Too Many external hard drives: I have 14 external hard drives which I cannot attach to my computer at the same time. Frequently when I use Photoshop the drive which has the files is...

CarolS

I have 14 external hard drives which I cannot attach to my computer at the same time. Frequently when I use Photoshop the drive which has the files is not attached and I cannot use the Adobe software.

Is there any way to get larger hard drives that I would transfer the files to or some other system to have all the photos online at the same time. Thank you

juan_uy Loc: Uruguay

Based on your amount of drives I would start looking into a NAS solution.

LEWHITE7747 Loc: 33773

CarolS wrote:

I have 14 external hard drives which I cannot attach to my computer at the same time. Frequently when I use Photoshop the drive which has the files is not attached and I cannot use the Adobe software.

Is there any way to get larger hard drives that I would transfer the files to or some other system to have all the photos online at the same time. Thank you

I cannot imagine how many photos you have. It must be in the millions!

Toby

I have a powered Sabrent hub that I can attach several drives to. The hub then plugs into the computer. It has buttons that you push to select the drive you want. I cannot run all drives at one time even though the hub is powered. Maybe a more expensive one would do that, however, I think part of the problem is just too much traffic into one port. The advantage of course is that you do not have to plug in the drives each time. Let us all know if you find a hub that will run all drives at the same time.

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

CarolS wrote:

I have 14 external hard drives which I cannot attach to my computer at the same time. Frequently when I use Photoshop the drive which has the files is not attached and I cannot use the Adobe software.

Is there any way to get larger hard drives that I would transfer the files to or some other system to have all the photos online at the same time. Thank you

My solution was a RAID-5 enclosure. I purchased two 42 TB Thunderbay enclosures full stocked with spinning disk drives. They are daisy chained in two different locations in my home distant from my work desk by fiber optic thunderbolt cables (soon to be replaced by fiber optic cables with usb-c connectors). One in is a concrete storm cellar in a corner of the basement.

It will take some work to consolidate your images but something similar should work. I happen to use Mac so the SoftRaid software that comes with the Thunderbay drives works fine for me. Check them out here.

Avoid at all costs any enclosure that requires you to purchase matched drives.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Are the external drives small? Get larger ones.
I don't have a gazillion photos, so they all fit on my 2Tb internal with much room to spare.
My two 1Tb externals are for file backups.
You didn't say the size your internal drive. Is it small?

When you say you cannot use the Adobe software, is it only because the files you want to work with are not on a connected drive? Or do you have Adobe installed on an external drive?

stangage

It would help if you stated how much storage you need. 2T, 10T, 100T. There are a lot solutions available to consolidate into a single drive or maybe 2 - a large spinner for photos you don't think you'll access often and a smaller 2T for things you are actively expecting to use. I have an 8T RAID drive that is network accessible but be aware that Light Room Classic won't interface with a network source.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

CarolS wrote:

I have 14 external hard drives which I cannot attach to my computer at the same time. Frequently when I use Photoshop the drive which has the files is not attached and I cannot use the Adobe software.

Is there any way to get larger hard drives that I would transfer the files to or some other system to have all the photos online at the same time. Thank you

Yes. You can easily find large external hard drives. Unless you are really over the top in the number of files you are storing, you should be able to find something to fit your situation. I have less than 100K photos and they fit onto a 2TByte drive. I have a lot of other files to store as well as photos so my current storage requirements are around 3TBytes.

I recently found a 12TByte drive on sale and bought 2 of them. One will hold my working files and the other will be for backup.

It sounds as if your photos are on several different drives. You can just copy them all to one large drive (plus I recommend a backup as well). Photoshop doesn't care where the photo file is located. On the other hand, if you are using Lightroom Classic, it will take some work to get LR to find all the files. But it's not impossible, and is probably worth the effort to have all your files in one place (plus backups).

PS: A powered USB hub would make it possible for you to attach more of your external hard drives to your computer all at one time.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Well, how big are your drives? I have probably 10 scattered around the drawers in my desk, but only 2 relevant for images and 1 for music, all the others are outdated / undersized leftovers. The images are now a primary 4TB and a secondary back-up copy, also 4TB. These are the Western Digital (WB) passport models, just a bit bigger than can fit in a pant's pocket.

You should consider how much space you need to consolidate all your unique data onto a single external drive, allowing for a reasonable amount growth on the same drive. After 4TB, the equipment gets physically bigger. Account for both a primary copy and a secondary back-up, possibly considering an offsite 'cloud' back-up of that primary connected storage.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

CarolS wrote:

I have 14 external hard drives which I cannot attach to my computer at the same time. Frequently when I use Photoshop the drive which has the files is not attached and I cannot use the Adobe software.

Is there any way to get larger hard drives that I would transfer the files to or some other system to have all the photos online at the same time. Thank you

14!!! And I thought having 5 was a bit much, spread between three desktop computers.
They sell gang plugs for usb (assuming they all are usb plug units) with Walmart having one that will take 7 at a time for less than $10 - you would have to set the thing up and assign drive letters to each to use them.

What size are the ones you have? My largest is 8TB-used to backup my photo editing desktop. WD and Seagate now have 10TB units and I saw an add for an 18TB whose brand I don't remember. In commercial units there are literally tower cases with multiple drives inside up to 96TB (at $7,000+) or one with "only" 72TB for about $3,000.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

I'm guessing, as you don't say, that these are small drives. Some people fell into the trap of using a lot of small drives to store their images based on someone's recommendation. I had a friend who did this and then she had to plug in each drive as she needed it, assuming she could remember which one she needed and of course she could not! Not a good way to keep images, in particular, if you use LrC as you'd need 14 ports to be able to see all of your actual images! Buy large size, whatever you can afford, desktop drives (I have several and one is a 12T but used as a RAID drive). In LrC drag and drop folders onto the large drive. It's generally best to have one main folder and then subfolders for your other folders. One way to make the new drive show up is to open an empty folder on it and that makes it pop up on the left side of your application. Do this slowly and with purpose and don't get interrupted!

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

stangage wrote:

It would help if you stated how much storage you need. 2T, 10T, 100T. There are a lot solutions available to consolidate into a single drive or maybe 2 - a large spinner for photos you don't think you'll access often and a smaller 2T for things you are actively expecting to use. I have an 8T RAID drive that is network accessible but be aware that Light Room Classic won't interface with a network source.

That is not correct. It just needs to be mounted on your computer: on Mac it's simple Go->Connect to Server; on Windows it is the "new use" command that allows you to mount it as a local drive.

LLC Loc: Ontario, Canada

CarolS wrote:

Is there any way to get larger hard drives that I would transfer the files to or some other system to have all the photos online at the same time.

I use Raspberry Pi with Open Media Vault OS. It is a bit of work but nothing too difficult. I can connect 4 drives directly to Raspberry. I did not try separate, powered hub to connect more drives but it should work.

It is cheap solution - no major investments required like RAID-5 enclosures.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I found myself in a similar situation. I got two enclosures. One holds four drives, and the other holds three. My backup files go to two externals and a NAS. The ones in enclosures hold individual folders - pictures, files, etc.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B072HW3C4C/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And a 4-bay version of this - https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XKWNJSB/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I added fan to the top to keep it cool, so it holds just three drives.

I also have drives in individual enclosures I don't use drives that are small or very old.

DougS Loc: Central Arkansas

A word of caution, when buying a hard drive, make SURE you purchase from an AUTHORIZED dealer. I recently bought one on Amazon Marketplace that had had the drive inside exchanged with a much smaller drive (the jerk had swapped a 14TB with a 1TB). It was stated as 'New", but the serial numbers did not match (the enclosure vs. the actual drive inside).