Workflow & Storage

[Chris_Jenks]

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I’m also using LR Classic and have just upgraded from 20GB of Cloud Storage to 1TB. All my images (full sized raw and JPEG) are stored on 2 external SSDs using LR with a third and fourth SSD for weekly Time Machine backups. I upgraded to 1TB LR Cloud as I use LR mobile on my iPad Pro when traveling rather than taking my MacBook, so am able to sync the DNG files with all edits to the laptop when I get home. That’s all I use the Cloud storage for. 
 

I mostly use Photo Mechanic for sorting and file management, much faster than anything else I’ve tried. The only drawback is that images tagged with a star do not show up in PM and the only solution I’m aware of is to shoot both DNG and JPEG as the star will show up on the JPEG. Very tedious, so I’ve given up tagging in camera. I do understand though that the in-camera tags will show up in Bridge, but I’m not a fan of Bridge. 

[LocalHero1953]

NB If you only use Adobe's cloud for storing collections, then they take up none of your 'free' 20Gb allowance. I have several Tb of images, all of them synced as collections to LR in the cloud. This allows me to see all my images from anywhere (and download them for social media etc), and I can send a link to a collection to anyone I want to permit access to - they are downloadable at about 2000 pixels on the long edge. It's an excellent way of distributing images to those who might only want them for online use or relatively small printing (booklets, theatre programmes etc). I keep waiting for Adobe to start charging for this facility.

[thingsadamsaw]

I am a simple man who doesn't like to overthink stuff. My catalog and filed live on my computer hard drive (4TB), and everything gets synced to my NAS via Time Machine every few hours. Once the catalog gets too large on my laptop, I just move it to the NAS as-is and start a new one locally.

 

Super simple setup, but effective.

[brickftl]

I back up to 3 external hard drives in addition to my 4TB internal drive.

Moreover, I am scrupulous about deleting image files that I don't consider worth of saving.

[MaxGor]

300GB of photographs - do you even know what is in there?  Unless your professional photographer and need to keep all your clients shots.

 

 

[pgh]

I’m pretty old school. I work off of a RAID 1 (duplicate drives). My RAIDs vary in size from 1tb to 4tb. They are in numerical order. I’m on #8 these days. I think my entire archive is 25 TB or so. I manually back up my RAID to a corresponding hard drive of the same size every so often. When full it is stored at family member’s house in another state. So, that’s 3 drives of the same work in 2 locations.

For somewhat easier access, I also create “archive” drives every so often. These are cheaper large capacity drives that fit the contents of multiple RAIDS that give me access to many years of work on one drive (thankfully I’ve tended to shoot less as file sizes have grown). These are somewhat curated, mostly master files of projects and client shoots - but then the whole shoots also of stuff I deemed more important. I keep these near my desktop for convenience. Considering these, it ends up that most work is on 4 drives. Some things fall through the cracks sometimes. They’re not synced so if I accidentally edit files on the archive drive as opposed to the RAID drive I may have to go digging. 

I do not store stuff on the cloud, and I won’t. Increasingly, I am trying to keep all of my IP off of any hosting other than my own.

I also tend to print at least 5x7s and/or 6x9 prints of everything I am working with - printing matters. Physical copies matter to me. Sometimes the scan of the print is the only digital presentation of the work I’ll allow. I never delete any of my personal pictures. Sometimes for client shoots I only keep the “select” raws as opposed to the whole shoots. This can save a lot of space - for instance if shot 500 images for a job but only keep 30 raws. I only delete the full take for client jobs after a few years usually, and only with jobs that I really can’t see revisiting for any reason, ever - and any chance of a client circling back for something not in the selects folder seems well past gone. Generally, storage is cheap enough I err on keeping files if there’s any question at all. 

Not a perfect system but it generally works well enough - and I’d rather spend more time doing the pictures than tinkering with the archive. 

Edited June 18 by pgh

[paulscr]

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I’m all in with cloud (adobe 1TB as my “working storage”) backup to apple cloud where necessary. 
 

i seem to be in the minority here - but works for me. 

[Guest]

17 minutes ago, paulscr said:

I’m all in with cloud (adobe 1TB as my “working storage”) backup to apple cloud where necessary. 
 

i seem to be in the minority here - but works for me. 

I'm exactly the same. I also keep my originals on a couple of SSDs, just in case

[bourne]

This is a great thread.... I am in need of a new working and storage system.  Presently using Lightroom Classic and have an external SSD drive with my some DNG's and my master catalog.  I have a second external SSD with more DNG's.  Using Super Duper I regularly backup both of these drives to a larger external HHD.  I understand that it is always recommended to have your catalog on a fast SSD.  If I were to purchase a larger HHD for all of my DNG's will I experience a significantly slower Lightroom Classic performance?  I would keep my catalog on the external SSD and the Lightroom software sits on my iMac with 32GB of RAM.  Look forward to some insights into this.

[marchyman]

22 hours ago, MaxGor said:

300GB of photographs - do you even know what is in there?

I have 1.1 GB of original photos.  That is partitioned into a few libraries.  My primary library contains about 50,000 images.  And somehow I roughly know what is in there although finding images can be a bit of a problem.  I recently installed excire search for LrC to help me find images.

I am not very good at throwing away the crap images.  I could probably reduce my library by quite a bit if I tried.

[Photoworks]

22 hours ago, paulscr said:

I’m all in with cloud (adobe 1TB as my “working storage”) backup to apple cloud where necessary. 
 

i seem to be in the minority here - but works for me. 

that sounds risky. 

A few years ago one of the tech reporter got his email hacked, with in a short time they took over the apple account, then the gmail account, and every other service he had subcribe to.

the email verification was the downfall of it all. It took him a long time to even log back into his computer ( locked by apple) and all the services.

[MaxGor]

3 hours ago, marchyman said:

I have 1.1 GB of original photos.  That is partitioned into a few libraries.  My primary library contains about 50,000 images.  And somehow I roughly know what is in there although finding images can be a bit of a problem.  I recently installed excire search for LrC to help me find images.

I am not very good at throwing away the crap images.  I could probably reduce my library by quite a bit if I tried.

I know this is not what you asked to help with, but deciding on / throwing away bad images can make you a better photographer.  Being able to tell what is a good photograph and what is not, on its own, is a great skill to have.

[LocalHero1953]

4 hours ago, marchyman said:

I have 1.1 GB of original photos.  That is partitioned into a few libraries.  My primary library contains about 50,000 images.  And somehow I roughly know what is in there although finding images can be a bit of a problem.  I recently installed excire search for LrC to help me find images.

I am not very good at throwing away the crap images.  I could probably reduce my library by quite a bit if I tried.

1.1Gb? You could store all that on one small SD card. Or do you mean 1.1Tb?

[wdahab]

I know it's not professional, but I use iCloud photo library so that all my photos sit together easily. It doesn't work flawlessly with other makers cameras (since Apple is very slow to support with raw) but it works really well with Leica DNG's out of the gate.

[marchyman]

On 6/19/2025 at 2:20 PM, LocalHero1953 said:

1.1Gb? You could store all that on one small SD card. Or do you mean 1.1Tb?

Heh... yes, 1.1 TB.   As for throwing things away... most of pictures I take are of family, friends, projects, and trips.  Even the bad pics -- and there are a lot of them -- bring certain memories to mind.  I'll throw away bad pics where they duplicate something better. Otherwise for my use a bad pic is better than none.