What would be the prfered Disc?

[Bert]

Lightroom Version Number

6.14

Operating System

1. Windows 10

Hi,

I have a new computer with a 500Gb SSD "C" drive. I have my programs on this drive and have 357Gb free space left.
I have also a 2Tb SSD "D" drive. I have all my photos on this drive and have 606Gb free space left.
Does it make any difference on which drive I put my Lightroom Catalog and Cache files?
Would one be better suited or crash quicker with the work the Catalog and Cache files do?
Thanks,
Bert Schmitz

 

[clee01l]

First, you do not want to fill up the Operating system SSD. It needs around 100GB for free space for working storage and Temp files. The Image files can overtime exceed the 357GB that you have now. When that happens your performance with come to a creeping halt and eventually lock up the OS.

The Catalog file and Previews will only consume a few GBs and can safely reside on the Primary drive along with windows. So putting only the original images on the D: drive is sufficient.

 

[Bert]

Thanks for your answer, but I get confused by what you wrote. When you say " The Catalog file and Previews will only consume a few GBs and can safely reside on the Primary drive along with windows. " Is the "C" drive not the primary drive and that has windows and all my other programs on it?
Also, when you say the catalog file consumes a few GB's, but my catalog file is 91.8Gb. (Is there something not correct?)
Do I have the catalog on the "D" drive where I have all my images?
Thanks,
Bert

 

[clee01l]

The default location for the catalog is C:\users\[your user name}\Pictures] Lightroom\. In that folder will be your master Lightroom catalog file with the extension ".lrcat" it could be as much a 4GBs if you have a lot of local brush adjustments. Mine is less than 1GB. Along with that I have a Previews folder containing my previews. it is currently 45 GB. I have very large (48mp) Nikon Raw images stored elsewhere. These are the image files that get stored in the EHD eventually Normally they do not reside in a subfolder of the \Pictures] Lightroom\ above. I can delete the Previews folder at any time and Lightroom Classic will rebuild it as needed Also in that "\Pictures] Lightroom\" folder CAN be a Smart Previews folder. This is not essential and you can turn of the creation of Smart Previews.
If your ".lrcat" file is 91GBs then we have a problem that needs looking into.

 

[Bert]

I found the default catalog location on my "C" drive and found an old catalog there. When I got my new computer about 2 weeks ago with a 500 GB "C" drive and a 2 TB "D" drive I put all my images from my different external drives on the "D" drive in "My Pictures" folder (900 GB) . On my old computer, I had combined 2 catalogs and transferred that one with a new name to the "My Pictures" folder on the new "D" drive. I re-imported all my images (57862) to my new catalog and made previews of all images that gave a preview file of 84.2 GB. When I back up my catalog, I can see that my back-up file is only 1.42 Mb.
I like to know if I should keep my Catalog file where it is now, in "My Pictures" folder on my "D" drive.
Also, because I do not do any file management in Lightroom and my images in "My Pictures" folder consist of more than half of the 900 GB of exported JPGs, should I only have previews of the Raw files that I plan to work on?
From the beginning of using Lightroom, do I my image management in "My Pictures" where I have about 105 subject folders and 61 of them have sub-folders. Too late now to start file management in Lightroom. If you still think there is a problem with my catalog I like to understand what I can/should do differently.
Thanks,
Bert

 

[clee01l]

I re-imported all my images (57862) to my new catalog

This was a mistake if you wanted to keep all of you Lightroom Edits, collections and keywords.
You can certainly see the catalog file anywhere you like D:\ is fine, BUT, you should have used the merged catalog file that you created on the old computer. You might need to relink the image file and folders on the new computer to the master catalog since the path on the new computer is different from what was recorded in the merged master catalog while it was on the old computer.
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-move-lightroom-to-new-computer/
Your backup catalog file is a zipped file and will be small in comparison. it is the new catalog where you imported 57862 images that is the size that is important. 1.42 mb seems small for a zipped catalog file. Even a catalog file with 57862 images that have not had any edits should still be 2 or more GB in size.

If "My Pictures" has 105 subject folders and 61 of them have sub-folders are all cataloged in the Lightroom catalog file, these will appear in the Folder panel of Lightroom Classic. Some people do organize by folders in Lightroom but this has shortcoming that you will encounter sooner or later. So for this reason this is not recommended. Lightroom does not really care where your original images are stored, just that it can get to them when it needs to make an export or print.
If all of your source images files have been edited in Lightroom the adjustment are in the catalog file and the originals are still as they were when you took them from the camera. You do not need to export a derivative copy locally. This just wastes Disk space. . When you use your Lightroom Classic to manage your images, it will open the original and apply the edit adjustments every time. If you want to send some one a finished copy, then you export and send the derivative file to them. You do not need to keep a copy of that derivative locally since you can always generate a new derivative by exporting again/

 

[Bert]

Thanks for your pointers and help. Everything seems to be O.K. now. The size of my catalog is 2.11 GB. In "D My Pictures" with the 105 subject folders and 61 sub-folders, is a 159.7 GB folder for my Nikon Raw images, of which the most were taken before I started working in Lightroom in 2012. There is also a folder with 564 GB of Sony Raw images., all from the last 8 years and developed in Lightroom. The rest of the folders (104) is 180 GB where I have saved the images I exported as JPEGs from Lightroom over the last 8 years. Everything that is stored in "D My Pictures" is also in my "Preview Folder" in Lightroom. I assume that I not really have to have my exported JPEG folders in the preview catalog because they are already in "D My Pictures". But I have made it a habit, when I export an image to save it to the catalog. When I started with Lightroom I really did not understand much of the catalog structure, only that I had to import all the images I liked to develop in it. I have never used any keywords or catalogs in Lightroom, As I keep setting up more files as needed in "My Picture" it is too late to change now to a system with catalogs and keywords in Lightroom. It sure would have saved me a lot of disc space as I have now the same image in a lot of folders and sub-folders.
If you have any other suggestions for how I should handle Lightoom, let my know.
Since I am thinking of buying a Fuji camera, I might have to get the Lightroom classic subscription .
Regards
Bert