LR Classic - Storage & Performance

[raoulco]

Lightroom Version

12.2

Operating System

1. macOS 13 Ventura

Hello folks it's me again with a new round of storage and performance dilemmas! Mercifully they only come around once a year or so!
I'm at a decision making point for a new Mac and have to decide whether or not to pay eye-watering amounts of cash to Apple for more SSD storage space. (you can't upgrade storage or RAM after you buy)
The common wisdom says rather buy external SSD's that cost less, and as you all know, disk space does fill up rather fast if one doesn't keep a constant beady eye on all those 1:1 Previews. I've been advised previously on this forum to delete all those 1:1 Previews but I don't really like doing this because it means that when I want a full overview of my catalogue, LR has to generate new previews of everything all over again and we're back to square one. It's a bit of a pain and it takes time. Obviously with the limitations of storage space I do keep lots of older image files on external drives however I do prefer to keep my more current stuff on the local drive for better & faster response, especially when viewing images 1:1 and for Develop module performance. [For example, I'll keep all images from the past 2-3 years on the local drive because I revisit them often]. The question is really, then, how do some/many/most of you work? Do you store your main Lightroom folder containing your Catalogs, Previews, Plugins etc on your local Mac drive ie Users > Me > Pictures > Lightroom OR do you comfortably store that entire Lightroom folder on an external drive with all your big GB Previews and you don't worry about Lightroom Previews chewing up valuable SSD space? If you work mainly from external drives, do you notice any lag in speed while Lightroom is working between the local drive (where the LR.cat is stored) and the external drive (where your pictures are stored)? I think I have, although I'm not sure if it's my computer's performance or a lag in communication between the local drive and external drive. Thanks for reading.

 

[Replytoken]

A couple of thoughts. First, you are going to get a lot of opinions on this post, so keep in mind what your budget is and try not to get sold on things that you cannot afford. Second, it is always a good idea to get as much RAM as possible, as you cannot compensate for that like you can with storage.

Regarding the new machine, do you have a choice on what ports are installed? More modern ports are generally faster and with the right drives, you can get decent performance from an external drive. Your strategy for splitting your images between current and older is fine if you do not necessarily want to work on older images, and you can notice in performance between your internal and external drives.

I keep my images on an external drive and my catalog and previews on my internal drive, but I use a single machine set up. What you end up with will heavily depend on your equipment choices and expectations. And, you can always move catalogs and images. You cannot change hardware that is permanently mounted to your motherboard, so I would see what your options are besides just ram and storage before you make a decision.

Good luck,

--Ken

 

[raoulco]

A couple of thoughts. First, you are going to get a lot of opinions on this post, so keep in mind what your budget is and try not to get sold on things that you cannot afford. Second, it is always a good idea to get as much RAM as possible, as you cannot compensate for that like you can with storage.

Regarding the new machine, do you have a choice on what ports are installed? More modern ports are generally faster and with the right drives, you can get decent performance from an external drive. Your strategy for splitting your images between current and older is fine if you do not necessarily want to work on older images, and you can notice in performance between your internal and external drives.

I keep my images on an external drive and my catalog and previews on my internal drive, but I use a single machine set up. What you end up with will heavily depend on your equipment choices and expectations. And, you can always move catalogs and images. You cannot change hardware that is permanently mounted to your motherboard, so I would see what your options are besides just ram and storage before you make a decision.

Good luck,

--Ken

Thanks Ken. The new machine is most likely going to be the Mini M2 Pro, with maximum RAM config 32Gb. It has 4 USB-C/Thunderbolt ports and 2 USB-A ports. My main expectation is that I don't have to watch a spinning wheel "Loading" for 7 seconds just to view a full-frame raw image to 100%, or having to wait for the Healing brush that's lagging behind my clicks by a few seconds. The truth of the matter with drives is that a local SSD in the Mac Studio M1 Ultra, for example, reads/writes at about 5700 mb/s while an external SSD won't put out more that 2800. Of course the M1 Ultra is a very extreme and expensive choice which I can't justify.

 

[Replytoken]

Thanks Ken. The new machine is most likely going to be the Mini M2 Pro, with maximum RAM config 32Gb. It has 4 USB-C/Thunderbolt ports and 2 USB-A ports. My main expectation is that I don't have to watch a spinning wheel "Loading" for 7 seconds just to view a full-frame raw image to 100%, or having to wait for the Healing brush that's lagging behind my clicks by a few seconds. The truth of the matter with drives is that a local SSD in the Mac Studio M1 Ultra, for example, reads/writes at about 5700 mb/s while an external SSD won't put out more that 2800. Of course the M1 Ultra is a very extreme and expensive choice which I can't justify.

The USB-C TB port should give you good throughput. Consider SSD's that use NVMe and/or USB-C3.2 connections. I am not sure where the "break even" point is between the port and the drive for throughput, but you want to hit it or exceed it if possible. And what size raw files are you using? That, obviously, also makes a difference.

--Ken

 

[Gnits]

What size disk will u opt for on new machine.

How many images in your catalog.

Current raw file size.

 

[raoulco]

The USB-C TB port should give you good throughput. Consider SSD's that use NVMe and/or USB-C3.2 connections. I am not sure where the "break even" point is between the port and the drive for throughput, but you want to hit it or exceed it if possible. And what size raw files are you using? That, obviously, also makes a difference.

--Ken

Raw files 77Mb (D810) and 95Mb (D850)

 

[raoulco]

What size disk will u opt for on new machine. Minimum 1Tb, considering 2Tb but at €690 per Terabyte, it gets very expensive, very quickly

How many images in your catalog. 56,000 / 281 Gb

Current raw file size. 77Mb & 95Mb

 

[Replytoken]

Raw files 77Mb (D810) and 95Mb (D850)

Reasonably large files, and I can see a reason for concern, but the actual file mostly gets accessed when in the develop module, so you are right to want 1:1 previews accessible. Still, well chosen SSD's should either narrow the gap or even eliminate much of it. I have an older Windows PC so I cannot really tell you from experience how much speed you will or will not notice with new hardware.

--Ken

 

[Gnits]

I have tried various storage strategies, starting with internal spinning disks, then Nas, then Thunderbolt enclosure.

Now, my preferred strategy is to have my catalog and current years images on an internal Ssd and all my previous years images on an internal spinning disk. I use my Thunderbolt enclosure as first level backup and my NAS as a second level of backup.

I abandoned NAS after less than a week. I did not realise how slow it was. I abandoned using my Thunderbolt enclosure because every so often my system would hang as the enclosure appeared to do some kind of background housekeeping. I am not sure if it is my Win Machine, the Thunderbolt Drivers, the implementation of Thunderbolt on my Asrock motherboard or an issue with the enclosure, but I have given up trying to figure that out. Maybe an OWC enclosure connected to a Mac would be a better combo.

If I was going to use a Mini M2 pro, I would get one with the max ssd storage I could afford. I would put my catalog and my most recent images on the Internal Ssd and would implement an external storage solution related to the amount of storage required.

I like what is happening with the evolution of the M1 / M2 series Apple machines, but I will be sticking with a custom built Win machine for the foreseeable future as I can keep adding internal drives (or upgrade drives to higher capacity) to meet ongoing growth of my image Library. I have a 1 TB M2 Nvme drive for my O/S, a second 1TB M2 Nvme drive for my catalog and current years images. The remainder of my images are on an internal Red WD 10TB spinning drive.

I will consider an Apple machine for my main workstation when Apple supply a model where I can add and change internal disk storage at a non unreasonable price.

I can see that the Mac Mini M2 series could be an ideal solution for many Lr users, the existence of so many TB ports does provide external storage options, especially as Thunderbolt drives can be daisy chained.

Ps. 99% of the time I only access images on my internal 1TB ssd.

 

[raoulco]

Reasonably large files, and I can see a reason for concern, but the actual file mostly gets accessed when in the develop module, so you are right to want 1:1 previews accessible. Still, well chosen SSD's should either narrow the gap or even eliminate much of it. I have an older Windows PC so I cannot really tell you from experience how much speed you will or will not notice with new hardware.
--Ken

I have tried various storage strategies, starting with internal spinning disks, then Nas, then Thunderbolt enclosure.

Now, my preferred strategy is to have my catalog and current years images on an internal Ssd and all my previous years images on an internal spinning disk. I use my Thunderbolt enclosure as first level backup and my NAS as a second level of backup.

I abandoned NAS after less than a week. I did not realise how slow it was. I abandoned using my Thunderbolt enclosure because every so often my system would hang as the enclosure appeared to do some kind of background housekeeping. I am not sure if it is my Win Machine, the Thunderbolt Drivers, the implementation of Thunderbolt on my Asrock motherboard or an issue with the enclosure, but I have given up trying to figure that out. Maybe an OWC enclosure connected to a Mac would be a better combo.

If I was going to use a Mini M2 pro, I would get one with the max ssd storage I could afford. I would put my catalog and my most recent images on the Internal Ssd and would implement an external storage solution related to the amount of storage required. - Agreed, I do already have other external storage which is already fairly full so will need to invest in more external storage.

I like what is happening with the evolution of the M1 / M2 series Apple machines, but I will be sticking with a custom built Win machine for the foreseeable future as I can keep adding internal drives (or upgrade drives to higher capacity) to meet ongoing growth of my image Library. I have a 1 TB M2 Nvme drive for my O/S, a second 1TB M2 Nvme drive for my catalog and current years images. The remainder of my images are on an internal Red WD 10TB spinning drive. Yes it's a real bugbear that Apple can't be upgraded and you have to make all those expensive decisions when you buy - and then hope that they don't announce a newer, better, faster and cheaper product a few months later!

I will consider an Apple machine for my main workstation when Apple supply a model where I can add and change internal disk storage at a non unreasonable price. - That will never happen, they have been moving away from that for a good few years already. But I guess we should never say never.

I can see that the Mac Mini M2 series could be an ideal solution for many Lr users, the existence of so many TB ports does provide external storage options, especially as Thunderbolt drives can be daisy chained.

Ps. 99% of the time I only access images on my internal 1TB ssd. Me too, and I think that's the best strategy.

 

[Zenon]

I have two Macs. 27'' iMac that is capable of adding memory which I did on my own. It has a 500GB SSD drive. I bet I have about 300GB space left on it. I also travel with a MacBook Air M1 that only has a 250GB drive. I just checked and I have about 140GB space left on it. On both I run LR/PS, Canon's DPP and a few 3rd party Noise AI apps.

On both machines I keep the Catalogue, etc on the HD. All files are stored on either powered (home) or portable (travel) spinning disks. I have very little issues with any performance. Once the previews for a folder go away it takes a second to open a file which is no big deal. By then I have finished editing anyway.

 

[raoulco]

I have two Macs. 27'' iMac that is capable of adding memory which I did on my own. It has a 500GB SSD drive. I bet I have about 300GB space left on it. I also travel with a MacBook Air M1 that only has a 250GB drive. I just checked and I have about 140GB space left on it. On both I run LR/PS, Canon's DPP and a few 3rd party Noise AI apps.

On both machines I keep the Catalogue, etc on the HD. All files are stored on either powered (home) or portable (travel) spinning disks. I have very little issues with any performance. Once the previews for a folder go away it takes a second to open a file which is no big deal. By then I have finished editing anyway.

Thanks. I'm amazed to see how much extra space you have left. I should probably spend some time doing a cleanup.

 

[Zenon]

Thanks. I'm amazed to see how much extra space you have left. I should probably spend some time doing a cleanup.

I try and run a tidy ship. I did take my older iMac in once and they told me that they were surprised about that. Also LrC needs about 20% free HD space. Unofficial rule of thumb is 100GB.

I also have a maintenance routine but I haven't tried any apps to remove duplicates yet as I really don't know what software to use. I hate installing apps I'm not familiar with.

My routine which includes Safari. I have to log in to all my sites after I do this. I also use FF and Google (if I need to). The Portuguese airline sometimes doesn't play nice with Safari.

Open Safari and delete all history. Open Safari Develop and Empty Cashes.

Finder - Go - Library - open the Cashes and drag them all into the bin.

While in the Library open Safari - Data Bases. I look in there and the indexedDB as I read they hide stuff un there but I have not seen anything in a long time.

Back in Safari - Settings (Ventura) or Preferences - Privacy - Manage Website Data - Remove All. Usually by the time I get to this it is all gone. Never used to do that but I guess with the newer OS versions.

 

[raoulco]

I try and run a tidy ship. I did take my older iMac in once and they told me that they were surprised about that. Also LrC needs about 20% free HD space. Unofficial rule of thumb is 100GB. - Do you mean 20% free space, like a Scratch Disk?

I also have a maintenance routine but I haven't tried any apps to remove duplicates yet as I really don't know what software to use. I hate installing apps I'm not familiar with.
- I use Gemini which I paid for but I find it very tedious to work with and I seldom use it

My routine which includes Safari. I have to log in to all my sites after I do this. I also use FF and Google (if I need to). The Portuguese airline sometimes doesn't play nice with Safari. -

Open Safari and delete all history. Open Safari Develop and Empty Cashes.

Finder - Go - Library - open the Cashes and drag them all into the bin. - I would prefer not to mess around with anything in Library. But I see that - surprise surprise - Adobe Camera Raw is the biggest space hog at 21.42Gb just in the Library.

While in the Library open Safari - Data Bases. I look in there and the indexedDB as I read they hide stuff un there but I have not seen anything in a long time. - not much in there

Back in Safari - Settings (Ventura) or Preferences - Privacy - Manage Website Data - Remove All. Usually by the time I get to this it is all gone. Never used to do that but I guess with the newer OS versions.

 

[Zenon]

From this document that is very good. I follow it closely.

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/optimize-performance-lightroom.html

Make sure that you have a large enough hard drive and enough free space​

Working with too little free hard-disk space can cause poor performance. Make sure that the hard drive that stores your Lightroom Classic catalog, previews, and image files is at least 20% free.
See Lightroom Classic system requirements to find out the minimum amount of free hard-disk space you need for your version of Lightroom Classic.

 

[raoulco]

I really should just spend some time (a lot of time) culling all the image files that are taking up all that valuable space. That would go a long way to resolving some of my issues - and saving me money. But Lightroom Classic still remains the biggest space guzzler of all at a whopping 281Gb with the Previews alone taking 267Gb.

 

[raoulco]

From this document that is very good. I follow it closely.

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/optimize-performance-lightroom.html

Make sure that you have a large enough hard drive and enough free space​

Working with too little free hard-disk space can cause poor performance. Make sure that the hard drive that stores your Lightroom Classic catalog, previews, and image files is at least 20% free.
See Lightroom Classic system requirements to find out the minimum amount of free hard-disk space you need for your version of Lightroom Classic.

Thanks

 

[Gnits]

I really should just spend some time (a lot of time) culling all the image files that are taking up all that valuable space. That would go a long way to resolving some of my issues - and saving me money. But Lightroom Classic still remains the biggest space guzzler of all at a whopping 281Gb with the Previews alone taking 267Gb.

Consider deleting the previews and rebuilding them or a section of them you would consider optimal.

Sometimes junk can build up in the preview folder (app crashes, power outage, etc) and starting from scratch can be a good exercise every year or two. Also, there can be corrupt previews in this folder which can slow down or cause Lr to crash.

Also, you may have checked this already, just stating the obvious, but check out how much storage is consumed by your Lr backups. List your PSD or Tiff files on your HD and check how much space they occupy. Tiff / Psd's get very big very quickly.

In the earlier days of small hard drives ... I found it a nightmare to keep enough spare space on my Windows system drive. It was high maintenance and hard , time consuming, frustrating work.

At the earliest opportunity I upgraded to a decent size SSD and dedicated the drive to O/s and apps. I just checked my C drive now. I do not store any user data on this drive but it is currently using 290 GB. I no longer waste any time pruning my C drive and appreciate that fact every time it crosses my mind.

 

[Jim Wilde]

Obviously with the limitations of storage space I do keep lots of older image files on external drives however I do prefer to keep my more current stuff on the local drive for better & faster response, especially when viewing images 1:1 and for Develop module performance. [For example, I'll keep all images from the past 2-3 years on the local drive because I revisit them often].

This thread has meandered in several different directions, but I thought it would be helpful to address this section of your original post, especially the bit that I've highlighted in italics, as I fear you are working from the typical assumption that having your images stored on the fastest drive will give you the best performance when working in LrC. Having the catalog and associated previews on the fastest drive is sound advice, but having the photos on the fastest drive will make little difference compared to having them on a slower external volume.

It helps to understand how and when LrC references the image files, and in the main it reads the original files when building Library previews, when opening an image into Develop, and when doing some post-processing action such as exporting. For the rest of the time the original files are rarely used.

I've spent the last couple of hours running some tests to help make the point. I started with 600 x 45mp raw files, and put copies of them on three different drives: the internal 1TB SSD of my M1 Mac Mini (thus the fastest drive available to me), a 2TB external Samsung T7 SSD, connected by USB-C to one of the Thunderbolt 4 ports (up to 40GB/s), and a USB3 7200rpm G-Tech spinning drive connected via USB-A port (up to 5GB/s). I then divided the 600 images into two sets of 300, set 1 being unedited files and set 2 having some edits applied, and then ran a series of timing tests building 1:1 previews for each set from each location. The results are as follows"

a) Files on internal SSD

Set 1: 2.28 seconds per image
Set 2: 4.14 seconds per image

b) Files on external Samsung SSD

Set 1: 2.28 seconds per image
Set 2: 4.04 seconds per image

c) Files on external HDD

Set 1: 2.24 seconds per image
Set 2: 4.04 seconds per image

As you can see, there is virtually no difference in timing across all 3 drive types (I've previously run this test with the images on a 5400rpm portable hard drive connected by USB 2 (yes, USB TWO), and again little difference.

If you find these results surprising, it might help to understand the process of creating a 1:1 preview. In essence 3-4 steps: read raw file, convert raw file, apply any edits, build and save the preview.....and the raw conversion is by far the longest step, and that is currently totally CPU driven (monitor the system when building 1:1 previews and you'll see the CPU is almost maxed out). This makes the read speed of the data more or less irrelevant, especially when generating previews in parallel is factored into the process.

The speed of subsequent viewing of 1:1 previews would largely be determined by the location of the catalog (and associated previews) and not by the location of the image files themselves.

Post-processing actions such as export use virtually the same process, and again you will observe when batch exporting that the CPU (or GPU if that supports export) is again maxed out.

Different factors apply when opening an image into Develop. The first action is that LrC reads and presents either any existing Smart Preview or if that's not present it will use the ACR Cache entry, both of which will typically be found on the internal drive (assuming that catalog is on the internal drive). Having read that, the sliders are enabled for editing so the user can make a start, but in the background the original file is being read from whatever drive it's on and converted (and current edits applied) and the editable preview is created (that you use for editing) and written into the system cache, where it then silently replaces the initial preview. So again, the bulk of that action is a combination of internal drive reading and CPU processing, making the location of the actual files a non factor in processing speed terms. Furthermore, LrC will now intelligently try to pre-cache the next few images in sequence, so that when moving from one image to the next all the heavy lifting has already been done and the editable preview is already available in the system cache. The actual edit process itself, e.g. slider responsiveness, is not at all influenced by the location of the actual image files. You are working with a cached preview, so RAM, CPU, GPU are the elements which come into play here.

I'm not trying to influence either your buying or your workflow decisions, but I am just wanting to give you information on which you can base those decisions, and set your expectations accordingly. You might have very valid reasons for storing recent images on the internal drive instead of an external drive, but performance wouldn't really be one of them. There also might be really good reasons for purchasing the fastest possible external drive to store your original images, but again improved performance in LrC wouldn't be one of them.

I hope that helps.

 

[GregJ]

I read this and considered sparing you a response because it makes me want to write about 15 pages about what I think you should do.
You are considering a new Mac, and I think that is a separate decision than an external storage decision. You are going to be upgrading your external storage no matter what you do (using the old vs getting a new machine), so let's talk about that first.

I love Apple even though I'm a PC guy and never enter Apple vs Windows discussions on forums because to me it's a wash. Both systems are fabulous and can get the job done. And both have made incredible advances in just the past two years.

I build my rigs so therefore I go PC and Windows laptops. That allows me to upgrade without being held hostage or carjacked by Apple. Unlike the rest of the market right now, Apple is not friendly on internal SSD configuration pricing and charge you the equivalent of 78,000 Roman Gold Talons for a 1 or 2 TB boot M.2 PCIe4 NVMe SSD that should be 90 bucks (1 TB) or 180 bucks (2 TB) right now, as priced dropped 25% in the last 2 months and 10% last week.

Your new Mac will have at least a 1 TB internal M.2 PCIe 4 SSD as boot and you could spend big (Apple Tax) on a 2 TB, but for you 1 TB will be fine. You can fit all your programs on that 1TB and of course your LR Cat (not the previews). Your image files will be kept on an external 4 TB SSD. Gamers like 2TB boot drives because they load all their games on the boot drive. But you won't fill a 2TB boot drive because your images will be stored on an external SSD.

But you did not say your total data requirements. Is it under 3 TB? That is critical information. If it is under 3 TB you can store all your work on 1 4TB external SSD and back up to very cheap single 6 TB spinners.

Now let's talk connectivity to that SSD and the SSD itself. Educate yourself on TB4. TB4 is a "superset standard" incorporating USB4, DisplayPort and PCI Express (PCIe). That is huge because you have compatibility now with USB 4 (and backwards) and can connect to fast external PCIe SSDs. That is big because earlier Macs had trouble connecting to many USB devices. No more. And it is supe-fast now.

Yes, TB4 includes USB 4 and think of it as 40 Gbps, vs the 20 Gbps of USB 3.2 Gen 2x2, and the 10 Gbps of USB 3.2 Gen 2 and the 5 Gbps of USB 3.2 Gen 1. Those are the new naming conventions for USB. There is no USB 3.0 or 3.2 anymore. Forget those names and think in terms of 5, 10, 20 and 40 Gbps. You will have 40Gbps connectivity, which is absolutely amazing speed.

So, how fast is that external SSD you will get? Well, you need to educate yourself on that. There are vast differences in speed in internal and external SSDs and you have the fastest port and connectivity there is (TB4) so get a fast SSD that works well with it. And get now cables that are rated for 40 Gbps.

If you want a speedy portable external SSD, you're better served by pairing one of the best SSD enclosures with an internal 2280 form-factor SSD of your choosing than by getting one of the best external SSDs. Like the drives themselves, the SSD enclosures on the market are not all created equal, particularly when you want the fastest possible speeds. You will have TB4. Right now, the west and fastest enclosures all use a 40 Gbps USB-C connection that's either labeled as Thunderbolt 3, Thunderbolt 4 or USB 4, which are cross-compatible (if you have a TB4 port). In the past, Thunderbolt devices usually don't work when plugged into the slower 5 or 10 (or even 20) Gbps USB-C ports that most computers have. But true TB/4 USB 4 devices are backward compatible with older standards such as USB 3.2 / 3.1.

Remember, you can also get an internal SSD with that long rectangular form factor (2280) which is cheaper than buying external SSDs. Just buy an enclosure (or housing). That is exactly what I'm going to do at 8TB. Educating yourself on the housings is important, because the various M.2 PCIe NVMe form 2280 (form factor) enclosures (or housings) are dramatically different in speed, features and cost, so get a good new one rated for TB4 ports and that will handle the fastest SSDs.

You want your external SSD for your TB4 port to have an interface/protocol of USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps) or TB4 (40 Gbps).
So, if you keep your current machine and don't have a TB4 port, keep that in mind. Getting a new Mac (or any new machine) solves a lot of problems.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Having the catalog and associated previews on the fastest drive is sound advice, but having the photos on the fastest drive will make little difference compared to having them on a slower external volume.

I trust @Jim Wilde's testing methods, and his explanations of how Lightroom is optimized to handle different speeds of image storage are spot on. However, since someone was contesting Jim's results, I've spent this afternoon running my own tests.

1542 raw photos (mainly Olympus 16-20MP), mostly edited. Identical catalogs on the internal SSD of my Mac Studio M1 Max. Caches cleared and machine rebooted between runs to make it a completely fair test. And like Jim, I built 1:1 previews, as that requires reading the original raw file from the disk.

5400rpm usb2 external drive (the slowest I own!) - 25m28s in total (that's about 0.99 per photo)
Internal SSD - 24m20s in total (that's about 0.95 per photo)

In other words, the difference is negligible. Once the photos had previews, there was no real world difference... at least, not worth spending vast sums of money on. So as far as Lightroom's concerned, there's no reason to go crazy on the image storage drive at this point in time.

 

[hrboyce]

Hello folks it's me again with a new round of storage and performance dilemmas! Mercifully they only come around once a year or so!
I'm at a decision making point for a new Mac and have to decide whether or not to pay eye-watering amounts of cash to Apple for more SSD storage space. (you can't upgrade storage or RAM after you buy)
The common wisdom says rather buy external SSD's that cost less, and as you all know, disk space does fill up rather fast if one doesn't keep a constant beady eye on all those 1:1 Previews. I've been advised previously on this forum to delete all those 1:1 Previews but I don't really like doing this because it means that when I want a full overview of my catalogue, LR has to generate new previews of everything all over again and we're back to square one. It's a bit of a pain and it takes time. Obviously with the limitations of storage space I do keep lots of older image files on external drives however I do prefer to keep my more current stuff on the local drive for better & faster response, especially when viewing images 1:1 and for Develop module performance. [For example, I'll keep all images from the past 2-3 years on the local drive because I revisit them often]. The question is really, then, how do some/many/most of you work? Do you store your main Lightroom folder containing your Catalogs, Previews, Plugins etc on your local Mac drive ie Users > Me > Pictures > Lightroom OR do you comfortably store that entire Lightroom folder on an external drive with all your big GB Previews and you don't worry about Lightroom Previews chewing up valuable SSD space? If you work mainly from external drives, do you notice any lag in speed while Lightroom is working between the local drive (where the LR.cat is stored) and the external drive (where your pictures are stored)? I think I have, although I'm not sure if it's my computer's performance or a lag in communication between the local drive and external drive. Thanks for reading.

Hey there... there is so much more to performance in LrC than storage its is hard to not consider the whole package. I just made the jump from Win-tel to Apple Silcon with the purchase of a new MBP with M2 Max. Other than trying to get my digital life over from the MS world to the MacOS world I could not be happier. I decided on 1TB of internal so my catalog could reside there along with all the preview images with little to no limitations. The raw images are kept on a 2TB USB-C 3.2 external SSD, which I am bringing from the windows world. I don't do video so I saw no reason to add a USB Thunderbolt 4 external drive. My backups run at night and write to a 4TB and 5TB spindle drives and synch with a cloud service.
Everything I read and saw (I watched YouTube reviews until my eyes were close to bleeding) said with any device using M2 silicon get at least 512TB internal for the fastest performance, but without an upgrade option I decided to go for 1TB. I also went to 64gb of unified memory which was probably twice what I needed for photography but again, because it's not upgradable and I expect to do some virtualization, I went for 64gb. It is also my firm belief that software is bound to eventually exceed any excess hardware capacity, kind of like the stuff keeps filling the space in my garage, so get more till it hurts. I haven't been doing photography for that long so everything could fit on the 2TB SSD, but keeping the catalog on the internal storage seems like the best choice. Because I have the 1TB I have set the cache to never expire and the size limit to 100gb. We'll see how that works out over time but I have more than half the space left on the internal drive, you would think at some point there would be diminishing returns. I also wanted a screen for the color so I went the MBP route instead of the Mini and was bouncing between the 2 configurations below, either of which I believe would be awesome for using Lightroom Classic.

Hardware​

• Apple M2 Pro with 12‑core CPU, 19‑core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine
• 32GB unified memory or 64gb
• 1TB SSD storage
• 96W USB-C Power Adapter
• 14-inch Liquid Retina XDR display²
• Three Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI port, SDXC card slot, headphone jack, MagSafe 3 port
• Backlit Magic Keyboard with Touch ID - US English
• Accessory Kit

Hardware​

• Apple M2 Max with 12‑core CPU, 30‑core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine
• 32GB unified memory or 64gb
• 1TB SSD storage
• 16-inch Liquid Retina XDR display²
• Three Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI port, SDXC card slot, headphone jack, MagSafe 3 port
• 140W USB-C Power Adapter
• Backlit Magic Keyboard with Touch ID - US English
• Accessory Kit

While the price difference is not small I am hoping to get 3-4 years out of the device so over that time period its like the cost of dinner out each month and I will get a whole lot more out if it. So I went for all the marbles. I have had it less than a month but haven't regretted the purchase, it is so fast, and I just do a drive-by-feeding instead of a door-dash dinner.

 

[clee01l]

…was bouncing between the 2 configurations below, either of which I believe would be awesome for using Lightroom Classic.

The Windows external drive needs to be ExFAT or FAT32 to be used by MacOS. NTFS will be read only if used on the MacOS without a cludgy 3rd party software. It is best to format all of your drives APFS if they are going to be exclusively used on Macs.

If you are not going to use an external monitor, then you need the 16” MBP
The 16” has 3 TB4 ports and you would be better served with TB4 drive enclosures instead of the USB3.2.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[PhilBurton]

I trust @Jim Wilde's testing methods, and his explanations of how Lightroom is optimized to handle different speeds of image storage are spot on. However, since someone was contesting Jim's results, I've spent this afternoon running my own tests.

1542 raw photos (mainly Olympus 16-20MP), mostly edited. Identical catalogs on the internal SSD of my Mac Studio M1 Max. Caches cleared and machine rebooted between runs to make it a completely fair test. And like Jim, I built 1:1 previews, as that requires reading the original raw file from the disk.

5400rpm usb2 external drive (the slowest I own!) - 25m28s in total (that's about 0.99 per photo)
Internal SSD - 24m20s in total (that's about 0.95 per photo)

In other words, the difference is negligible. Once the photos had previews, there was no real world difference... at least, not worth spending vast sums of money on. So as far as Lightroom's concerned, there's no reason to go crazy on the image storage drive at this point in time.

Victoria and Jim,

Thanks for doing these tests. Computer technology being what it is, new hardware or software can easily be fetishized. Anybody who is or was in this industry has had first-hand experience with this trend. I certainly have, more than once.

It's not that I don't believe in SSDs. I have two NVMe SSD sticks just in my motherboard and another two classic SSD drives in my system case, drives that were replaced over time in older laptops. But am I going to buy a new 4 TB or more SSD drive? Only if/when my "spinning rust" drive fails.

For most people, instead buying a big and fast SSD drive just because someone said so, get extra RAM memory or even take the plunge for a faster graphics card. Or else don't buy anything.

 

[raoulco]

This thread has meandered in several different directions, but I thought it would be helpful to address this section of your original post, especially the bit that I've highlighted in italics, as I fear you are working from the typical assumption that having your images stored on the fastest drive will give you the best performance when working in LrC. Having the catalog and associated previews on the fastest drive is sound advice, but having the photos on the fastest drive will make little difference compared to having them on a slower external volume.

It helps to understand how and when LrC references the image files, and in the main it reads the original files when building Library previews, when opening an image into Develop, and when doing some post-processing action such as exporting. For the rest of the time the original files are rarely used.

I've spent the last couple of hours running some tests to help make the point. I started with 600 x 45mp raw files, and put copies of them on three different drives: the internal 1TB SSD of my M1 Mac Mini (thus the fastest drive available to me), a 2TB external Samsung T7 SSD, connected by USB-C to one of the Thunderbolt 4 ports (up to 40GB/s), and a USB3 7200rpm G-Tech spinning drive connected via USB-A port (up to 5GB/s). I then divided the 600 images into two sets of 300, set 1 being unedited files and set 2 having some edits applied, and then ran a series of timing tests building 1:1 previews for each set from each location. The results are as follows"

a) Files on internal SSD

Set 1: 2.28 seconds per image
Set 2: 4.14 seconds per image

b) Files on external Samsung SSD

Set 1: 2.28 seconds per image
Set 2: 4.04 seconds per image

c) Files on external HDD

Set 1: 2.24 seconds per image
Set 2: 4.04 seconds per image

As you can see, there is virtually no difference in timing across all 3 drive types (I've previously run this test with the images on a 5400rpm portable hard drive connected by USB 2 (yes, USB TWO), and again little difference.

If you find these results surprising, it might help to understand the process of creating a 1:1 preview. In essence 3-4 steps: read raw file, convert raw file, apply any edits, build and save the preview.....and the raw conversion is by far the longest step, and that is currently totally CPU driven (monitor the system when building 1:1 previews and you'll see the CPU is almost maxed out). This makes the read speed of the data more or less irrelevant, especially when generating previews in parallel is factored into the process.

The speed of subsequent viewing of 1:1 previews would largely be determined by the location of the catalog (and associated previews) and not by the location of the image files themselves.

Post-processing actions such as export use virtually the same process, and again you will observe when batch exporting that the CPU (or GPU if that supports export) is again maxed out.

Different factors apply when opening an image into Develop. The first action is that LrC reads and presents either any existing Smart Preview or if that's not present it will use the ACR Cache entry, both of which will typically be found on the internal drive (assuming that catalog is on the internal drive). Having read that, the sliders are enabled for editing so the user can make a start, but in the background the original file is being read from whatever drive it's on and converted (and current edits applied) and the editable preview is created (that you use for editing) and written into the system cache, where it then silently replaces the initial preview. So again, the bulk of that action is a combination of internal drive reading and CPU processing, making the location of the actual files a non factor in processing speed terms. Furthermore, LrC will now intelligently try to pre-cache the next few images in sequence, so that when moving from one image to the next all the heavy lifting has already been done and the editable preview is already available in the system cache. The actual edit process itself, e.g. slider responsiveness, is not at all influenced by the location of the actual image files. You are working with a cached preview, so RAM, CPU, GPU are the elements which come into play here.

I'm not trying to influence either your buying or your workflow decisions, but I am just wanting to give you information on which you can base those decisions, and set your expectations accordingly. You might have very valid reasons for storing recent images on the internal drive instead of an external drive, but performance wouldn't really be one of them. There also might be really good reasons for purchasing the fastest possible external drive to store your original images, but again improved performance in LrC wouldn't be one of them.

I hope that helps.

Jim, I really appreciate your taking the time to give such a thorough explanation. Apologies for only responding now but for some reason I stopped receiving email notifications about new responses to my post and I’ve had a busy week and didn’t revisit this page until now. It’s a lot to absorb and I’ll try to respond in kind as soon as I get a gap.