Cataloging Multiple External Drives?

Hi everybody. I have nine external FW drives of various sizes littered with projects and files from years of work. Is there any simple way of maintaining on my boot drive a searchable catalog of what is on what drive? I dont want to have to constantly plug in nine drives when I am trying to find some old fcp file or media. Like is there any way to have spotlight index all the drives and keep a copy of the index on the main machine to search? Or some little third party shareware gizmo that does this? I can't imagine that this is not a common problem with media folks. Thanks in advance for any help or pointers.

I don't know if this is what you want, but it works for me with a similar sort of need. I have burned a TON of music CDs, and just want to know WHICH CD has a particular song. What I did was create an Applescript that I run when I finish burning a CD, and it saves a text file to a folder called MyDisks (yes, it works on disks as well as CDs). When I want to find a particular song I open the MyDisks folder and search by content on the name of the song, so the find result returns the text file or files that contain the song name, and each text file is named whatever the CD or disk was called. So if I want to find which CD has the song "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" I open the MyDisks folder, hit Command-F, check "MyDisks" as the place to search, and in the Search For box type the song name, surrounding it by quotes so it doesn't pull up files that have all the words, but not necessarily that song. In this case the results returns two text files, Random17 and Random16. I then go to my CD collection and look for those CDs.
Here's my script:
choose from list (list disks)
set the_disk to the result as string
set the_path to quoted form of POSIX path of alias the_disk
do shell script "find " & the_path & " -name '*' > ~/Documents/MyDisks/" & (word 1 of the_disk) & ".txt"
I used to have a fancy catalog program, way back when, but have found this works perfectly well for my needs.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

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Hello,
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1 - a referenced library is extremely problematic and is strongly not recommended - especially one spread accross several volumes
2 - iPhoto Library Manager - http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/ - can convert to a managed library - check the option to copy imported items to the iPhoto library and rebuil using IPLM
3 - this is likely to cure the slowness too
4 - multiple libraries are not necessary or desireable
5 - the only protection against losing photos is a great backup scheme - I run Time Machine giving me hourly backups and do a daily bootable clone giving a second backup - plus do an occasional off site backup
LN

Time Machine Backup across multiple external drives

Hello all-
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Yes, you can use Disk Utility to create a +Concatenated Raid Set,+ also known as a JBOD (Just a bunch of disks). See the Help for Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder).
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That would greatly reduce the time needed for a restore, as you'd only have to restore the drive that failed.
It could also reduce the amount of storage needed, as you might not need (or want) TM's hourly backups of the media files, and keeping all the previous versions. Using another app would allow you to back that data up somewhat less frequently, such as once or twice a day.
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Newbie question on managing catalog files & external drives

I'm new to Lightroom and just downloaded a trial version of LR4 earlier this week. I'm an amatuer photographer (and I really mean amatuer ) ... and serve as a volunteer for a local summer baseball team (college players). I've taken - on average - 5,000 photos per summer for each of the last 5 years. In addition to posting the photos of each game to my Phanfare.com site (where players and families can download them), I create a keepsake DVD with video clips and a slideshow for the players and coaches at the end of the season. If I decide to become a LR4 user, I would be organizing those photos from the past...as well as on a game-by-game basis this coming summer and into the future. In addition to backing up all of my photos to DVD and Phanfare.com, I have a designaed external hard drive for these photos. On the external drive, I have a different folder for each year and subfolders for each game. In the past, I've kept the current year photos on my laptop and back them up to the other locations as the season progressess.
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Advice #1: use one catalog -- don't even think about multiple catalogs; multiple catalogs will not help, this will only hinder you in your work. Inside of Lightroom, you can easily organize different years, different teams, different players, different sports, and anything else you want to organize.
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Okay I fixed my own problem. I quit everything again and restarted my computer again. This time LR launched okay. I went back to LR3 and found I was using an older catalog. Then I quite that, relaunched LR4, selected the older catalog, and checked the box that says "upgrade again". I let this run and got a catalog with a new version number. The library is now in synch and I am happy again.

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I am filling-up the hard drive on my iMac. I want to move the pictures & Lightroom 3 catalog to my external drive. Is there an easy way of doing this. Also, I have some old photos & a Lightroom 1.4 catalog on a Windows NTFS formated hard drive. I can move the individual folders onto a thumb drive & manually re-enter them in Lightroom on my IMac. Is there any way to save the Lightroom 1.4 catalog?

Van,
I did not think of that way of moving files from within the organizer.
Unfortunately, the 'move' feature for selected files works is meant to move files from any location on your computer to a single new folder. That should keep your catalog on the same location than before, with the albums, categories and tags unchanged. I don't understand how you can have lost your albums in the process.
That's not what you want, and the 'move' feature is rarely used because there is always the risk to move files with the same filename into the same destination drive. Since that is not possible in the explorer, the organizer is supposed to rename files to avoid that problem. In older Elements versions the 'move' command had several bugs which explains why it is rarely used.
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Of the two recommended ways to move folder trees within Elements, I prefer the backup and restore method. The second method is rarely used, although I have tested it successfully with a big catalog in PSE12. With a big catalog like yours, a backup is necessary anyway, which means you don't save time. The usual result of the backup/restore (totally safe process) is that the catalog itself is also moved to the new drive; but you can get it back simply to the default location on C: from the catalog manager (catalogs accessible to all users).

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I hear that on Win 7, running as Administrator is not sufficient--you need to make sure that your account "owns" the files or directories that it's trying to access.
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Hal

How to manage multiple external drives

I have 6 external hard drives containing NEF / JPG and DNG files
plus i have some more recent photos on my laptop hard drive
some of the files are the same on several of the drives (backup copies)
what would be the best way to merge all this into a single LR 4 catalog ?
or would it make sense to have a separate catalog for each external drive ?
I only have one drive connected to the computer at one time
help!

what would be the best way to merge all this into a single LR 4 catalog ?
Import everything into one catalog ... probably you can do this in batches
or would it make sense to have a separate catalog for each external drive ?
Horrible idea. Makes no sense. Don't go there.
I only have one drive connected to the computer at one time
This shouldn't be a problem. LR knows how to handle drives that are offline (not connected).

Cannot open Lightroom Catalog on External Drive

Please excuse the screen name. I tried so many when registering but they were all taken so I was pretty sure this one would be available.
I am migrating from a PC to a Mac Laptop.
I copied my entire photo drive to an external drive which is what i will use with my Laptop. My catalog and photos are stored on this external drive and when I try to open the catalog, I get the following Error:
Lightroom cannot launch with this catalog. It is either on a network volume or on a volume on which Lightroom cannot save changes. But I have no problem opening an image in Photoshop so I know the files copied over in a readable format.
Ideas?

Hi
I've just moved from a PC to a Mac as well and is having the same problem as the original comment:
"Lightroom cannot create a catalog named “AATKM82011” on volume “/Volumes/FreeAgent GoFlex Drive/AATKM82011” because Lightroom cannot save changes to this location."
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Everything worked well in Tiger on my first gen MBP. Since i switched to Leopard and now Snow, and a new UNI MBP in december 08 I have so many external drive issues.
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@ Gregory
All my drives are 3.5" HD's all with external power cables along with a mains powered USB hub. Sorry, i didn't state that clearly in the original post (i thought the hint of all drives being 1TB was a dead giveaway:)).. However, this still doesn't explain the same behaviour of the 2x1TB esata drives which actually work well if no external USB drives are connected. Sorry i'm not technical but does the expresscard slot share any bridge,bus or power connectivity with the USB slots??
I'll try this SMC reset that S.U mentioned...
Thanks for everyones help and ideas so far.

Solve Drive self-ejects and System Hangs when using MULTIPLE external drives!

I've discovered what I think is the underlying reason for many folks reporting similar problems. I bet that I can predict the GUIDs of the drives/docks/cases you're having trouble with! I bet that if you look in Disk Utility, if you click on the drives, you'll find "Connection ID 13757101839304263"!
Oh and if you look in System Profiler and click on 'FireWire' or 'USB' you'll find the GUID 0x30E002E0454647 !
What are the odds? I shouldn't be able to predict them; theyr'e supposed to be unique, after all, but google that number and you'll see that a great many devices all use that GUID.   (13757101839304263 in decimal is the same thing as 30E002E0454647 in hex.)
Mac OS seems to rely on them to be unique, and has fits when they aren't. I haven't found a total solution yet, but in the meantime, running this in Terminal can help:
sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/IOFireWireFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleFWOHCI.k ext/
Sometimes it helps to run this first to unload before loading the kext (kernel extension):
sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/IOFireWireFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleFWOHCI.k ext/
Enter your password if/when prompted, of course.
In most cases, if you contact your hard drive manufacturer, they'll provide a utility that will fix the drive so that it actually has a truly unique GUID.
I'm mad at Cavalry for hiding the problem and refusing to fix it, W.R.T. the two 1TB HDs I bought from them for around $500, when that was the going price.
I figured it'd be helpful to create a user tip off the discussion in this thread: Disk Drive ejecting itself - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2151621?start=615&tstart=0     This is my first attempt to create a tip. I'm not sure I'm doing it right, but here goes.

Sorry but this is just a really bad idea.
1. The airport is ancient.. your speed will be terrible.
2. Hubs filled with USB drives are never reliable.. disks refuse to spin up.. become unavailable.
No.. don't do it.
Plug USB3 hub into the mini and use multiple decent hard drives .. that is fine.. use thunderbolt hub.. use thunderbolt drives if you can afford it.. but never use USB drives on the network.
3. Time Machine is not reliable to external drive on Airport Extreme.. Apple do not support it in any Extreme except the latest one.
If you want the material available to the network buy a NAS. You can buy a cheap NAS of 8TB or so and another 8TB of USB drives which you plug into the NAS for backup.. however.. iphoto is not supposed to ever be put on network drives..
Apple explicitly states you will corrupt it.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5168 Although mostly about FAT32           it adds network drives.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1198
And I quote
It's recommended that you store your iPhoto library on a locally mounted hard drive. Storing your iPhoto library on a network share can lead to poor performance, data corruption, or data loss. If you use both iPhoto and Aperture with the same library, using a Mac OS X Extended formatted volume is recommended. For more information, see Aperture: Use locally mounted Mac OS X Extended volumes for your Aperture library.
For backup of the drives.. use Carbon Copy Cloner.. it is much better than TM as you can setup different job.. TM is really a single function.. !!

Managing content on multiple external drives?

Hi, Gang,
Well, the first external drive that I've been using with FCPX is nearly full, so I need to move on to a new drive. At this point, I'm trying to find a strategy that will enable me to keep this content organized. My drives are mostly FireWire 800 types, so they can theoretically be daisy-chained, if that helps.
How do I move on to a new drive while keeping my stuff organized? What are the implications for the organization of my current libraries, events and projects?
I hope this makes sense. I just want do this right the first time as my collections of assets grows and begins to spread across more devices.
Many thanks!

"Copy to library storage location."
So that's a location on the external?
located in Movies/Final Cut Backups
No, those are the backups. Where is the actual library you're working on? Is it on the external? Is the media inside the library?
If you're finished with that production, start a new library on a new drive with a new location for the library, either inside the library or in a folder outside of the library.

Backing up to multiple external drives

Is it possible to set Time Machine to back up to more than one drive.
I'd like to back up my photos to two separate external drives.
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AS

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Cataloging Multiple External Drives?

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