Poor's man computer setup

[Long John Silver]

Hi all,
Sorry if maybe this is an over-exposed topic but looking for previous post I see you guys have some incredible configurations :
I have a new computer: a Dell Studio Hybrid 14'G that actually is a notebook disguised as desktop :fi_lone_ranger:
The internal drive is "just" 32' GB and after all installations I have about 25' free GB. There is no space for another internal drive so I have a couple of USB 2.' 1 TB drives.

Right now my photos (mixed raw and jpeg) are about 18'GB so I have no choice except moving them on the external USB 2.' drive.

What about the catalog? I keep it on the internal drive or I move it on the external with the photos?
Other suggestions to improve performance on this conf (except buying another pc)?

Will it be very slow accessing photos through LR on the external USB drive? (some of them are D2'' NEF files)

Last but no least, another question:

Right now I organize my phtos in a plain folder structure where folders have the name as yyyy-mm-gg-key where "key" could be a simple word as the location or event. In my left folder pane, LR display folders alphabetically so the topmost folder diplayed is always the oldest. With 1'' folders, the newest are hidden. Is there a way to sort them so I have 2''9-11-1-new york before 2''8-11-1-rome ?

PS
I know that the best way is looking at them by tags and descriptions but after years of windows like folder way of though I find very handy to look at them through the folder pane.

Thank you in advance

Davide

 

[Victoria Bampton]

I'd keep the catalog on the internal, and the photos on the external. It'll be a bit slower working off the external, but it's not the end of the world. The previews will be with the catalog on the internal drive, so general browsing should be fine once previews are rendered. The place you're most likely to notice the speed difference is in Develop - if it causes you a problem, put your working files on the internal while you're working on them and then move to the external once you've finished Developing. It'll work.

Your other question - no, you can't change the folder sort order - it's straight forward alpha-numeric. You could consider adding a bit of hierarchy to your folder structure, so all the 2''9 folders are within a parent 2''9 folder, and month folders if that's not enough.

 

[Long John Silver]

Perfect!

Thank you

 

[clee01l]

BLR (Before Lightroom), my situation was a lot like yours. The issue that I had with the Windows import date/tag folder name is that it gave me lots of problems when one tag would not fit everything shot on a given date. Still I imported these 'in-place' and used LR's suggested 'yyyy-mm-dd' folder naming for each new import. After the Lightroom conversion, I spent considerable efforts adding a well thought out keyword heirarchy to the old images. This is still a work in progress, with the oldest images being worked as time permits.

I have split my single catalog into two main folders. "C:...PicturesWorking" and "A:imagesArchive". I keep my catalog, a minimum of Preview Cache and my most recent 3 month of current images on the faster local drive. Periodically I migrate date named folders to the Archive folder using LR.

I never need to go to the Windows Explorer to find an image now. Lightroom's cataloging functionality is far superior to my memory of where images might be. My recommendation is to do all your image operations inside LR and utilize the Keywords, Collections and other search filter possibilities to track and manage your images. Moving or delteing files outside of Lightroom is a 'No-No' and causes lots of headaches.

Spend the time keywording everything with a minimum of "Location"(where), or "Genre" (what). Sometimes "Event" (when) might be important and when it is, include that too keeping in mind that LR will already have a capture date on record. So you only need a named event (birthday etc.) Multiple "Whats" are possible too. Any thing not compleetly keyworded gets an "@working" keyword in my catalog to segregate the not yet fully cataloged from the rest.

 

[Robert T Higaki]

I have been putting all my new images on the external hard drives and speed is a non issue( using USB 2.').

Bob-the slide shooter at heart