My new computer has arrived and I plan to transfer all my photo files over to the new one very soon.
The Belkin "easy transfer" cable I purchased indicates it will help me move data files (music, photos, settings, etc.) but won't move applications or programs so last night I installed PS. Tonight I'd like to install LR2.
When I move my image files (which are all in folders, most arranged by date, some by name), am I going to have any issues with LR2 not being able to find my images? Is there anything "special" I need to be aware of? I had imported approx. 1K images into LR2 and would sure hate to lose all that data (and time spent processing those images).
Thanks for any help or advice.
Posted by Wayne Rhodus on July 28, 2010 at 9:13 PM
Hey Angela, I'm no help on your Lightroom question but congrats on the new PC. I'm sure you will really enjoy the increased capabilities.
Angela, I am not sure about Lightroom but if it is like Bridge in Photoshop, you should be fine just transferring the files to the new computer and point Lightroom to the files. Maybe someone that uses Lightroom can verify this?
You'll want to be sure and transfer your Lightroom catalog file from the old PC to the new. I'm a Mac guy so I can't give you any specific instructions.
Posted by Brad Mangas on July 29, 2010 at 12:52 AM
My take on this Angela is, the images you have are priceless and can never be replaced. With that in mind, and of course this is just my opinion, you really shouldn't be putting the images on the hard drive of the computer. They should be on an external hard drive that you can attach to any computer. I know your question isn't about the proper storage of image but the moving of them. I would make sure the path is set up the same on the new computer as the old. Example C:\myphotos\Angela\ ect...
For less than $100 (I know more stuff to buy, but it would go nicely with your new computer) you can get a 1TB external and simply copy the images from the old machine to the new external drive that then can be used as your primary image storage area and actual a person should have minimum of 2 external so #1 can be backed up to #2 on a regular basis. You would simply plug the external into the new computer and your back in business.
Sorry for spitting out info you didn't ask for, but I get a little compulsive with the thought of losing image from hardware mishaps. Having backups are a small price to pay for such valuable things. Just food for thought.
Hi Angela. I actually did this earlier this week, although I was moving from a PC to a Mac. It's fairly straightforward, but you can't just move the images as Tom suggests. You have to move your images AND your LR catalog to the new computer and then relink them.
Make sure your backups are current (I recommend an external drive like Brad suggests). Set the LR folder panel to show only a few top-level folders. This is not critical but will simplify things when you need to relink them after the move.
Now, install LR on the new computer. Download this from Adobe rather than using your install disks so that you will have the latest update (each update is the entire program, so just choose the most recent iteration of LR2 and install that).
Next, find and copy your catalog to the new computer. As I'm sure you know, this is critical for Lightroom as it contains not only the location of your image files, but also contains the edits you create in the develop module and metadata info.
The next step is to move the image files to the new computer by transfer cable or external drive.
Then open the catalog on the new computer. If there are question marks next to the folders, you need to relink those folders. Right click on the folder and choose "find missing folder" and point LR to the file location. LR should then relink all of the images in that folder. This is why I mentioned setting LR to show only a couple of top-level folders earlier; there will only be a few folders to re-link.
That's pretty much it, unless you have presets and preferences (and any plug-ins) you want to move as well. If so, locate them on the old computer and move them to the new. They are hidden on Windows machines so you'll have to go to the Start menu > Control Panel > Folder Options > View > Advanced Settings and turn on ‘Show hidden files and folders’ in order to find them.
All of my images are on a NAS device, so all I had to do was move the catalog and plug-ins. The images are still in the same location as before. This is another reason to consider utilizing an external device as opposed to putting your images on your computer's hard-drive.
Brad makes a good point about backing-up. However, I don't think there's anything wrong with storing your images on your internal hard drive. I think you'll get the best performance from your computer if you store them on a physically separate internal HD from the drive that PS and all your other programs run on (partitioning a single drive isn't the same). In addition, keeping an external plugged in reduces the life of the drive. I back-up my previous month's files on three externals the first day of each month, with one external stored off-site from my house in case of a fire. When the internal drive storing my images gets full, I just delete the oldest files to free up some space.
Posted by Bryan Simpson on July 29, 2010 at 10:36 AM
I just read Brad's post a little more closely and need to make one correction to what I think he is saying. Even if you have your images on an external drive, with Lightroom you can't simply plug the external drive into a new computer and be set. As I stated in my post the Lightroom catalog (or catalogs if you set it up that way) is of utmost importance. While having the images stored on an external drive does simplify a move, you still have to move the catalog and any presets, preferences and plug-ins.
As for whether to store your images on an external device or on your computer on another internal drive, I think is a matter of preference. The key thing to take from Brad's and Bill's posts is that you need to have a good back-up plan and then use it.
An external backup hard drive is definitely in the works. Any recommendations? Is Seagate a good brand? It seems to be a little better in the reviews on BestBuy's web site, which of course doesn't mean a thing. Am I correct that the larger (1TB) ones seem to fail more often?
Thanks for the info so far, hopefully I'll get the catalogs transferred over and everything will work ok.
This would be my suggestion Angela. Do not go for the cheapest drive you can find. Trust me they all are not the same.
A Seagate Barracuda internal hard drive mounted in an actively cooled external case.
The reason for this vs. a straight store bought external drive is this. The #1 cause of failures to hard drives is heat.I know of no pre packaged external drive that comes with a cooling fan built into the case. This setup solves that problem and will typically increase life expectancy of the drive 3-5 fold.
Bill's right about how external "USB" drives are much slower than internal "SATA" drives. If your just backing up, USB is fine, but it's restricted to about 40mb/s. Newer performance drives can do more than double that transfer rate, so FW800, Esata or USB 3.0 is where it's at for external performance.
A lot of photographers could benefit from an internal RAID 0 array with a continuous auto backup external drive, or good SSD drive which are about as fast as 3-4 drives in a RAID 0.
I can't imagine how some people could wait for 10-20 shot RAW pano stitches that are several gig's in size without a fast internal hard drive array.
Brad- I use a lot of bare drives with no enclosure at all for big backups of 1-2 TB's and they run for several hours, but this is backup only. I'm not saying that's a smart idea for most people... When you have 20 or so drives floating around, cases are hard to come by. Long term use without cooling could be dangerous.
Good luck Angela! I'm sure my technical jargon did nothing but add to the confusion!
Discussion
10 repliesThe Belkin "easy transfer" cable I purchased indicates it will help me move data files (music, photos, settings, etc.) but won't move applications or programs so last night I installed PS. Tonight I'd like to install LR2.
When I move my image files (which are all in folders, most arranged by date, some by name), am I going to have any issues with LR2 not being able to find my images? Is there anything "special" I need to be aware of? I had imported approx. 1K images into LR2 and would sure hate to lose all that data (and time spent processing those images).
Thanks for any help or advice.
For less than $100 (I know more stuff to buy, but it would go nicely with your new computer) you can get a 1TB external and simply copy the images from the old machine to the new external drive that then can be used as your primary image storage area and actual a person should have minimum of 2 external so #1 can be backed up to #2 on a regular basis. You would simply plug the external into the new computer and your back in business.
Sorry for spitting out info you didn't ask for, but I get a little compulsive with the thought of losing image from hardware mishaps. Having backups are a small price to pay for such valuable things. Just food for thought.
Make sure your backups are current (I recommend an external drive like Brad suggests). Set the LR folder panel to show only a few top-level folders. This is not critical but will simplify things when you need to relink them after the move.
Now, install LR on the new computer. Download this from Adobe rather than using your install disks so that you will have the latest update (each update is the entire program, so just choose the most recent iteration of LR2 and install that).
Next, find and copy your catalog to the new computer. As I'm sure you know, this is critical for Lightroom as it contains not only the location of your image files, but also contains the edits you create in the develop module and metadata info.
The next step is to move the image files to the new computer by transfer cable or external drive.
Then open the catalog on the new computer. If there are question marks next to the folders, you need to relink those folders. Right click on the folder and choose "find missing folder" and point LR to the file location. LR should then relink all of the images in that folder. This is why I mentioned setting LR to show only a couple of top-level folders earlier; there will only be a few folders to re-link.
That's pretty much it, unless you have presets and preferences (and any plug-ins) you want to move as well. If so, locate them on the old computer and move them to the new. They are hidden on Windows machines so you'll have to go to the Start menu > Control Panel > Folder Options > View > Advanced Settings and turn on ‘Show hidden files and folders’ in order to find them.
All of my images are on a NAS device, so all I had to do was move the catalog and plug-ins. The images are still in the same location as before. This is another reason to consider utilizing an external device as opposed to putting your images on your computer's hard-drive.
Hope this helps.
As for whether to store your images on an external device or on your computer on another internal drive, I think is a matter of preference. The key thing to take from Brad's and Bill's posts is that you need to have a good back-up plan and then use it.
Thanks for the info so far, hopefully I'll get the catalogs transferred over and everything will work ok.
A Seagate Barracuda internal hard drive mounted in an actively cooled external case.
The reason for this vs. a straight store bought external drive is this. The #1 cause of failures to hard drives is heat.I know of no pre packaged external drive that comes with a cooling fan built into the case. This setup solves that problem and will typically increase life expectancy of the drive 3-5 fold.
Typical:
Seagate 1.5 TB $110
Max 4 from Thermaltake $60
This is not much more than a person would pay for a big box store cheap external drive with no cooling.
If a person is not willing to do this and must have a pre-packaged (non-actively cooled) external I would go with a Seagate Black Armour.
A lot of photographers could benefit from an internal RAID 0 array with a continuous auto backup external drive, or good SSD drive which are about as fast as 3-4 drives in a RAID 0.
I can't imagine how some people could wait for 10-20 shot RAW pano stitches that are several gig's in size without a fast internal hard drive array.
Brad- I use a lot of bare drives with no enclosure at all for big backups of 1-2 TB's and they run for several hours, but this is backup only. I'm not saying that's a smart idea for most people... When you have 20 or so drives floating around, cases are hard to come by. Long term use without cooling could be dangerous.
Good luck Angela! I'm sure my technical jargon did nothing but add to the confusion!