Internal HDD full, need to sort out more storage

technics100

technics100

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Hi,

I currently have a Dell all in one PC running windows 8.1.. I have a 680gb internal HDD which currently houses my Lightroom catalogue. The current drive is full!!. I backup my LR cat to an externall 500gb HDD, but it's also full. For Christmas I was planning on getting a new external 2TB drive, but what is the best way to set it up?

Move my LR Cat to the new External and start filling up my C drive again with photos? or move eveything to the nex external drive? Would I notice LR running slow with the Catalogue and photos on a USB2 drive?

Cheers
 
First obvious question is where are your backups of the images?

Personally, catalogue on C, photos on external + backup location for the catalogue, then an additional storage location with a backup of the external drive as well (at a minimum). So maybe 2 x 2tb external drives.
 
Agree with Sharkey. Keep your catalogue on the C drive. It will make things a lot quicker. Then transfer your images to the new drive. It's the way I've worked with Lightroom for 5 years. OK USB2 isn't fast, but it's fine for handling images.

When you move your images you could let Lightroom do it for you. It will probably take some time. Lightroom will however keep track of those images However I would only do this if you have a good current backup. just in case something goes wrong. Has happened! If you don't have a good backup ( Naughty :naughty: ) then copy the images to their new location, then point Lightroom to that location before you delete them off the C: drive using the "Update Folder Location" command
 
Get a new internal drive. It looks fairly simple. - LINK

I'd get a 2TB internal drive. Use something like Acronis True Image to clone the old HDD to the new one, then swap them over.
 
If it helps, Amazon are currently listing a Seagate USB 3.0 5Tb drive for £150 - which is insane money! That will store a LOT of photos!
 
I can only afford one drive at the minute.. so not sure whether it should be internal or external..

I suppose if I got an internal I could get a caddy and use my 680gb one as an external
 
if youre not already backing up then please get 2 drives and have at least 2 copies of your data. ive lost count of the amount of people at work recently that have lost their personal external drives.

but id echo what some have said, cat on the c: and images on the external. does the dell not have usb3, i thought all of their all-in-ones were fairly new spec.
 
If you can't afford two new drives at the moment, look at using something like DropBox as a short term solution. 1Tb of storage is around £7.00 /month. This is a rolling contract so you can cancel at 30 days notice. OK 10 months down the line you could have bought a second storage device, but at least you've got the knowledge that your images are safe. Only drawback is unless uou have a superfast broadband connection uploading can take forever. But better safe than sorry.
 
technics100 said:
I suppose if I got an internal I could get a caddy and use my 680gb one as an external
Click to expand...

I strongly recommend you do this.

Get an internal drive (I'd recommend 2TB) and an external docking station (USB3 or eSATA, if your PC supports them, would be preferable to USB2). Put the new drive in the dock and use a suitable bit of software (I use Acronis True Image Home) to clone your current drive to the new one (note, just copying stuff won't work). Then swap your old and new drives and reboot. If all works as it should then you should have a nice, new, large C: drive. And you can use the dock to back up important stuff to your old drive (although I'd also get a second 2TB drive and use that in the dock for backups as well.
 
Here is another take on it...

Get a 512mb SSD as a replacement for the C drive. Get 2 x 2tb external 2.5inch drive (portable) for puting on all pics.

Leave catalogue on C drive (which is now really fast)

& put pics onto portable external drives.

I also copy my catalogue onto the portables as a just in case each week.

Total cost about £300 max
 
Oh - if you can only afford 1 drive - replace the internal with an SSD... - 512mb = £150ish
 
I basically have around £50 as it's a Christmas present.. would put a bit more to it as I don't see the point buying a 500gb or 1TB drive..

Sorry, just seen your 1st post above..

Basically I should buy a new internal drive and then a caddy for my current 680gb internal for backup.. for the meantime..
 
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Here's another suggestion. Why not simply purchase an external hard drive. You can then move all your images off the internal drive, but keep the catalogue data on the existing drive. This will then free up a lot of room , but you wont have to go through all the bother of reinstalling the OS and other software, plus you could lose a other items you've got on the machine. . Been there done it, it's a real bore. Also camera files love to fill up hard drives , so you could find yourself doing this again when you run out of space on the "new: hard drive and have to get yet another larger still internal drive.

I run all my images on external drives ( 3 of them) and leave the other stuff on the computers hard drive. So now if I upgrade the computer all I need to do is transfer the Lightroom files to a new machine and it's all done.
 
technics100 said:
I basically have around £50 as it's a Christmas present.. would put a bit more to it as I don't see the point buying a 500gb or 1TB drive..

Sorry, just seen your 1st post above..

Basically I should buy a new internal drive and then a caddy for my current 680gb internal for backup.. for the meantime..
Click to expand...

Yes - this giving you 2 benefits.

1. Now have a much faster PC (due to running a SSD)
2. Any drive you get in the future can be external / portable.
 
technics100 said:
Hi,

I currently have a Dell all in one PC running windows 8.1.. I have a 680gb internal HDD which currently houses my Lightroom catalogue. The current drive is full!!. I backup my LR cat to an externall 500gb HDD, but it's also full. For Christmas I was planning on getting a new external 2TB drive, but what is the best way to set it up?

Move my LR Cat to the new External and start filling up my C drive again with photos? or move eveything to the nex external drive? Would I notice LR running slow with the Catalogue and photos on a USB2 drive?

Cheers
Click to expand...
Not that it will completely solve your problem, but do you regularly delete old LR backups? If you haven't, but have been using LR for a year or so, it's amazing how much space they consume. I delete backup files that are over two months old (mine are about 1.2GB each), but everyone's needs are different.

With weekly backups I'm saving 62GB of backup files to my SSD every year. I keep culling to keep it below 12GB.

Could buy you some time :)
 
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Bob_a said:
Not that it will completely solve your problem, but do you regularly delete old LR backups? If you haven't, but have been using LR for a year or so, it's amazing how much space they consume. I delete backup files that are over two months old (mine are about 1.2GB each), but everyone's needs are different.

With weekly backups I'm saving 62GB of backup files to my SSD every year. I keep culling to keep it below 12GB.

Could buy you some time :)
Click to expand...

And if I recall LR in its wisdom does not or cannot be used to delete the not so little beggars, it has to be done manually!
 
Box Brownie said:
And if I recall LR in its wisdom does not or cannot be used to delete the not so little beggars, it has to be done manually!
Click to expand...
Yup. It's a shame you can't specify the number of backups or cut-off age and let it clean-up old backups every time you shut down.

I made a little bat file that I keep on my Windows desktop that I can just double click and it deletes everything older than 60 days. The method came from Chris Shepherd here:

http://blog.shepherdpics.com/2010/04/deleting-old-lightroom-backups.html

I made it by the appropriate command line in Notepad, then naming the Notepad file "Delete LR Backups Older than 60 Days.bat" . Not recommending this approach for everyone, but if you understand Windows command line stuff then it can be a bit of a time saver. It's not that hard just to go into Windows Explorer and simply delete the files either (I'm just lazy) :)

I believe the following is correct:
/p = pathname
/c = execute command as if I typed it
rd = remove directory
@file returns the name of the file
/s instructs forfiles to recurse into subdirectories
/q = echo off
/d = date

-60 means delete backups older than 60 days
 
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Lots of good advice above about getting an SSD and then using external USB2 as storage media. SSD's certainly help with LR as the program is very disk intensive.

One thing to consider is (if not already done) is review everything that is stored on your existing drives. It's easy to accumulate crap over time. Use something like TreeSize Free to check your folders and files for rogue storage hogging data. You might find you have a lot more storage available than expected after a clean up :).
 
Sharky said:
Lots of good advice above about getting an SSD and then using external USB2 as storage media. SSD's certainly help with LR as the program is very disk intensive.

One thing to consider is (if not already done) is review everything that is stored on your existing drives. It's easy to accumulate crap over time. Use something like TreeSize Free to check your folders and files for rogue storage hogging data. You might find you have a lot more storage available than expected after a clean up :).
Click to expand...

Agree. Treesize Free is a really handy little addin for Windows. It's amazing to see what's gobbling up space.
 
Great stuff guys, will have a look through this evening and see what I can clear.. a new HDD is needed anyway.

Where is the best place for deals?
 
In the past few years I have bought all my HHDs from http://www.span.com/ partly because they are fairly local so I collected them and without checking current prices they have been competitive.
 
Just stuck Treesize on and found 20Gb of Lightroom backups!! also found 15Gb of photos from a portugal holiday 3 years ago..

I'm thinking a 2TB external drive with my photos on it then backed up to my 500Gb external.. If I go through my LR photos I'm sure I can delete a load..

Cheers for all the help..
 
BT Bob said:
If it helps, Amazon are currently listing a Seagate USB 3.0 5Tb drive for £150 - which is insane money! That will store a LOT of photos!
Click to expand...

You should always keep an eye on Amazon's prices because they go up and down quicker than the proverbial!

I purchased the same drive a couple of weeks ago for £120!

And the Seagate 4TB can be had for about £95 often.

I've been using Seagate drives like these for over 2 years with no problems and a great plus point for me is the fact that the PSU which comes with them is always the same output and type so don't have to bother fiddling about with loads of different ones unless I have more than 1 plugged in.

And as soon as I get them run HD Tune Pro to make sure there are no problems.

Also I use Surge Protected mains supply to connect all my sensitive devices to the mains.

And in USB 3 the speed is pretty good too - depending of course what kind of files you're backing up.
.
 
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