2 Replies Latest reply: Jun 24, 2014 2:27 AM by Philipus RSS

    Possible to put image library on external drives connected to Airport Extreme?

    Philipus Community Member

      Hello everyone

       

      My main computer is a Mac Pro and I also have a Macbook Pro (both are running Mavericks). The wifi network is based on an Airport Extreme.

       

      I work a lot with scanned 35mm film negatives and transparencies using CS6. My images are on a 3TB drive in the Mac Pro which is SuperDupered every night to another internal 3TB drive. Effectively the "image library" consists of subfolders in Home/Photos which I access with Bridge.

       

      I am trying to think of options to make the library storage more flexible size-wise (=expandable) and also accessible from my notebook. This made me wonder if I can put the two 3TB drives in an external 4-drive USB enclosure and hook that up to the Airport Extreme, or will that not work with Photoshop? Are there perhaps other solutions (like a Thunderbolt card on the Mac Pro to which I connect a Thunderbolt enclosure)?

       

      Thanks very much for your assistance with this, for me, bewildering question

      Philip

      - philipus.com

        • 1. Re: Possible to put image library on external drives connected to Airport Extreme?
          Noel Carboni Community Member

          Unfortunately opening/saving very large files on network drives can be stressful and problematic.

           

          For that reason Adobe suggests not opening / saving files directly on network servers / drives, but instead copying files to/from the network resources with your OS tools - e.g., Finder - and working on them on your hard drive.  This is also a good habit to get into because at any time on your hard drive you have a working version that you might be saving repeatedly, and you also have the last uploaded version on your network drive as a reference copy.

           

          That said, you may find it much more convenient to use your network storage directly.  Nothing's stopping you from trying; perhaps your network is so stable and error-free that you'll not have any problems.  But be aware that even a stable network can introduce different timing into the process, and even that can cause problems.

           

          -Noel

          • 2. Re: Possible to put image library on external drives connected to Airport Extreme?
            Philipus Community Member

            Thanks very much. This all makes sense. I think I will check performance using a USB drive I have lying around. If that turns out to be stable enough I might go ahead.

            Cheers

            Philip