Moving Lightroom/ Photoshop CC from windows to Mac: I’m considering purchasing a new laptop and want to go to a Mac. My catalog is maintained on an external 5TB ssd. Can I make this...

See_the_shot Loc: Bluffton, SC

I’m considering purchasing a new laptop and want to go to a Mac. My catalog is maintained on an external 5TB ssd. Can I make this transition without a lot of brain damage? Will the Mac be able to work with the ssd? Thanks for your help.

Dik

Yes

See_the_shot Loc: Bluffton, SC

Thanks.

tripsy76 Loc: Northshore, MA

As long as your SSD is formatted to run on both Mac and pc you’ll be fine.

But if it’s only formatted for PC you’ll have to reformat it which means you’ll have to transfer your files to another drive or they would be deleted upon formatting.

See_the_shot Loc: Bluffton, SC

Thanks for that. That’s what I thought would be the case, but this confirms it.

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

tripsy76 wrote:

As long as your SSD is formatted to run on both Mac and pc you’ll be fine.

But if it’s only formatted for PC you’ll have to reformat it which means you’ll have to transfer your files to another drive or they would be deleted upon formatting.

Get a new disk and copy the files. Then you have a backup as well as a Mac-formatted disk. You can never have too many backups.

See_the_shot Loc: Bluffton, SC

Good point. Thanks.

lreisner Loc: Union,NJ

See_the_shot wrote:

I’m considering purchasing a new laptop and want to go to a Mac. My catalog is maintained on an external 5TB ssd. Can I make this transition without a lot of brain damage? Will the Mac be able to work with the ssd? Thanks for your help.

I am also transitioning from PC to Mac. Check to see what file format of the drive is. If it is exfat or exfat 32, you are set to go. If it is an NTFS , then it is read only for Mac. Check the properties of the drive.

Mac also has it's own file format APFS. If you are planning to only work on a Mac, this is the best format, from what I have read. However, you can not use the drive on a PC.

Enjoy your new computer. As noted, make sure you have back ups of your files before transitioning.

phot0n0ob

A 5TB disk on Windows is most likely formatted w/Windows' NTFS file system, which macOS can read but not write too. Paragon NTFS is a software that enables a Mac to also write NTFS formatted disks. At USD 20 this is a cheap and quick way to continue using that disk w/out changing anythig.

Another option would be to buy another disk for your photos, once you have transferred everything to that new disk, re-format the old one for use with a Mac and use it for backups.

MrPhotog

See_the_shot wrote:

I’m considering purchasing a new laptop and want to go to a Mac. My catalog is maintained on an external 5TB ssd. Can I make this transition without a lot of brain damage? Will the Mac be able to work with the ssd? Thanks for your help.

Consider getting a PC emulator program for your Mac. I use Parallels. Tjere is a free trial version and a full featured one for about $100.

After you load parallels you go to Microsoft’s website and download a new copy of Windows on your Mac. It is free if you have the serial/registration number from the current version of Windows running on your current PC.

If your current external drive has a USB-A connection you’ll need an adapter yo use it in the USB-C holes in the Mac. I use a $29 hub that has 4 USB-A ports and a SD card slot. Using that with the SD card slot on my Mac, and one or two external hard drives, I can copy and move around files to anywhere I want them.

Parallels will ask if you want to use the drive with the PC emulation, the Mac, or both.

Jodevoy

I did this about 2 years ago and I know only what I know about computers - if that makes any sense. I found very detailed directions on The Lightroom Queen. The instructions even gave details on how to back up everything before you start. I suggest you go to her site and search for the transfer instructions. Took all the stress out of the project and it worked perfectly! Good luck! BTW I love the MacBook Pro for my photography.

phot0n0ob

Jodevoy wrote:

I did this about 2 years ago and I know only what I know about computers - if that makes any sense. I found very detailed directions on The Lightroom Queen. The instructions even gave details on how to back up everything before you start. I suggest you go to her site and search for the transfer instructions. Took all the stress out of the project and it worked perfectly! Good luck! BTW I love the MacBook Pro for my photography.

+1 on The Lightroom Queen; great resource