cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

Having been a photographer for 49 years, and having had digital since the D1 series, I have hundreds of thousands of images stored. ALL of my images are stored on external devices and all are backed up via RAID 1, exact duplicates, and off premise storage. Sure, I could cull some images out that are not needed, but with the low cost of storage, that is not worth my time. After uploading, I do a quick pass to eliminate the garbage, but that is mostly it. Enjoy!

Cdouthitt Loc: Traverse City, MI

SSD Drive will help tremendously...that, and moving your LR library and images to an external as well. That said...it might be time for a new machine. 7 years is a lifetime when it come to computers. My home station looks a lot like my work station, except a 34" screen and a much, much messier desk. 15" MBP (internal SSD drive, maxed ram), 29" Ultra wide display, and several external drives (connected as needed). Wifi network and Smugmug for storage of high rez jpgs. Raw files are on the multiple drives.

http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-435398-1.html

Reinaldokool Loc: San Rafael, CA

The cloud does have the advantage that your images are not in your home and vulnerable to fire, tornadoes and other weather or malicious damage. The downsides of the cloud are that your images are no longer under your control. There are many cloud companies and they are not all viable businesses. (It is cheap to create a cloud vendor.) I just don't trust my images in anyone elses control.

steve_stoneblossom Loc: Rhode Island, USA

Billy Bob

I buy a lot of PCs from http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/campaigns/deals.asp?campaignid=3331&SRCCODE=3WWEBEML661&utm_source=EML&utm_medium=main&utm_campaign=3WWEBEML661&ecm=5vL2bjYqZyUrIk3TCRb9L7SzwgqNg2q0jh1je1JT4jQ%3d&elqTrackId=78fc9c52eaf64d7ca036ce632ab2c59f&elq=638c6c72d0a04dd4b43559cdfcf3ee51&elqaid=636&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=500
Great PCs and service. Call them for one that will go with the 16 Ram I been trying get one for the speed, no money honey. You need a fast PC look at a DELL game PC I've a lot of PCs and Dell is the fastest yet. You need external hard drives. better yet try flash drives and file them ???? I have up to 2 TB as big as thrum nail.

steve_stoneblossom Loc: Rhode Island, USA

OP is asking for storage advice for Mac. I don't think the solution is switching to PC.

Randyb Loc: Houston

I recently replaced my 6 year old hard drive in my iMac with a solid state drive and my computer is like new. Apps open instantaneously and everything is very fast. I'd highly recommend replacing the standard hard drive with a solid state drive. I did it myself and it was easy.

jackpinoh Loc: Kettering, OH 45419

Your iMac probably has a hard drive. How full is it. A nearly full hard drive will be very slow. Have you ever de-fragmented your iMac drive? Two ways to speed up your iMac are by adding RAM and/or replacing the hard drive with a solid state drive. If you using a USB connection to your backup drive, the USB interface will be slow. Thunderbolt interfaces are an order of magnitude faster. But that shouldn't be a bottleneck because Time Machine doesn't copy all of your files every time it backs up your system--it only backs up new files or changed files.

photoman022 Loc: Manchester CT USA

It sounds as if you have 1 external hard drive; if that is the case buy at least one more. Your external hard drive will die (I've had three die over the years); having a backup to your backup is a good idea.

Dun1 Loc: Atlanta, GA

Back in the day a huge Apple selling point was, you can buy more RAM, you can always upgrade your processor. If you own an iMac the RAM is easily upgraded, FF to present, you have to decide how much RAM is present your machine at the time you order it.
If you machine is getting long in the tooth, you may find the longer you own it, it may not be eligible for some of the later Mac software updates, I have an older version Mac Book Pro and an older 20 iMac that fit into this category.
As some have mentioned you may wish to reserve a visit to the Genius Bar and the Mac store for an evaluation to see if there might be some software issues that are causing your machine to operate slowly.
After the visit and evaluation to the Genius Bar you may want to take a look at upgrading your machine. Upgrading in my terms means your machine operates so slowly, and can not be upgraded, or becomes so frustrating to use unless you love to watch the "beach ball" or the Windows wait feature th hour glass sifting the sands of time in bit and byte form

Johndon

The best thing you can do to speed up your Mac though is to remove unnecessary clutter, junk files, old files, and large files. To do this, you need FoneDog’s Mac Cleaner. It is an all-in-one tool that contains 16 different modules for different purposes.
Here is the guide: https://www.fonedog.com/mac-cleaner/

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Why are you backing up 12,000 images on a daily basis? It is far more efficient to only back up the changed files, additions and deletions.

As far as speeding up the machine - you can get some improvements from installing an SSD, and 16gb ram wouldn't hurt. But the best use of your money is to get a current machine.

cmoroney Loc: Pasadena, California

You can get an application like FreeFileSync that will mirror the contents of one disk to another, taking into account only the files that have actually changed. That's a lot less wear and tear on your drive than a complete backup every day.

Johndon

Find duplicate files and wipe them away with FoneDog - PowerMyMac. It's smart, laser accurate, and recovers tons of space on your Mac.
Locate and remove duplicate files, even if they're in remote corners of your system. FoneDog - PowerMyMac scans your whole disk speed-of-light fast, no matter how massive it is. Dig through scan results and hand-pick the files to erase, or better — let Smart Select do all the work.
Just like duplicates, similars are space wasters. Now, FoneDog - PowerMyMac is after them. Spot files that look alike, see how they differ, and delete those you don't need. Because you have better use for all the space they occupy.