Does the Master catalog have to reside on startup disk- OSX?

[JeffEllis]

Hi all,

Happy to read previous posts if you can point me there.

Using a 2013 model MacPro (Trashcan) purchased Jan 2015, with a 500gb internal drive and a 3 disk 15TB total Thunderbolt raid for User files and all images. OS10.5.5
Lightroom CC2015.6.1 Camera Raw 9.6 (I've not done the very latest update. Heard that it's slowing things way down)
The Work Drive is backed up nightly to a 4th drive in the Thunderbolt box- a 6TB
When I set this up the intention was to keep the startup disk for Applications , System , LR catalog and current jobs only for processing. Assumption being that working on the processing for that job would run faster if on my internal startup drive. Then the current job would be transferred to the raid after the job processing is complete.
Usually I only put the raw files for processing in the catalog. Not always, but usually.
But over time my startup drive has gotten much fuller than I'd hoped. I used to be able to keep it a bit over 1/2 capacity for processing speed.
But now my LR catalog with nearly 200,000 images is something like 245gb.

I need to move some folders of jobs just sitting there or personal work, but even so I've only got 90-100gb free out of the 500 right now.

1-How can I lean out the catalog a bit. I've got images in yearly folders -complete years going back to 2012 and partial years to 2008.
2- does the catalog need to be on my startup drive for best speed?
Can I move it to my "Work Drive" on the external raid?

I'm not in front of it right now. Need to see where my backup catalogs are. May be in my User folder on the raid, but not sure. Could be on startup and that could help if the backups were moved. Have to check.

When I move the jobs my usual is to manually copy the parent folder of that job to the external, then "Update Folder Location" within Lightroom to external. Never have a problem with that.

All tips & advice welcome.....

 

[oleleclos]

My setup is a 2012 Mac Mini, 2.6 GHz 4-core i7 with 16 GB RAM and a 250 GB SSD primary drive and a 1TB hybrid as secondary.

I keep my Lr catalog and the raw files on the secondary drive and make sure the primary is at least 1/2 free for caches, scratch files etc. In fact, I keep all my data on the secondary drive and have only the OS and applications on the primary. *

It works very well, and I haven't noticed the slowdown of recent Lr versions that people are talking about. I run Lr 6.10 standalone.

*) I do keep the Catalog backups on my primary drive - not for speed obviously, but keeping backups on the same drive as the original somewhat defeats the purpose. As they are zipped, I can live with that, but in your setup I'd put the backups on one of your big Thunderbolt drives.

 

[JeffEllis]

My setup is a 2012 Mac Mini, 2.6 GHz 4-core i7 with 16 GB RAM and a 250 GB SSD primary drive and a 1TB hybrid as secondary.

I keep my Lr catalog and the originals on the secondary drive and make sure the primary is at least 1/2 free for caches, scratch files etc. It works very well, and I haven't noticed the slowdown of recent Lr versions that people are talking about. I run Lr 6.10 standalone.

I keep the Catalog backups on my primary drive - not for speed obviously, but keeping backups on the same drive as the original somewhat defeats the purpose. As they are zipped, I can live with that, but in your setup I'd put the backups on one of your big Thunderbolt drives.

Thanks. I will be moving the catalog to the External drive - but first I need to see about the Duplicate catalogs. Need to be sure they are really a dupe- that stops on 2014 - and not an earlier catalog with different images.
I think it ay be a dupe.
That and leaning out the backups folder will really help too.
I have that dedicated 6TB drive for backing up my various volumes - which includes the LR catalog.

--Question about moving the catalog.
Most of my images are already on the external Raid, and on an older Drobo. Once I copy the LR catalog to that external drive will all those connections to the images still need to be updated - just because the path to the catalog has changed? Hmm. may have answered my own question......
I won't be moving the images (mostly)- just the catalog.

And, is there a proper way to Move the catalog, other than the obvious of copying the LR folder over to the External box?

--Question about cleaning up old backups.
In the "Backups" folder there are 36 folders going back to Jan 10, 2015 - right after I got this MacPro
In each folder <2015-06-29 2201> is a cat file - <LR_current2012_Jobs-2.lrcat>, with no previews, up until July 2015 .
After July 2015 name changes to a .zip : - 2015-06-29 2201> LR_current2012_Jobs-2-2.lrcat.zip

Can I just select & delete all but the last 6 months of folders & delete? Or is there a "proper" way to do this?

 

[oleleclos]

1) I’d move not only the Catalog (.lrcat file) but also your Previews (.lrdata file(s)) to the Thunderbolt drive, i.e. the entire folder, not least because the Previews file is likely much bigger than the Catalog.

2) Do that in the Finder while Lr is NOT running.

3) Once you have done that, all you need to do is start Lr by double clicking on the .lrcat file IN ITS NEW POSITION. If you start Lr from the dock, it will look for its files where they were before shutting down.

4) No need to do anything about your raw files. As long as they stay in the same place, Lr will find them, regardless of where the Catalog and Preview files are located. The file positions are absolute, not relative.

5) Personally I only keep three versions of Lr’s own backup files. I do weekly backups and keep only the latest version from each month, going back three months. Others keep more, but going back years makes little sense.

You’ll only ever need your Catalog backup if Lr crashes its current Catalog (a very unlikely envent, but not impossible - could for instance happen if you have a power glitch while Lr writes to it). In that case you want to go back to your most recent backup, and the only reason to keep more than one backup is the (even more unlikely) risk of finding that that is ALSO screwed up. We’re wearing belts and braces here, and to carry that back for years is, frankly, silly. And, more to the point, a waste of disk space. You’re not likely to ever want to use them, not least because all of your more recent edits will be missing.

6) Yes, you can just delete unwanted backups in Finder (remember to empty your Trash, or you won't release the disk space - sorry if that's obvious).

 

[JeffEllis]

Thanks - and totally agree about the backups. I just don't pay any attention to that folder unless theres a problem.
had no idea it had gotten so big......
After I verify that the seemingly Duplicate catalogs are unnecessary, I will delete them first, then copy the whole folder over.
Appreciate the help.

 

[clee01l]

The file positions are absolute, not relative.

Actually, there are two fields in the database table for image file path. One is an AbsolutePath which on a Windows machine includes the Drive letter of the volume. In Windows this drive letter associated with the volume can become altered by Windows but of course does not change inside the Catalog file. This is the cause for "missing files" on many Windows machines. In MacOS, this AbsolutePath almost always is resolvable. The other Path field is the relativePath (relative to the location of the catalog). If the master images are stored in a subfolder of the folder containing the catalog file. This is resolvable on both Windows and MacOS. If the images are stored on a different volume in Windows this relativePath field is undefined.

You’ll only ever need your Catalog backup if Lr crashes its current catalog (a very unlikely envent, but not impossible

Backup catalogs are useful for recovering from Stupid user mistakes (a more likely occurrence). I have gone back as far as 6 months to recover keywords that were inadvertently removed from over 6000 images. LR does not provide housekeeping on the backup folder. You need to do this yourself. It also does not need to be a sub folder of the folder containing the catalog file. I keep mine on a 6+ year old EHD. The disk is long past it reliable life and when it fails won't likely be missed since it contains only LR Backup files (the more recent of which are also backed up my my system backup software). I let it fill up rather than do my own periodic housekeeping

 

[JeffEllis]

Thanks Cletus - that's an excellent idea.
I am also now dealing with having to get another external drive - just for my "Work Drive" backup.
My Work drive is the dedicated volume on my raid that houses pretty much only photos and the backup volume for that is now at 3.9TB and taking up the lion's share of my 6TB "Backups" disk for my User, Work, TimeMachine, startup disk.
I want to put the Work backup on it's own 6 or 8TB drive, maybe mirror raid.
That will open up that nearly 4TB for the backups for everything else.
Putting the LR backups on an older out of the way drive is a fine idea, and can be easily replace when that disk gets weary....

 

[JeffEllis]

Update - amazingly I still haven't moved anything. didn't want to screw anything off, so I procrastinate.
Want to do so soon though. I need to open up more space on my startup drive.

Question about the duplicate catalog/previews in my folder. The largest in the LR folder now is " LR_current2012_Jobs-2-2 Smart Previews.lrdata "
Which has the same root name as my current master catalog. The "2-2" happened somewhere along the line when the catalog got duplicated and the many similar named files are causing me anxiety in deciding what to delete.

I think I also want to create a new Catalog starting with Jan 2017 & see if a leaner and clearly renamed catalog will boost performance.
Opinions? This master catalog has 182,101 images in it. Guess I don't need to have ALL of them immediately at fingertips every day....

The Smart Previews file - the largest by far in the folder at 99.46GB on my 500GB startup drive is one I'd love to dump if I can. The last modification date on it is 2014. It does not seem to be connected to my current Master.
What happens if I delete that "Smart Previews" file? How do I tell if it is or is not connected to my actual in-use current catalog?
Which of these can I get rid of? I really only have one catalog. Here anyway, and one on my laptop with no connection to this one.

Here are two views of my directory.
By name:

By Size:

THANKS!!!!

 

[Johan Elzenga]

You can safely delete the smart previews. They are only needed if you want to edit images while the originals are offline.

You can also delete the .lrdata files associated with the old catalog(s), as they are no longer in use and Lightroom can rebuild them if needed.

 

[JeffEllis]

You can safely delete the smart previews. They are only needed if you want to edit images while the originals are offline.

You can also delete the .lrdata files associated with the old catalog(s), as they are no longer in use and Lightroom can rebuild them if needed.

Great. Thanks. I think I created the smart previews one time when I going on a trip & thought I'd be working on some jobs offline.
But never did...
Appreciate it!