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Optimum LR database size?

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Jim Cleworth

Member
Joined
Dec 6, 2016
Messages
27
Location
Michigan, USA
Lightroom Experience
Power User
Lightroom Version
Lightroom Version Number
Lightroom Classic V8.4
Operating System
  1. Windows 10
.When updating metadata in Library or using Develop I am seeing significant lag times, screen flashes, screen going blank, "not responding" messages etc. I currently have about 23,000 photos in my LR db, maybe half are RAW. I have a very robust PC - 64 GB fast memory, 6GB GPU (see below). I am using the auto setting for the GPU in LR. Also, LR resides on a SSHD, while the photo files reside on a separate internal drive. My internal task manager shows minimal tax on my CPU and GPU but something is causing these performance issues. What is the feeling for the optimal number of photos in a LR database? I am thinking of moving older files off the current db. Other ideas??

Specs:
Lightroom Classic version: 8.4.1 [ 201909111355-eb9b68f0 ]
License: Creative Cloud
Language setting: en
Operating system: Windows 10 - Home Premium Edition
Version: 10.0.18362
Application architecture: x64
System architecture: x64
Logical processor count: 12
Processor speed: 3.6 GHz
Built-in memory: 65496.4 MB
Real memory available to Lightroom: 65496.4 MB
Real memory used by Lightroom: 8340.9 MB (12.7%)
Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 11006.6 MB
GDI objects count: 1681
USER objects count: 4846
Process handles count: 4352
Memory cache size: 15645.1MB
Internal Camera Raw version: 11.4.1 [ 291 ]
Maximum thread count used by Camera Raw: 5
Camera Raw SIMD optimization: SSE2,AVX,AVX2
Camera Raw virtual memory: 4425MB / 32748MB (13%)
Camera Raw real memory: 4471MB / 65496MB (6%)
System DPI setting: 96 DPI
Desktop composition enabled: Yes
Displays: 1) 1920x1080
Input types: Multitouch: No, Integrated touch: No, Integrated pen: Yes, External touch: No, External pen: Yes, Keyboard: No

Graphics Processor Info:
DirectX: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti (26.21.14.3602)



Application folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Lightroom Classic
Library Path: C:\Users\Jim\Pictures\Lightroom\Lightroom Catalog-2.lrcat
Settings Folder: C:\Users\Jim\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom

Installed Plugins:
1) Facebook
2) jf Zenfolio
3) LR/Instagram
4) SmugMug

Config.lua flags: None

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Device : 2182
Subsystem : 3fbe1458
Revision : a1
Video Memory : 5991
Adapter #2: Vendor : 1414
Device : 8c
Subsystem : 0
Revision : 0
Video Memory : 0
AudioDeviceIOBlockSize: 1024
AudioDeviceName: Speakers (Realtek(R) Audio)
AudioDeviceNumberOfChannels: 2
AudioDeviceSampleRate: 48000
Build: 12.1x4
Direct2DEnabled: false
GL_ACCUM_ALPHA_BITS: 16
GL_ACCUM_BLUE_BITS: 16
GL_ACCUM_GREEN_BITS: 16
GL_ACCUM_RED_BITS: 16
GL_ALPHA_BITS: 0
GL_BLUE_BITS: 8
GL_DEPTH_BITS: 24
GL_GREEN_BITS: 8
GL_MAX_3D_TEXTURE_SIZE: 16384
GL_MAX_TEXTURE_SIZE: 32768
GL_MAX_TEXTURE_UNITS: 4
GL_MAX_VIEWPORT_DIMS: 32768,32768
GL_RED_BITS: 8
GL_RENDERER: GeForce GTX 1660 Ti/PCIe/SSE2
GL_SHADING_LANGUAGE_VERSION: 4.60 NVIDIA
GL_STENCIL_BITS: 8
GL_VENDOR: NVIDIA Corporation
GL_VERSION: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 436.02
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OGLEnabled: true
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23.000 photo's is a very small number for Lightroom Classic, it should not have any problems with that. I doubt if breaking up your catalog into multiple catalog wil give any effect. I think a real SSD instead of a hybrid one would perform significant better.
 
I have 88,000 images in my catalog on a 2012 iMac, with a 3.4GHz i7 on a hybrid SSD setup. So not fast by current standards. I have no lagging that I can attribute to my catalog. Building 1:1 previews is another story... :)

As mentioned, I doubt your lags are due to the size of your catalog.
 
The LR catalog is a file that contains metadata about the images that you have cataloged. While LR can process several images simultaneously, the catalog is only used briefly to obtain the metadata about those images to be processed. Most of the time LR is working with only one image at a time, so even the size of the catalog file is unimportant. What is important is what is going on in the CPU while LR is processing that (usually) one image. Lightroom uses working storage (usually the free space on C:\ ) to create intermediate temporary files. This is the place where Windows creates the swap file too. I always recommend that LR users keep at least 100GB of free space to accommodate all of the temporary file generated by Lightroom and all of the other apps that might be running simultaneously. It also needs to be large enough to hold the Swapfile along with the temp files.

Now Let's look at I/O. For all of those TEMP files Windows need to read and write to a disk drive. If the Disk Drive is slow or you are going outside of the M/B buss or lots of file processes are requesting I/O LR may have to wait until Windows OS can handle the request. This may be part of your problem. A SATA 6 interface running at 6.0Gb/s is about as fast as you can get. However, USM3.1 10GBps Faster connections are Thunderbolt 3 which allows for connection speeds up to 40Gbps. If your catalog file is on C:\ and your image files are on a USB EHD Thant these image files are going to be read rarely because LR will rely upon the Previews files located where the catalog is.

Some other things to look at:
  • Malware apps. Almost all Windows computers require some antivirus app running in resident. These sit between the active app and the file I/O. They inspect every file read from disk and every file written to disk. Obviously, once your image files are imported and stored on the disk drive they should be free of malware. They don't need to be inspected every time LR asks for them. The same is true for the Previews files. These should be excluded from your malware antivirus constant scan as this inspection before the file is made available only slows down I/O further. As a test, shutdown your Antivirus app(s) (you may have more than one running as Windows OS includes some virus protection applets that duplicate your third party anti malware app.). With out these anti-malware apps running in the background, run LR and see if the performance improves/
  • Resident "helper" apps. Do you have any helper apps running waiting to see if you have inserted a camera card to invoke some program like Photos that you don't use or need with LR? Any other helper apps that check every I/O request to see if the file being opened by the File System should invoke a particular program (like Office). These should be eliminated if you are smart enough to know which filetype belongs with which processing app.
  • Take a close look at all of the apps and processes running in the background while LR is running. How many do you really need. They all require some CPU cycles, CPU cycles that are not available too LR.
  • Inspect the start up list to see which apps get invoked everytime Windows starts. Are they necessary? Every process steals CPU cycles from the app (LR) that is actively running.
 
Cletus - Thank you for your response. I have LR running on a 500GB SSD, currently with over 270 GB of free space. My LR catalog reside on a separate internal 6TB HD. I run Web Root anti malware. I tried disabling it but it didn't seem to make any difference in LR performance. The only helper app I saw running that was consuming any resources was the Adobe helper. With LR running my internal task manager is showing both memory and CPU usage at less than 20%.
 
Cletus - Thank you for your response. I have LR running on a 500GB SSD, currently with over 270 GB of free space. My LR catalog reside on a separate internal 6TB HD. I run Web Root anti malware. I tried disabling it but it didn't seem to make any difference in LR performance. The only helper app I saw running that was consuming any resources was the Adobe helper. With LR running my internal task manager is showing both memory and CPU usage at less than 20%.

My response was more to Woodbutcher, although it is a standard response for performance issues. Windows accumulates a lot of detritus that over time slows down performance. This is the nature of a Microsoft Windows environment. There may be something in the background that you have overlooked. And again it could be perception. When I ran windows I always seem to have little performance issues compared to many other Windows users. It should be said that I spent lots of time “under the hood” ferreting out bloviation and tweaking the OS. I got tired of this vigilance and constant tuning nessessary to keep Windows functioning at its best. About 10 years ago I switched to a Mac.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
After reviewing the Adobe "Optimize Lightroom Performance" article reference by Zenon (thank you!), I deleted a host of custom presets that I had (and wasn't using) and I have seen a marked improvement in performance. I also changed the setting "auto discard previews" to "Never" as suggested in the article. I have plenty of storage available so it shouldn't present a space issue. I was in good shape on the other items discussed in the article. Keeping my fingers crossed.
 
I'm not sure how much a difference it makes but I hide all the presets I don't use. When you scroll over them they change the View.
 
I have 165,000 images in m,y catalogue though it has been up to 180,000. At one time I tried creating new separate catalogues with low numbers of images and couldn't see any performance improvements. I don't generally have a problem with Lightroom processing speed.
 
Hi Jim

Currently, I have over 300,000+ images in my LR cat, running a Mac Laptop, 16GB or RAM.

Most are stored on a NAS drive (Drobo), with the working images on my internal 1TD SSD, then I move them to the Drobo

No issues here !!

There is NO one answer regarding catalog workflow;
Some users have selected separate catalogs for different types of images, ie work, personal, clients etc
Some, like me, have selected, one catalog for my work images, one for personal and that's it.
I know users that have different types of shooting, ie wedding photography, then motorsport, and they have different catalogs for each.

There is no one answer, it is what suits YOU !!

Have you optimised your LR catalog?

I believe Lightroom should handle 1m+ images, no problem.

Just a thought, "regards lag times, screen flashes, screen going blank", could there be a hardware issue, cable?
 
Another possibility is turning on Preferences/ Performance/ Use smart previews instead of originals for image editing. (At least assuming you are generating the smart previews).
 
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