Alan321 Offline Upload & Sell: Off
|
The Lr catalogue should be backed up often, and to different media in different locations. The photo files can afford to backed up less often because they don't change so much.
I specifically avoid .xmp files because - especially on a HDD - they slow things down. Each edit is stored in the Lr catalogue and then also written to an existing .xmp file. This moves the drive heads away from the image files that you are working on and slows the file access in the develop module.
The more scattered your files are, or the more random your selection of files is compared with the way they are stored on the HDD, the more you'll see the delay. In fact this applies even if you do not use .xmp files because just accessing the image files is affected in the same way. Apart from looking for the files at different locations, the drive cache is more likely to be dumped and recreated when the files are not together. This effect probably explains why some people (correctly) report little or no benefit with SSDs when they are using small test Lr catalogues and libraries and they're looking at images in much the same order that they stored on their HDD.
Also, it is my practise to never edit with my raw files outside Lr/Ps and so I do not need compatibility of .xmp data between different applications. I use programs such as DPP and View NX 2 mainly to reveal info that is unavailable within Lr (active focus point, extended exif data, etc.), and I don't want Bridge or whatever messing with what I do and see in Lr.
As far as I know it is impossible to prevent Lr writing xmp data into jpg and tif and dng files but you can stop it writing into raw files. This also reduces head thrashing on HDDs.
To get the best from an SSD, it pays to have the ACR cache, Lr previews and Lr Smart Previews on the SSD. The image files can go there too if there is sufficient space. The faster the HDD is the less benefit there is to have the image files on the SSD.
Image raw files are read every time you display an image in the Lr develop module, so the faster you whiz through them in that module the more you'll benefit from an SSD.
Preview files are updated every time the photo is edited, and are read every time the photo is viewed in the Library module or Develop module, and so again the faster you whiz through them the more you'll benefit from using an SSD.
And of course, the slower your HDD the more you'll benefit with an SSD. Laptop HDDs are generally a lot slower than 3.5" HDDs, and smaller capacity HDDs are slower than larger capacity HDDs.
- Alan
|