Confused by external drive advice - any views?

From the very introduction of Lightroom 1 I have structured my workflow around the principle of importing, selecting and editing NEFs on the internal hard drive that also holds the programme. Once edited, retained images are moved to a dedicated external drive on which is stored the .lrdata & .lrcat folders.
The link between drives has progressively stepped from USB, through USB2 and Firewire 400, to the current FW 800. The internal drive is currently 2.7 Ghz Intel Core i5 with 12 GB of RAM in a mid-2011 27" iMac. The external drive is a 2T dual disk WD MY Book with Raid 1 dedicated as above.
This system reflects - I thought - the optimum for speed, taking account the limitations of the available hardware. However, I am now seeing advice advocating putting the programme on the same (external) disk as the lrdata and lrcat folders - all in the interests of speeding up Lr response times.
The reason I putting the question now is that faced with a necessary update to quite separate external drive, on which I keep my system back-ups, if the latter argument hold true, one option is for me to add a new Raid with 2T dedicated to the Lr library and the programme.
Any thoughts, based on one or the other premises, would be most welcome. Thanks for your time.
ps: The current iMac has a Thunderbolt port, but I am not folding that into any solution for the present.

There are 2 caches used by Lightroom: one is the "previews cache", which is the .lrdata folder, the other is the ACR cache.
The "previews cache" by default is located adjacent to, and in the same folder as, its corresponding .lrcat catalog file, and is used primarily in the Library module. It is possible to locate the .lrdata folder on a different drive using symbolic links, but you need to know what you're doing. The size of the previews cache will continue to grow as you add more images to the catalog.
The ACR cache is used mainly in Develop, and is used to store a partial rendering of the raw files to speed up loading in Develop. The size and location can be set/varied in the File Handling tab of the Lightroom Preferences (or in Photoshop, as they share the same ACR cache). Unlike the "previews cache" the ACR cache will work within the size that you have set, so that if needed older cache entries will be ditched to allow new ones to be created. With LR4 the size of ACR cache entries has been dramatically reduced, making space contraints much less of an issue.
In an ideal world you would have program executable, catalog/previews, ACR cache, and images all on different fast drives on a fast bus......but sometimes this isn't possible and you need to compromise performance in favour of useability. I know quite a few folks who want to be able to switch between computers at different locations and so use the "everything on one external drive" approach, which works for them.

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Running out of disk space - External Drive Advice

Hi,
I've been importing all of our HDV video in "Large" fomat (Not the original or full size). We have an Apple TV so wanted to get the qaulity up for our large TV.
Anyway, we have lots of digital pics, huge iTunes library and now I'm starting to run out of disk space with all of my iMovie imports.
I would like to buy a huge external drive to help offload:
Is there any reason I should be concerned about storing my video on external drive? Any editing performance issues?
I use time machine, if I buy a huge external, can I split it in half and use part for time machine and part for imovie?
Just curious.
Thx,
Brent

I agree that you can make this work. Your external drive must be formatted as Mac OS Extended (journaled). You can do this as you are creating your 2 partitions in Disk Utility, if it has a different formatting when you buy it.
If you want to move your Events from your internal drive to your new external drive, you need to do it from within iMovie so you do not break the links to your projects. To do this, open iMovie and click VIEW/EVENTS BY VOLUME. You should be able to see a small icon in your Event Library List for your external drive. You can Command-Drag your event icons in the event library list to this icon for your external, and all the links to your projects will be preserved. (hold down the command key while dragging). If you do a simple drag and drop, it will copy not move.

I am using a T61 ThinkPad with an external hard drive and my itunes library keeps disapearing but remains on the external drive. Any idea how to fix this so my music doesn't disapear all the time? It's a real drag pulling music back into iTunes each week.

I am using a T61 ThinkPad with an external hard drive and my itunes library keeps disapearing but remains on the external drive. Any idea how to fix this so my music doesn't disapear all the time? It's a real drag pulling music back into iTunes each week

In iTunes 11 uncheck the preferences setting in in the iTunes Preferences panel "Advanced > Copy Files to iTunes Media folder when adding to Library"

ITunes cannot find music files, confuses inodes, external drive

I have all my music on an external drive, which is not always connected to the Mac. When I start iTunes w/o the hdd connected iTunes occasionally marks some of the songs as not found. Which is ok so far. BUT if it finds the same inode (of the original file on the external hdd) on the internal hdd it changes the location of the songs to the internal hdd. In my case to files like /Previous System/<some path>/Info.plist. So iTunes thinks the files are still there and cannot play them. After deleting all the Previous Systems files iTunes marks all those files as not found, that is, it does not search for the inode on the external hdd again. Very confusing.
Yesterday I started from scratch with an empty iTunes Library (I moved the original one) and the problem reoccurred instantly after I imported all my music, quit iTunes, disconnected the external HDD and started iTunes again. So some of my songs are lost, iTunes will never find them again w/o me reimporting them. Also the problem might occur anytime in the future and I seem to not be able to cure it, because iTunes tried to be intelligent. But how it can confuse inodes w/o looking at the device ID and why the songs did not return after I removed the /Previous Systems folder I cannot image.
I checked the inodes on the internal and external hdd for some of the songs and they were indeed identical. So iTunes seems reset the path/location in the Library DB if it can find the inode of a song which it cannot find by path. Why it does not look at the device id in combination with the inode# is a mystery.
Some additional details:
iTunes Music Folder Location: on external hdd
The Library files are on the internal hdd at ~/Music/iTunes.
I hope someone can answer that. I do not want to start from scratch every week. I hope my iPod which holds all the songs synchs meta info like play count and rating back as well.
Kind regards, soryu2.

And further....
I went into iTunes to try to download all my purchased music. Some, but not all, is showing up under iTunes>iTunes Media>Music. It looks like the library thinks some if the music is there, but it actually is not.
Seems like my library is corrupted (or something).
Since I have to upload all music from CD anyway, should I delete my iTunes library and start over, first by downloading all purchased music.

I have Elements 10, Lightroom 5 and PS6. My mac is saying its "running at or near capacity". i suspect the problem is the Elements organizer, 875 MB, and I don't believe I can import it into my LR catalogue which is on an external drive. Any suggestion

If helpful, here is some additional info:
I am running OSX version 10.9.4, with 8 GB of memory.

I don't remember how big mine was, but I had loads of pictures in Elements so I guess it should work anyway -- so I'd first try to convert the full catalog, even if it takes some time.
If this really is a problem I'd suggest you break up your Elements catalog into two or more smaller ones -- I remember Elements getting a nuisance with big catalogs.
Btw.: I have the LR catalog on the internal drive, pictures and backups on two external drives. As long as I don't have the money for a big external SSD I think I will keep it that way (my machine is an iMac 21.5 8GB)

Using drobo fs as a file storage external drive? any experience setting one up

I have downloaded the Drobo dashboard software and am getting ready to start using it, but my screen goes blank. I think this is related to the software download and possibly a search for the device which I have not plugged in yet. I have MacAir mid 2013, running OSX 10.9.3, and Drobo Dashboard latest Mac download. Also, I would like to interface through Belkin thunderbolt hub rather than direct connect to MacAir if I could and still get performance. Any assistance is welcomed as I'm still new on OSX and Mac.

A Drobo FS is a network-attached enclosure - it doesn't connect directly to your Mac at all, but to your router, so the Belkin hub would do nothing for you.
I would start by plugging it into the network - I assume you've installed drives for it? - and seeing whether the software connects. You may need to contact Drobo directly if the software fails to connect.
Matt

MacBook Air, no access to an external drive or any other computer with one. Just Internet.

I bought a cs 6 design standard but i want to install it on my MacBook Air with no cd drive and I have no access to a computer with a working one so I can't transfer it to a flash drive. Can I just download it from here and if yes, where exactly?
Thanks in advance!

Thanks! It worked eventhough I downloaded he wrong thing (the Web Premium because I couldn't find the standard). It just gives me a trial version of Dreamweaver and Flash which were not included in standard. But my serial worked with everything else.
Again, thanks!

External CD/DVD-RW Drive? Any suggestions to replace my broken internal dr?

Like so many of us, my cheap SuperDrive died in my Early 2006 20" iMac. Instead of spending the $$ to replace the internal drive, I am considering instead switching to an external drive to replace it. That way I save on a ton of labor to replace the internal drive.
I burn some DVDs...and am looking for a good, reliable, proven external drive.
Any suggestions? This board is always so good about this kind of stuff...
Thanks,
Scott

Hi, check out CNET..they have good solid reviews..L

Why are some of my files now missing when moving from pc to mac when using an external drive

I use an external drive for all my files. I moved to a Mac Mini last week. Now I can not view a majority of my backed up files on My Book external drive.
Any ideas???? Thanks in advance,

See Make a split library portable. A portable library can be stored entirely on an external drive and moved between Mac and Windows computers. iTunes takes a little longer to open the library the first time after each switch. If your drive is currently formatted to NTFS then you will need an additional driver to enable OS X to write to the drive, or simply clone the library to an HFS+ drive.
tt2

Can I make an iBook hard drive into an external drive for a MacBook?

Hi,
After 5 years my beloved G3 iBook has died. The diagnosis is a failed logic board. I am purchasing a MacBook, assuming the iBook drive is still OK; can I extract it from the iBook and build it into a suitable case so it becomes an external drive for my new computer? Will I have worry about any software clashes between the two drives.
As always your advice will be treasured,
Thanks
Dick Tanner
iBook, dual USB, 14.1in, 800Mh Mac OS X (10.3.9) Now dead, failed logic board.

...can I extract it from the iBook and build it into a suitable case so it becomes an external drive for my new computer?
Yes you can do that.
Will I have worry about any software clashes between the two drives.
No, it will just be an external drive like any other.

How to unhide Library folder on external drive?

OK, I've researched this online, but still can't get it to work. Some help pls. I backed up my internal hard drive to an external hard drive. Using Finder, I cannot see the Library folder on the external drive. I assume it is there, but hidden. I am trying to unhide it. The name of the external volume is PNY BACKUP, with a space between the Y and B. The external drive is not formatted to be bootable. My user name is thomas.
First attempt: I pointed Finder at the PNY BACKUP drive, then clicked on View > Show View Options. The Show Library Folder does not appear as an option. I assume this is because the drive is not formatted as bootable?
Second attempt: I opened Terminal and typed these two commands:
cd /Volumes/PNY\ BACKUP/Users/thomas
chflags nohidden /Library
I did not recieve any error messages in Terminal, so I assumed that the commands worked ok. Note that I used a backslash to tell Terminal to ignore the space after the Y in the volume name. If I omit the backslash, I get a "directory does not exist" error in Terminal. I closed Finder and unmounted the volume, then remounted it and opened Finder. But I still was not able to see the Library folder on the external drive. Any hints on what I am doing wrong? Thx

Try this command:
chflags nohidden /Volumes/PNY\ BACKUP/Users/thomas/Library
Here are some other examples of external drives:
Drive Name: Mac HD Clone
chflags nohidden /Volumes/Mac\ HD\ Clone/Users/diane/Library
Drive Name: 3TB Seagate Clone MTL
chflags nohidden /Volumes/3TB\ Seagate\ Clone\ MTL/Users/diane/Library
Drive Name: Mavericks
chflags nohidden /Volumes/Mavericks/Users/diane/Library

External Drive Usage

How do I view and process photos kept on an external drive? Thanks, Richard

Thanks dj. I finally put the pea brain in gear and asked myself if using an external drive was any different than adding a folder from the hard drive. Answer was no. Thanks you for taking the time to reply. Richard

Problems booting with external drive

Hello,
I just upgraded from an older model MacBook Pro that was happily running OS X (10.5.4) to a 2009 model that is currently running 10.5.7. There was a gap of a few months between models, though, so I cloned the old one onto an external drive and used it to boot an iMac loaner -all without any problems. My problem is that now that I have the new MacBook Pro , when I hold the option key while starting the computer in order to select the external drive, the computer reverts to the internal hard drive rather than booting from my external drive.
Any advice, suggestions to help me overcome this would be most welcome.....

If I understand your post correctly, I think the reason the new MBP won't boot from the external drive is that the OS that's on the external drive is incompatible with the new MBP. What I would try in that situation is to connect the external drive to the new computer, and then use the new computer's OS X install disk to install the operating system onto the external drive. It should then boot (though why you want to boot from the external drive is not something you explained).

Time Machine won't back up external drive to Time Capsule

I recently got a Time Capsule, and successfully set it up to back up my iMac's primary drive, but for some reason Time Machine won't back up my external drive to the Time Capsule.
I removed the external drive from the exclusion list in System Preferences > Time Machine > Options, and from what I've read this should be sufficient to make Time Machine back up the drive.
The external drive is connected to my iMac via Thunderbolt > Thunderbolt-to-Firewire adaptor > Firewire 800 input, and the Time Capsule is connected via Ethernet to my LAN.
Since I'm using Ethernet, I've disabled Wi-Fi on the Time Capusule by going to AirPort Utility > My Time Capsule > Edit > Wireless > Network Mode > Off.
The reason I believe the external drive is not being backed up is because when I click the Time Machine icon in the upper-right status bar and choose "Enter Time Machine", none of the folders on external drive show any older versions.
Furthermore, when I click Finder > Time Machine Backups > Backups.backupdb, I can see only one sub-folder which has the name of my iMac's primary drive. I can't see any equivalent folder for my external drive.
Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

I don't see anything you have done wrong.. perhaps it does backup in a different way.
Load the widget.. A1 here... http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
That will allow you to track the log of TM to see what it is doing.
I would also try rebooting the computer.. exclude the drive again.. reboot.. and remove the exclusion.
You should be able to check the actual settings of TM in plist file.
And you can do a full reset of TM as well.. See A4. Check what is in the file. Pondini lists the location for you.
Nothing surprises me with Mountain Lion ...!!

How to move iTunes from Mac to PC (via external drive)

I would like to copy my iTunes library from my home iMac to a PC laptop (I know, don't ask, it's a work tool)
- without clogging that work PC with all the music data, so I am thinking external drive.
Here are my questions:
first, how do I need to format that drive? MS-DOS (FAT) or else? (just purchased a LaCie mobile drive)
second, what do I do, back up from within iTunes or just move MyMusic folder over to external drive?
Any help is highly appreciated, first week on PC here!

Format the drive MS-DOS.
Copy the entire /Music/iTunes/ folder from the iMac to the external.
Plug the external into the Windows computer.
Hold Shift and launch iTunes.
Select Choose library.
Select the iTunes folder on the external.
That is all you need to do.

Confused by external drive advice - any views?

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