# lightroom 3 catalog



## keebler27 (Jan 5, 2007)

Hi folks,

I might set up Lightroom to give it a go. I read somewhere (and can't find the link!) that it's important to set your catalogs on a seperate hard drive other than your main HD.

Is that true? Will it help with better system performance? I've read the other tips about previewing images etc... and I could swear I read a link about the catalogs, but of course I can't find it!

Cheers,
Keebler


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

Catalogs or the images?

Catalogs do not take up that much space. I really do not see any advantage for moving either (catalogs and images) if you have the space on your local disk. I definitely can't see any performance advantages with this scenario.

What I do is keep the catalogs on my disk and the images on an external...except images from the current year. They reside on the disk until I'm ready to move them to the external.

A lot may also depend on how you structure your catalogs. Do you keep one giant catalog for all your images (like iPhoto) or do you create multiple new catalogs based on some criteria. Such as a catalog based on each client, event, year, business vs. personal, subject, etc... Those are options and workflows which will mostly differ from user to user.


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## keebler27 (Jan 5, 2007)

kps said:


> Catalogs or the images?
> 
> Catalogs do not take up that much space. I really do not see any advantage for moving either (catalogs and images) if you have the space on your local disk. I definitely can't see any performance advantages with this scenario.
> 
> ...


thanks! I wasn't sure if LR would be looking for information from the catalog thus causing the main HD to work a bit harder.

I'll definitely review your setup advice.

cheers,
keebler


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## MickMac (Oct 11, 2005)

I have put my LR database and images on an external drive for one reason: I can move it easily from my iMac to my MBP. There's no need to sync anything. I just take my self-contained LR drive and it's ready to go. (It's a bus-powered drive, so just one cable and I'm set!)


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