Smokey66 Loc: Hanover, ON, CA

My new custom built PC arrived today. It was built with a SSD as well as a HDD. As I only had about 400 pictures imported to LR on my old PC, I'm going start over cataloging my pictures after I download LR onto my new PC.

Where should I save the LR catalogue file: On the SSD or on the HDD, or put both of them on an external HDD.

If the LR catalogue is stored on the SSD am I able to store my RAW picture files on the HDD, or does the LR catalogue and RAW files need to be saved to the same drive?

Thanks in advance.

DavidPine Loc: Fredericksburg, TX

Run out and get a 1TB or 2TB external hard drive. Seagate or Western Digital. Both are good. Load your photos on the external hard drive and then import them to LightRoom. LightRoom just creates a data base that will point to where you have your files stored.

Searcher Loc: Kent, England

Your SSD is not as large as the HDD, unless of course you have spent loads of money, so your images should be on either the HDD or an external. I would put them onto the HDD and use an external for backing up purposes.

Where you put the catalogue, again is matter of personal choice. It does not have to be on the same drive as the images, although I would put it with the images on the HDD. (and again use the external to back up).

When you have 10,000 raw files you will appreciate NOT using the SSD to store them on.

DavidPine Loc: Fredericksburg, TX

Exactly right! I am researching how to make catalogs portable. I understand it can be done. However, I don't have it figured out yet.

Searcher Loc: Kent, England

If you have Lightroom on the Home Computer and the Office computer, put your images and catalogue (with supporting files such as lrdat) on an external drive.

Now the same catalogue can work with both computers.

I am experimenting with Dropbox as an image store with the catalogue on the home computer, but so far I am finding down and uploads so painfully slow.

Selkii Loc: Oakland, CA & Vancouver Island

I have my images and LR catalog on an external HD and back up both to the computer's HD, whichever one I am using at the time (laptop when traveling, PC at home). At home, I keep a second external for backing up both photos and catalog, kept in fireproof safe. I still have to set up an off-site (Cloud) storage, but that is in the near future.

warrior Loc: Paso Robles CA

Get yourself an external HD.

zigipha Loc: north nj

Searcher - i know syncing take time, but unless your two computer are in adjacent rooms, i bet the syncing would finish by the time you get from one computer to the other (hours or days later). It does eventuallly sync.

You can also use msoft skydrive or google gdrive for similar function. They all use the local disk for fast access and then do the slower syncing in the background (usually seconds).

WRT dropbox - if you try to edit the same file at the same time on two different computers, you get "conflicted copy" versions. Simultaneous edits can occur simply by forgetting to save on computer 1, go do edit/save on computer 2, then come back to computer one and say "gee i forgot to save, let me do that now".

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

Smokey - Good choice on a new computer. To take advantage of your SSD, put your operating system (Windows), LR, and all of your image editing software on the SSD. Put other applications like Microsoft Office and stuff like that on your HDD. Put the LR catalog on the SSD but once in a while back it up to the HDD so that if your SSD becomes corrupt or quits, you have the backup catalog and don't have to start over. What I do is import my pictures to the SSD using LR, then cull through the images and do some editing. When I'm done editing and have applied all the key words, etc., then I drag them to the other drive for safe keeping. Always use LR to drag your images from one folder to another so that the catalog will keep track of them. Using the SSD for this, will speed up your editing while taking advantage of the SSD read/write speeds. I would also get an external drive to backup the HDD in case of it's failure.

warrior Loc: Paso Robles CA

external HD here :thumbup: