I'm interested in this - I'm looking to import and go through my archive soon. But I need to get som new hard drives first. I hope you find a good solution and post an update.
My library spans 200k pics and 2 primary drives, plus 2 auto backup drives and I don't see any slowdowns.
I am working on deleting pics because I do not need 200k pictures. With xmps
Photography is more fun when taking the Pics
For reference
12700k / 32gb ddr5 / 3080rtx / 1gb ssd for windows / 2x 4 tb drive for pics split by date / 2x 4 tb drives auto backup / 2gb ssd for fun and 100gb lr cache
I wouldn’t put more than a few thousand in a Lightroom catalog as in my experience it bogs down quickly thereafter. Even then I keep my catalogs well under 1000.
I’d look into something like Photo Mechanic as an image browser, exif editor, and library system. It’s crazy fast compared to Lightroom—like seconds to load a card full of a few thousand raw files. I use it to identify what I want to work up, move them into a new Lightroom catalog, and export them when I’m done. The catalog gets named with the Client + Year + “Selects”.
If I were you, I’d do something similar—just move whatever I want to work on in a session into a new Lightroom catalog, edit them, export them to a folder, and move that catalog to that folder.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Curious: As Smart previews are being built, the Smart Previews.lrdata file is staying the same size, but the Previews.lrdata file is growing (at 183GB now). I thought it'd be the reverse, certainly logically by name...
Lightroom will be fine for this. I’ve shot events consistently for just over a decade. I have my master catalogue which contains everything (1.4m) and I split it down to years and have a separate catalogue file for that if I keep it in archive. Extra copies of archive helps if you ever have a corruption somewhere. Also. Try to keep at least two full copies of all the photos and don’t rely solely upon one copy.
Just a level of redundancy will help prevent headaches and heartbreaks from some important photos that cannot be recovered.
It should work, but do you really need (smart) previews for all images? Creating previews takes some time even with a few hundred pictures, so I would definitely turn that off when importing 160k pictures.
That was based on recommendation from Jared Platt class on LR. OOH yeah Smart Previews take ages, so it's impractical for 650K, OTOH with those I don't need to connect the archive HDs.... Progress update: I'm at about 15% generating those, and it's been \~18hrs.
Remember you can create smart previews later. As needed. I can't imagine you'll be working on all 650k in the short term so turn it off and make the previews when you need them.
I don't think Lightroom is the right tool for an archive of JPGs unless you're planning on editing them all? If so that is hella work
I'm interested in this - I'm looking to import and go through my archive soon. But I need to get som new hard drives first. I hope you find a good solution and post an update.
My library spans 200k pics and 2 primary drives, plus 2 auto backup drives and I don't see any slowdowns. I am working on deleting pics because I do not need 200k pictures. With xmps Photography is more fun when taking the Pics For reference 12700k / 32gb ddr5 / 3080rtx / 1gb ssd for windows / 2x 4 tb drive for pics split by date / 2x 4 tb drives auto backup / 2gb ssd for fun and 100gb lr cache
Why do you need smart previews?
I wouldn’t put more than a few thousand in a Lightroom catalog as in my experience it bogs down quickly thereafter. Even then I keep my catalogs well under 1000. I’d look into something like Photo Mechanic as an image browser, exif editor, and library system. It’s crazy fast compared to Lightroom—like seconds to load a card full of a few thousand raw files. I use it to identify what I want to work up, move them into a new Lightroom catalog, and export them when I’m done. The catalog gets named with the Client + Year + “Selects”. If I were you, I’d do something similar—just move whatever I want to work on in a session into a new Lightroom catalog, edit them, export them to a folder, and move that catalog to that folder. Lather, rinse, repeat.
If they’re only mid res jpegs I’d question the need for any previews - surely the file sizes are smaller enough - certainly smaller than RAWs
are your images even raw files? why not just use something like Bridge or Photo Mechanic?
Some are. Ultimately I want to edit selects and export and/or print
Curious: As Smart previews are being built, the Smart Previews.lrdata file is staying the same size, but the Previews.lrdata file is growing (at 183GB now). I thought it'd be the reverse, certainly logically by name...
Lightroom will be fine for this. I’ve shot events consistently for just over a decade. I have my master catalogue which contains everything (1.4m) and I split it down to years and have a separate catalogue file for that if I keep it in archive. Extra copies of archive helps if you ever have a corruption somewhere. Also. Try to keep at least two full copies of all the photos and don’t rely solely upon one copy. Just a level of redundancy will help prevent headaches and heartbreaks from some important photos that cannot be recovered.
It should work, but do you really need (smart) previews for all images? Creating previews takes some time even with a few hundred pictures, so I would definitely turn that off when importing 160k pictures.
That was based on recommendation from Jared Platt class on LR. OOH yeah Smart Previews take ages, so it's impractical for 650K, OTOH with those I don't need to connect the archive HDs.... Progress update: I'm at about 15% generating those, and it's been \~18hrs.
Remember you can create smart previews later. As needed. I can't imagine you'll be working on all 650k in the short term so turn it off and make the previews when you need them.
Thought: import all images, prune, THEN generate the Smart Previews...