Lightroom Catalog on external hard drive

[Ruffroad Photography]

Lightroom Version Number

13.3

Operating System

1. Windows 11

My performance has been dreadful lately with thumbnails loading slowly , and overall performance lacking. I keep my Lightroom catalog as well as all my photo files on an external SSD hard drive. I watched a video of Scott Kelby where he said to never keep the Lightroom catalog on an external hard drive. Only keeping photo files on the drive. How do I migrate my Catalog back to my desktop?

Thank you!

 

[Gnits]

I moved my catalog (and last 24 months images ) to an external ssd.. I had purchased a very expensive (Nvme M2 6000MB per second) internal drive for LrC and max performance. When I moved to an external Samsung T9.. I did not notice any descernable performance diff.

But it is never as simple as that.. there are a lot of factors to take into account.

Apart from the spec of the machine, the speed of the port, the spec and condition of the cable and the speed of the external drive all count. The slowest link will create the issue.

Do a test where you copy say 100 raw files from your system drive to the external drive and post the time and total Megabytes copied here. We can relate to that and then perhaps have other suggestions.

Make sure you have at least 100GB free on your system drive.. or Windows (or Mac) will bring to a halt.

How big is your catalog.. ie how many images.. just to get a sense of scale.

It is usually advisable to put your catalog on your fastest drive, which often is the system drive.. but this is not an absolute rule and many system drives are too small to accommodate a modest sized LrC catalog, so other strategies are needed. I have my catalog and last 24 months images on an external drive because it makes it easy for me to travel , just bringing a MacAir and my Samsung T9.

 

[Ruffroad Photography]

Thank you Matt for your reply.

1. My SSD Drive is a 4tB Transcend model TS4TESD380C . The cable I use to connect to my computer is the one that came with the drive. It is in good condition, not cracked or frayed. I am very careful to remove the cable from the drive whenever I store it or travel.
2. I have about 45,000 raw files on the drive, which I back up to a separate 8TB drive. There is plenty of room on the Transcend 4TB SS.D

3. My Desktop is pretty robust. RAM 64GB Graphics card 8GB , Windows 11Pro, 64 Bit. , 12th Gen I7 processor.

4. I only have 1 USB C port , so I have an Anker hub with 2 USB ports that I used previously , and were not communicating well. So I just plugged the SSD directly in to the USB C port on the desktop.

5. Like yourself I wanted everything on the SSD so I could travel with my laptop and edit whilst on the road. I was starting to get the same problems in the past 2 months, thus hoping to use my desktop and finding the same problems..

 

[Gnits]

Do the test copy.. so we have some measurements.

There are a lot of other factors to consider...

What is the size of the screen you use and the pixel width and height.

I ask.. because many people use default preview settings... often completely over the top for their setup.

For example... I have a 32 inch 4k screen. I normally use library and develop modes with at least one of the side panels open.. so the main central image area never approaches the size of my screen... so I have set my default preview size to 2048.

I see no point in having LrC constantly render larger previews when necessary.. either at the import stage or general use.

Check if you have the setting to save data to Xmp. If you have ... I have to ask the question.. for what specific reason... ie what benefit do you expect. This can be a massive performance hog.

Some other possible causes.

If you have recently upgraded to Win 11.. you may have a lot of unwanted processes and apps active. I spent at least two weeks trawling thru my upgraded Win 11 to remove a massive level of bloat... I should probably revisit that exercise.

Another point.. Google "Windows FastStartUp"... and understand what it does and then check if FastStart is configured on your pc. If you have FastStartUp... then it may have been days, weeks, months or longer since your machine has had a full cold reboot. This is essential for the health of a Windows PC. This was responsible for massive LrC instability issues for me. The short term fix.. is to use the option to Restart rather than Shutdown or any of the Sleep / Hibernate modes... This is a major blunder by some idiot in Microsoft at some time in the past and not adjusted to reflect current hardware..

I have also turned of Windows Indexing to everything except Outlook and OneNote... and I have removed my Catalog and image folders from Virus Checking.

I make sure that all Cloud Synch Disk services are turned off.. except when I want to perform a specific task. I do not allow any files or folders into Microsoft OneDrive (too many really bad experiences and a known cause of corruption to LrCatalogs).

I do use Cloud Disk synch services (my fav is dropbox).. but any files or folders used are only temp copies and I ensure that they are removed from the Synch service when the transfer is complete.

Handling performance is a long road of lots of tweaks.. based on usage, hardware, apps used , etc..

 

[Ron-Alexander]

Thank you Matt for your reply.

1. My SSD Drive is a 4tB Transcend model TS4TESD380C . The cable I use to connect to my computer is the one that came with the drive. It is in good condition, not cracked or frayed. I am very careful to remove the cable from the drive whenever I store it or travel.
2. I have about 45,000 raw files on the drive, which I back up to a separate 8TB drive. There is plenty of room on the Transcend 4TB SS.D

3. My Desktop is pretty robust. RAM 64GB Graphics card 8GB , Windows 11Pro, 64 Bit. , 12th Gen I7 processor.

4. I only have 1 USB C port , so I have an Anker hub with 2 USB ports that I used previously , and were not communicating well. So I just plugged the SSD directly in to the USB C port on the desktop.

5. Like yourself I wanted everything on the SSD so I could travel with my laptop and edit whilst on the road. I was starting to get the same problems in the past 2 months, thus hoping to use my desktop and finding the same problems..

You need to verify using whatever software Win11 runs to test real-world speed. The cable may only be 480MBPS; the HUB could also be 480MBPS. Real fast cables cost MUCH more than 'free' cables. If you post the link to your cables and hub, we can verify,y but the quickest is to use somethingg like the following

AI-assisted answer

No single software can test an SSD, a USB cable, and a USB hub all at once because they operate on different layers (storage health vs. electrical/protocol signalling). Instead, use a specialized combination: CrystalDiskMark or CrystalDiskInfo for the SSD, and USB Device Tree Viewer to diagnose cable speeds and hub topology.

Testing the SSD

• CrystalDiskInfo: Checks the S.M.A.R.T. health, temperature, and overall life percentage of your SSD.
• CrystalDiskMark: Benchmarks the actual sequential and random read/write speeds of the drive to ensure it meets performance specs.

Testing the USB Cable and Hub

• USB Device Tree Viewer: Displays the exact connection tree of your USB hubs and ports. It reveals the negotiated connection speed (e.g., checking if a USB 3.2 cable or hub is falling back to slow USB 2.0 speeds due to a bad wire, damaged pin, or faulty port).
• Hardware Limitation Note: Pure software cannot measure electrical resistance or signal integrity in a cable. If you need to test raw electrical power delivery or data wire continuity in a cable, a physical USB Multimeter / Cable Tester is required.

To benchmark the absolute maximum transfer speed of your SSD, USB cable, and USB hub, use CrystalDiskMark alongside USB Device Tree Viewer.
By running an external speed test, you directly measure the speed limits of your cable and hub. If a high-speed external SSD performs poorly, the bottleneck is either the cable or the hub.

The Speed Testing Framework

1. Check Connection Speeds (USB Device Tree Viewer)
Before running a benchmark, verify that your hardware is talking to Windows 11 at its maximum rated protocol speed.

• Open USB Device Tree Viewer.
• Locate your USB Hub and the SSD plugged into it.
• Look at the Device Bus Speed.
• If your 10 Gbps (SuperSpeed+) hub or cable is damaged, it will often drop down to High-Speed (480 Mbps / USB 2.0).

2. Benchmark the Real-World Throughput (CrystalDiskMark)
Once you confirm the connection protocol looks correct, measure the actual data throughput.

• Download and launch CrystalDiskMark.
• Select your target SSD from the drive dropdown menu.
• Click the All button to run the full suite of sequential and random read/write tests.
• Focus on the SEQ1M Q8T1 result. This represents your maximum peak speed.

How to Isolate a Slow Cable or Hub
To find out exactly which component is slowing you down, use a process of elimination with CrystalDiskMark:

• Test 1 (The Baseline): Plug your SSD directly into a motherboard USB port using a known good cable. Run CrystalDiskMark.
• Test 2 (Test the Hub): Plug your hub into the motherboard, plug the SSD into the hub (using the same good cable), and rerun the test. If speeds drop significantly, your USB hub is the bottleneck.
• Test 3 (Test the Cable): Swap in the USB cable you want to test. Keep the SSD on the hub. Rerun the test. If speeds drop now, that specific USB cable is faulty or rated for lower speeds.

Protocol Speed Reference Sheet
Compare your CrystalDiskMark sequential test results against these official maximum real-world ceilings to see if your hardware is performing at its best:

• USB 2.0: ~35 to 40 MB/s
• USB 3.2 Gen 1 (USB 3.0): ~450 to 500 MB/s
• USB 3.2 Gen 2 (USB 3.1): ~950 to 1,050 MB/s
• USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 / USB4 / Thunderbolt: ~2,000 to 3,200+ MB/s

End of AI

I have two USB cable testers. One is a simple 22 LEDS that do a simple continuity test. The other is a functional test used mainly for NON USB-C to USB-C to see which signal lines are,e in fact,t enabled.

If I were you, I would buy an Apple-certified cable from Apple that is sold as a certain speed (Thunderbolt 5 is the latest, but Thunderbolt 4 is plenty fast) for your setup. NO hub; try with the SSD directly connected. It may be that the SSD is slow. Unfortunately, many scammers sell capable SSDs, hubs, and cables labelled as faster.
Good luck.

 

[clee01l]

My performance has been dreadful lately with thumbnails loading slowly , and overall performance lacking. I keep my Lightroom catalog as well as all my photo files on an external SSD hard drive. I watched a video of Scott Kelby where he said to never keep the Lightroom catalog on an external hard drive. Only keeping photo files on the drive. How do I migrate my Catalog back to my desktop?

Thank you!

Simply copy the Lightroom folder to the Primary Drive. and remove the folder from the SSD. Since you are on Windows, you may need to tell Classic where the image folders are located when you open the catalog file in its new location.

Scott Kelby's advice is out dated, stemming from a time when external volumes were only accessible on slow USB 1/2/3 ports. Current Thunderbolt 3/4 ports or USBC-4 ports are as fast as an internal bus mounted volume.

 

[Zenon]

I'm a hobby shooter and while I have a Mac mini M4 but I can't justify spending a lot of money on external drives. I still use good old powered Western Digital spinners so I keep the Lightroom Catalogue folder on the desktop and files on the ED's.

However my workflow is as such. I import off my desktop and leave that folder with the files there. I edit off the desktop because that my fastest drive and it reminds me of what I'm working on. When I'm done with all of the major editing which includes additional culling, using LrC I drag that folder to the ED.

A few other things that slow down LrC. Your drive should have 20% of free drive space. Unofficial rule of thumb is 100GB. So if your ED is getting full that could be it if the catalogue is on it as well. Shut down LrC from time to time and make sure the Optimize Catalogue and Check Integrity boxes are checked. I does not hurt to purge both Library and Develop Previews from time to time. In the Preferences - Performance. What is your Camera Raw Cache Settings set to. Those are the Develop Previews and I'm set to 30GB.

I follow this pretty closely. Once I set things up I have not gone back to it in years.

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-c...uidelines/optimize-performance-lightroom.html

 

[Paul McFarlane]

Scott Kelby's advice is out dated, stemming from a time when external volumes were only accessible on slow USB 1/2/3 ports. Current Thunderbolt 3/4 ports or USBC-4 ports are as fast as an internal bus mounted volume.

Totally agree. I keep mine on a fast external SSD with no issues.

 

[Zenon]

Totally agree. I keep mine on a fast external SSD with no issues.

I looked into upgrading to SSD's. No thanks for now. If I did have them I would consider it.

 

[Califdan]

At home I have the catalog on my inernal SSD (C: Drive) but when traveling I have the catalog on a Portable HD (spinning disk) and it is fine. Maybe not quite as fast as at home but when on the road I'm usually not doing heavy editing - mostly just some culling and star ratings. Maybe some keywording

 

[clee01l]

I looked into upgrading to SSD's. No thanks for now. If I did have them I would consider it.,

It is unlikely that I will ever replace my 40TB of external storage with affordable SSDs. I did invest in a Thunderbolt 4 five Bay DAS. For Image storage, The HDDs on Thunderbolt are fast enough for any Lightroom task.

 

[Zenon]

At home I have the catalog on my inernal SSD (C: Drive) but when traveling I have the catalog on a Portable HD (spinning disk) and it is fine. Maybe not quite as fast as at home but when on the road I'm usually not doing heavy editing - mostly just some culling and star ratings. Maybe some keywording

Yep it is not as bit a deal. I still keep the cat not the drive on my MB Air M3 but use a 1TB portable SSD. I got a few of these many years ago for a good price.

 

[Ruffroad Photography]

Simply copy the Lightroom folder to the Primary Drive. and remove the folder from the SSD. Since you are on Windows, you may need to tell Classic where the image folders are located when you open the catalog file in its new location.

Scott Kelby's advice is out dated, stemming from a time when external volumes were only accessible on slow USB 1/2/3 ports. Current Thunderbolt 3/4 ports or USBC-4 ports are as fast as an internal bus mounted volume.

Thank you Clee01 for your reply.
I have copied my lightroom cataglog to my main C drive. When I attempt to open it, I get a pop up saying the file is corrupted. I deleted the catalog from my external drive, I cannot now use Lightroom at all.

Can you help me get back into Light room?

 

[Ron-Alexander]

Thank you Clee01 for your reply.
I have copied my lightroom cataglog to my main C drive. When I attempt to open it, I get a pop up saying the file is corrupted. I deleted the catalog from my external drive, I cannot now use Lightroom at all.

Can you help me get back into Light room?

Before @clee01l gives you the detailed instructions, COPY your most recent master catalogue backup to whatever drive you plan to keep it on. DO NOTHING after that.

 

[clee01l]

Thank you Clee01 for your reply.
I have copied my lightroom cataglog to my main C drive. When I attempt to open it, I get a pop up saying the file is corrupted. I deleted the catalog from my external drive, I cannot now use Lightroom at all.

Can you help me get back into Light room?

If you deleted your only copy of the catalog file you are limited to any catalog backups.

Note my instructions were to copy the Lightroom Folder containing the catalog file and other useful files. And to REMOVE that folder from the External drive.

If you deleted the catalog file you may be able to restore it from your trash bin.

Once you have done this, before doing anything else. Make sure Lightroom is working in the original location.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Ruffroad Photography]

I have copied my last master catalog backup to the external drive per the advice of Ron Alexander. Lightroom is not working at present.

I have attached a screen shot of the drive here.

 

[Ron-Alexander]

I have copied my last master catalog backup to the external drive per the advice of Ron Alexander. Lightroom is not working at present.

I have attached a screen shot of the drive here.View attachment 30029

Ok, open the directory and double-click the lrcat file. If you don't have File Explorer set to show file extensions, you will need to do that first. Once the catalogue is open, use the Lightroom left-hand folder pane to navigate to the photos directory if it is not already correct. Here is part of my photos folder. The left screenshot shows what I see in LrC, nd the right is what I see in Mac Finder, which is similar to Windows File Explorer.

 

[Ruffroad Photography]

Ok, open the directory and double-click the lrcat file. If you don't have File Explorer set to show file extensions, you will need to do that first. Once the catalogue is open, use the Lightroom left-hand folder pane to navigate to the photos directory if it is not already correct. Here is part of my photos folder. The left screenshot shows what I see in LrC, nd the right is what I see in Mac Finder, which is similar to Windows File Explorer.

Thank you Ron. Here are screenshots of what I get . I might not be following your instructions, I apologize as I am an old Boomer semi-luddite.

Ok, open the directory and double-click the lrcat file. If you don't have File Explorer set to show file extensions, you will need to do that first. Once the catalogue is open, use the Lightroom left-hand folder pane to navigate to the photos directory if it is not already correct. Here is part of my photos folder. The left screenshot shows what I see in LrC, nd the right is what I see in Mac Finder, which is similar to Windows File Explorer.

 

[Ruffroad Photography]

Ok, I have muddled my way through to reopening Lightroom Classic. It is prompting me to Import. Any advice on how I should proceed to get back to my catalog would be much appreciated.
Incidentally, I reside in The Philippines, so my time zone is quite a distance from most of the participants here.

Thank you!

 

[Gnits]

Your installation may simply be defaulting to starting in the Import mode.

Try cancel from the Import Module and check if your catalog is as what you would expect.

I recall there may be a LrC parameter to control this behaviour .. cannot recall right now exactly the details.

 

[Paul McFarlane]

Also ensure that if you opened the catalog by double-clicking on the file, you clicked the *.lrcat - not the *.lrcat-data (the latter will open in Import mode)

 

[Jim Wilde]

Also ensure that if you opened the catalog by double-clicking on the file, you clicked the *.lrcat - not the *.lrcat-data (the latter will open in Import mode)

Well, who knew!! Nice one, Paul.

 

[Ron-Alexander]

Also ensure that if you opened the catalog by double-clicking on the file, you clicked the *.lrcat - not the *.lrcat-data (the latter will open in Import mode)

BINGO. That explains it. The biggest problem a lot of these less experienced people have, especially with Windows, is not having File Explorer configured the way we techies do. Could we add a teaching article ot how to configure File Explorer, including views and how to sort the display?y. Also, do they even know the difference between clicking, right-clicking, and double-clicking? I see many posts related to these basic skills.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

BINGO. That explains it. The biggest problem a lot of these less experienced people have, especially with Windows, is not having File Explorer configured the way we techies do. Could we add a teaching article ot how to configure File Explorer, including views and how to sort the display?y. Also, do they even know the difference between clicking, right-clicking, and double-clicking? I see many posts related to these basic skills.

The .lrcat-data cache is not a file, but a folder in Windows, so I don’t think you can launch Lightroom Classic by double clicking it.

 

[Paul McFarlane]

The .lrcat-data cache is not a file, but a folder in Windows, so I don’t think you can launch Lightroom Classic by double clicking it.

Fair point, I'm Mac (and should have checked, OP is Windows)