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Speeding up Lr with multiple Drives

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Triggaaar

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Feb 5, 2010
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Brighton
Having added an SSD to my PC, I'm wanting to check how to optimally set up Lr across all my drives.

My basic thought is to have a separate drive for:
Lr (the program)
Photos
Catalog
ACR cache

But which of those should be on the fastest drive?
Should I put Lr on the SSD and then the ACR cache on the next fasted drive, or should I have the ACR cache on the SSD?

Thanks
 
Sorry there's been no response as yet, I guess the experienced SSD users haven't had time.

I do have the kind of separation that you are considering: 4 internal drives containing OS/Programs, LR Catalogs, ACR Cache, Original Photos. Don't have an SSD as yet, if I was to buy one I'd be tempted to use it as the system drive (OS and Programs) as I think I'd get more noticeable change there. Probably using one for either catalog or ACR Cache would give some improvement within Lightroom, but I suspect it would be more marginal.....

Could be wrong though.....really need an actual user to chip in with a comment.
 
I did the ssd switch and put the os and programs on it, the boot times increased dramatically, but I was going from a 5400rpm drive. If you get an ssd 128gig min but 256 would be better. The 7200 and 10,000rpm drives are as fast or faster than an ssd. If you have more than one computer and usb 3, I'd put the catalog and photos on an ehd.

Art
 
Thank you all for the replies link LrQueen, thanks, just studied it. The conclusion of that article seems that you'll get a bit of benefit from anything you can put on the SSD. I then need to weigh up whether any would be best left on the HDD due to size and the amount its written to (which shortens SSD life).

My Catalog is only 450Mb, so seems like an easy option to move, but the lrdata folder that sits with it is 10gig, and growing. Any idea whether it's a bad idea to separate the two?
Ans:
According to the Adobe site, it's best to keep them together:
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/400/kb400808.html

I imagine a small ACR on the SSD would be pointless, but I could try living with something like 20 gig ACR. Alternatively, I could have a much larger ACR on an HDD.

Unfortunately I think the only way to be sure is to do my own testing.
 
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The xxxx Previews.lrdata folder (the previews) can not be separated from the catalog file (xxxx.lrcat). They stick together. OK, there are some workarounds to actually separate them, but it is not officially supported, so it is best to avoid it I think.

My setup is:
- 120 GB SSD that hols Win7, programs, LR catalog and previews, ACR cache (10 GB, could be increased I guess)
- 2 TB normal internal disk for storage (photos, movies, documents, whatever....)
 
If you're updated to 3.6, you'll see that the format of the ACR cache files has changed and they're much much smaller now. It means you can fit a lot more cached files in a small cache.
 
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