Alan321 Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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For the best performance the following need to be on one or more SSDs:
- Lr previews (preview images of various sizes for each image in your library)
- Lr catalog (the database where all edit instructions, etc., are stored)
- ACR Cache (holds partially converted raw file data. Don't make it too small.)
- Smart previews (DNG versions of off-line images allowing browsing and editing)
Use 1:1 previews if you can afford the space and time to generate them. Doing so speeds up browsing in the library module even when you have zoomed in.
My MBP has two 480GB SSDs running as a striped RAID. My photo library is growing faster than my culling efforts and so if I started again I would use two 1TB SSDs. However, the new MBPs only hold a single SSD and 1TB is the maximum. At least they have thunderbolt for speedy external drive access.
I expect that your MBP has an ExpressCard slot. You can get a compact USB 3 card for it that will give you faster access than USB 2 ever will but it will not work at specified USB 3 speed because the ExpressCard port seems to have a restricted bandwidth. An eSATA card works but plays havoc with MS Office activation software - every time you add or remove an eSATA drive it thinks you have new computer hardware and insists that you re-activate Office. That fails because you've already done it and then you telephone MS to get the code. Then wait for it to happen again.
The optical drive can be replaced but you will need to pull the computer apart. OWC sell the bracket and provide excellent instructions. It's a lot more fiddly than doing the same thing in a Windows laptop, but it's not difficult. You can buy a case for your old drive or you can get a more up-market external drive.
The DVD drive port will probably only be for SATA II (3 Gbps instead of 6 Gbps) and so you might consider buying a bigger, slower, cheaper SSD rather than the fastest SATA III SSD. In future when you upgrade to a new computer that SSD will still be a useful faster-than-HDD external drive.
When buying any SSD for potential external use be sure to check the current draw. USB 2 ports can only supply 500mA, and USB 3 ports can only supply 900mA. I got stuck with Sandisk drives that need 1200mA and therefore need an external power supply to let them work in an external case.
An internal HDD is still faster than any of your external HDD options because of the interface limitations. You can get a 2.5" 1000GB 7200rpm drive with 32MB cache for good performance.
If you will be using an external HDD and can tolerate the size, then get a 3.5" drive and case with eSATA / USB 3/ FW800 interface. The bigger drives work faster than the smaller drives of similar vintage.
- Alan
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