Best external hard drive to work with LR

[krisb31094071]

I have a WDMycloud NAS drive that I import my photos to. I have been having getting error messages in some of my photos in the develop mode that file is missing/can't be found. I read an article by David Marx that stated "Important Warning: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is not a network ready application. Your Photoshop Lightroom Catalog cannot be launched from a network attached storage disks (NAS). In addition, most Network Attached Storage devices are slow and error prone which makes them inappropriate choice for your image photo storage needs. External storage devices that connect to the computer via Ethernet are a poor choice for image storage. NAS disks are adequate for backup copies but that is there only purpose in digital photography."

Sounds like this could be part of my missing file problem. I'm thinking of getting a Seagate external drive. Does anyone have recommendations as to which one works best with LR?

Thank you all for your help

Kris

[dj_paige]

When was this article written?

I know many Lightroom users now use network drives for their primary storage of photos. And so I suspect that the article was written many years ago when PC networks were less reliable.

I also know that there are some problems with WD MyCloud NAS storage that other networks/drives don't have. I think your research ought to be to see if there's a solution to these WD MyCloud problems, as well as what other Lightroom users are using for networks.

Of course, just about any external HD from a reputable manufacturer ought to work with Lightroom.

[krisb31094071]

Here is the link to the article.

Digital Photography Backup Plans | David Marx Photography

I have been on the phone with both WD support and Adobe (Adobe very helpful, WD not so much). Our wifi sometimes goes offline when our computers are sleeping, which might be adding to this issue.

If you were to get a Seagate, which one would work best w/LR.

[Just Shoot Me]

krisb31094071 wrote:

If you were to get a Seagate, which one would work best w/LR.

Neither, Either, Both.

Log into the NAS OS, you do that with a web browser, and check the settings for going to sleep and or powering down in some way. Set it to never do that.

Also check the OS setting for power management and networking.

[krisb31094071]

I would like to explore a USB drive. I have a macbook pro running 10.10.5.

Thank you all for your help.

[Just Shoot Me]

If you are going to use a USB drive I suggest one that is a SSD (Solid State Drive). Does your MBP have USB 3? How old is it?

[dj_paige]

There's really no benefit to getting an SSD to store your photos. You will never notice the speed benefit. You will notice the increased cost, however.

Will an SSD Improve Adobe Lightroom Performance? | Computer Darkroom

Any old external drive from a reputable manufacturer will do for photo storage and photo backup.

[krisb31094071]

Thank you all for your help.

[Simone Pompei]

An SSD could be more safe i think?

[dj_paige]

Simone Pompei wrote:

An SSD could be more safe i think?

I doubt that it is safer in any way than a standard external or internal hard disk, unless you mean something different by 'safer' than I mean.

An SSD to store photos is, in my opinion, simply a waste of money.

[Simone Pompei]

I mean from an hardware vulnerability point of view. SSD are safer.

[dj_paige]

Vulnerability to what?

[Simone Pompei]

Is a universal knowledge that SSD not having moving parts are less subject to hardware failure.

Despite that the Best practise is to have a good backup plan.

In this case i don't think using an ssd will improve a lot the performance in lightroom.

But the transfer speed will definetely take a boost.

[dj_paige]

Simone Pompei wrote:

Is a universal knowledge that SSD not having moving parts are less subject to hardware failure.

Despite that the Best practise is to have a good backup plan.

In this case i don't think using an ssd will improve a lot the performance in lightroom.

But the transfer speed will definetely take a boost.

If you put your photos on the SSD, the transfer speed will boost because of the SSD, and you will never notice the difference in Lightroom, as explained at the link I gave earlier.

[Simone Pompei]

indeed

[Just Shoot Me]

SSD's can fail and will fail eventually. No one knows to date how long a SSD will last. The parts, electronic memory chips, in a SSD have a limited number of Writes, somewhere in the hundred thousands. Once you use up the number of writes the drive will stop working or limit the functionality and size that you can store data on.

I personally have one Samsung T1 USB 3 SSD that I use to store virtual machines of both Windows Linux and Mac OS X on. These VMs load faster from that USB 3 SSD external than they load from one of the rotating, spinning, HDD I have in my desktop system. Nearly as fast as they would from a SSD mounted internally and connected to a SATA port on the mother board (the board I'm using only has SATA 2 which is slower than current SATA 3 connectors you find on newer motherboards and systems).

Yes storing images on a SSD doesn't increase the overall speed of LR.

I've been using a SSD for about 4+ years and have changed them as they have gotten cheaper to increase the storage capacity. So the longest I have used a SSD is about 2 years. In the 5+ years since I built my desktop system I have changed the spinning HDD maybe twice to again increase the storage capacity. The ones that are now in it are about 3+ years old and I'm thinking I need to prepare for another change in the not to distant future.

[Jim Wilde]

You need to work on the basis that any drive will eventually fail, though perhaps some might fail more frequently than others. Put a sensible backup strategy into effect, then it matters less what type of external drive you store your images on. As Paige said, SSD is probably overkill.....you could get a good quality 7200rpm USB3 (or Thunderbolt) external drive (I use G-Tech on my MacBook Pro to store my images), then make sure you back it up.

[krisb31094071]

My MBP is almost a year old. Not sure about USB.

[Just Shoot Me]

krisb31094071 wrote:

My MBP is almost a year old. Not sure about USB.

Then it does have USB 3. The above post is correct about the speed of an external SSD not improving the speed of LR when storing image file on it. Except when importing them and for storing other file on it.

[dj_paige]

Even when you import a photo from a HD or SSD, the speed of the disk makes a trivial difference in the import time. So yes, an SSD will be faster, and you will never notice the difference.

[wfefefewfewfwe]

For waht it's worth I currently use a WD MyBookLive Duo for photo storage and I can't say I recommend it. It's ratehr slow for copying images and also opening images within LR is rather slow. I'm looking into getting a USB3 1TB external drive for the catalogue and image store, as per David Marx's 'option 3'.

[dj_paige]

wfefefewfewfwe wrote:

For waht it's worth I currently use a WD MyBookLive Duo for photo storage and I can't say I recommend it. It's ratehr slow for copying images and also opening images within LR is rather slow. I'm looking into getting a USB3 1TB external drive for the catalogue and image store, as per David Marx's 'option 3'.

It's not the disk drive that is causing this slowness regarding opening images in LR.

[Just Shoot Me]

That article is completely correct for the LR Catalog file. It has to be on a local drive. As far as for your image storage anytime you store images on a networked drive, whether it be a drive in another real computer or a NAS box (all NAS boxes are computers that have their own operating system), you might get some conflicts.

Yes I think it is part of your problem. 99% of all NAS boxes go to sleep, in one way or another, after a short period of time of inactivity, to save energy.

This type of setting should be changeable in the NAS OS and setup pages.

Personally I only store backups of my images on network drives (Other computers on my network). Since all networked drives are slower that locally attached drive I keep all my images on internal drives and secondary backups on USB attached drives and then as a safe guard a third and forth copy on networked drives.

What OS are you using? Mac OS X isn't then best for networking and or accessing network storage of any type. One minute it works the next it doesn't.

At least that was my experience when I used a Mac.