I have 710,000 Images in my Catalogue

[Hazardtown]

I am a Location Manager in Los Angeles for the last 14 years.   I have 710,000 images in my catalogue, really don't want to separate into other catalogues, it would cause hardship to my workflow to have separate catalogues for locations in LA.   I spend some 10-13 hours in front of my Mac and LR looking for and processing images.

So, quickest question... will upgrading from 16 Ram to 32 Ram speed me up?  (wanna get a new 3TB HD,  27" iMac with 32 Ram.) I want to keep ALL my images and files of all kinds in 1 Place.  I don't like Externals for anything. 

My Lightroom catalogue runs a bit sluggish right now.  Working off of a Mac 15" Laptop with 1TB built in Flash Drive with 16 Ram. It filled up, I have too many photos so I moved the IMAGES from my 1TB built in to an External 2TB Thundrbolt drive.  Freed up tons of space on my laptop HD but now my Images are on an external and when I do my daily work flow I have to 'copy' image folders to my desktop if I want to view stuff on my desktop. Need to get All Files back into one place, ideally on a 3TB Inernal HD on a new iMac.

Just wondering, will the 32RAM be faster than my current 16 RAM, especially since I am using a Catalogue with 710,000 jpgs?

Thank you.

Dale Dreher

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[john beardsworth]

Have you optimised the catalogue recently? 32 should be quicker,

If you have lots of space on the laptop, have you considered creating smart previews? It'll make you less reliant on the external drive - you could detach it and still have access to images, just not the originals.

[Hazardtown]

thank you.   yes there is now room on the hard drive for Smart Previews, I was concerned that using Smart Previews on the Laptop would clog my 16g Ram, but if they only load in RAM when I look at them sure, but 710,000 of them?  I wanna try it but am worried, but do have over 400g avail on the Laptop 1TB flash.

I find the Folder Viewing Left window in LR to be inadequate for my work flow, so when My eyes get tired I like to put folders and sub folders on my Laptop Desktop (which requires copying from External).  I know we are supposed to do Everything in LR but the Folder Heirarchy viewing space is just too limited for me.  I never loose stuff, I just take it out of LR then put it back later and Syncronize Folders alot, works ok.  I guess the only way to have a perfect system for me now is to get the 32Ram, 3TB 27" iMac.   But then how will I be ready to travel in my car with laptop with a synced set of photos on the laptop. 

Anyone here ever used an App like SuperDuper or other Folder Sync software to keep the Home iMac Photos/JPGS synced with the Laptop?   What I wanna do is use the new 32ram home iMac all day for days, then when I need to go meet the client I want to travel with my Laptop in my car.  But I need All the work from my iMac on the laptop?  How to do this?   Keep a Parallel copy on an External and sync it with iMac when I need to travel?    Thank you.

[dj_paige]

My Lightroom catalogue runs a bit sluggish right now.

Please state exactly what operations in Lightroom are slow. Be very specific

It filled up, I have too many photos so I moved the IMAGES from my 1TB built in to an External 2TB Thundrbolt drive.  Freed up tons of space on my laptop HD but now my Images are on an external and when I do my daily work flow I have to 'copy' image folders to my desktop if I want to view stuff on my desktop.

But photo on the 2TB can still be in Lightroom. There's no need to copy files just to view the photo in Lightroom.