doesn't have the previews for that new view, so it starts rebuilding these. Very frustrating, because it means it constantly slows you down.

The only remedy would be to go to 'All Photographs', select all 117,000 images, and choose 'Library - Previews - Build Standard-Sized Previews'. Then you have to keep it running till every single one is built, because as soon as you quit Lightroom and start it again, it has forgotten that it's still supposed to build the remaining previews.

Or copy your old previews folder to the new location after all.

Unfortunately, it's the latter. Lightroom will only rebuild those previews that it needs right now. After those are done, it will stop rebuilding and could sit idle for hours without doing anything. When you start scrolling the grid, only then all of a sudden Lightroom remembers that it doesn't have the previews for that new view, so it starts rebuilding these. Very frustrating, because it means it constantly slows you down.

The only remedy would be to go to 'All Photographs', select all 117,000 images, and choose 'Library - Previews - Build Standard-Sized Previews'. Then you have to keep it running till every single one is built, because as soon as you quit Lightroom and start it again, it has forgotten that it's still supposed to build the remaining previews.

Or copy your old previews folder to the new location after all.

Hi John, just reading this post with interest as I'm having a little issue similar to Craig's. I have decided to move my catalogs from their usual home on an ehd to my Mac HD leaving the image repository out on the ehd. I thought this would be a relatively quick operation. I was therefore surprised to see that the Mac went to work and computed an approximate 24 hrs to complete the task. To my surprise my Catalogs folder, including previews, is 118GB the bulk of which is accounted for by previews. I opted for 1:1 previews as a setting a long time ago happy to sacrifice the time & space as a do-once exercise but am now anxious that this is now unwieldy. Does this size seem OK in a catalog of 25K images? I have plenty of storage on ehds (x 4 x 2TB) and a 2TB hard drive on a new 27" iMac (4Ghz & 16 GB RAM), (LR 6.14). I got cold feet and stopped the file move. Thanks for any wisdom you can lend to this one - I struggle with the tech side of this stuff..

 

[Jim Wilde]

Nothing wrong with the size of the catalog folder, my own personal catalog contains half the number of images as yours, and the total size of the catalog folder is 63GB.

But there may something wrong with your Mac.....I just copied the complete folder from an external SSD to an external portable drive, total time was 8 minutes (so I'd expect to copy your catalog folder in 16 minutes). 24 hours is ridiculous....what happens when the copy starts, does the estimated time remaining drop to something more realistic (I'd expect to see positive movement of the progress indicator)?

 

[Loose Canon]

Many thanks Jim, I revisited and tried again - operation completed in a reasonable 25 mins; not sure what gremlins were abroad when I first tried it - there was nothing else going on and I gave it 10 mins or so to settle/reappraise but the 24hr projection persisted. Glad to report all well now. Just chancing my arm here and pasting in text of a question I posted a couple of weeks ago which elicited no responses - in case you have a wisdom on this one...
"Operating System: Sierra 10.12.4 / LR 6.8
Hi folks, would love some wisdom on this one please! I've just migrated from old 24" to new 27" iMac and find that my slideshows are displaying all images at varying sizes. Images cropped severely are showing as postcard size in some cases; when I visit these images individually in Library many of them will happily display at excellent resolution in Fullscreen so presumably it's not resolution - many of them are showing at less than half the size they did on my (2008) 24". Any ideas? Many thanks!!"