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Archive 2020 · external hard drive storage advice

docsmiles17
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · external hard drive storage advice

I have been storing my image files on internal HD but I have almost 2 TB of images and time to move to external for storage. My plan is to change the import location in LR to external drive. I already back up with external hdd

I am considering a SSD vs HDD but it seems like the price is $400+ for a 3tb ssd drive

Am I being silly not to seriously consider the ssd vs hdd?

I know the ssd is more durable but is there any noticable speed difference between ssd and hdd?

For those who have switched like I am, any lag time retrieving files in LR?

Any advice on which ssd or hdd?

Jan 29, 2020 at 01:16 PM

Mexecutioner
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · external hard drive storage advice

Yes, there is a significant speed increase, less heat dissipation, smaller footprint, no noise from moving parts / spinning plates. And yes, they still cost a bit more but have become affordable.

If your budget allows get SSD, you won't regret it.

Jan 29, 2020 at 01:59 PM

docsmiles17
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · external hard drive storage advice

Mexecutioner wrote:
Yes, there is a significant speed increase, less heat dissipation, smaller footprint, no noise from moving parts / spinning plates. And yes, they still cost a bit more but have become affordable.

If your budget allows get SSD, you won't regret it.

thanks. any advice on specific brand/model?

Jan 29, 2020 at 02:10 PM

jeraldcook
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · external hard drive storage advice

How will you be connecting the external hard drive to your computer? USB 3.0 or USB C?

Any SSD or NVMe is going to be significantly faster than a platter hard drive, but at the same time, there's no use in buying a really fast NVMe drive if it's going in a USB 3.0 port.

I moved one of my LR catalogs to a 2tb Intel 660p NVMe M.2 drive (paid around $200), put it in cheap $20 enclosure from Amazon, and have been very happy with the performance.

Jan 29, 2020 at 02:57 PM

Sunny Sra
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · external hard drive storage advice

Doc...other than the SSD/HDD speed, if you're using USB 3.0 case than a lot of that would be limited by that.

Get a 2 HD NAS, put in 2 HDDs like..maybe 4TB or larger. Setup in RAID 1 Plug it into your router on Ethernet or use USB 3.0

It accomplishes 2 things:
Gives you built in redundancy in case 1 HD fails
Speeds are good that you won't see much of a diff

you can also put 2 SSD in the NAS.

Jan 29, 2020 at 03:48 PM

docsmiles17
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · external hard drive storage advice

USB 3 or preferably thunderbolt if I can find one

jeraldcook wrote:
How will you be connecting the external hard drive to your computer? USB 3.0 or USB C?

Any SSD or NVMe is going to be significantly faster than a platter hard drive, but at the same time, there's no use in buying a really fast NVMe drive if it's going in a USB 3.0 port.

I moved one of my LR catalogs to a 2tb Intel 660p NVMe M.2 drive (paid around $200), put it in cheap $20 enclosure from Amazon, and have been very happy with the performance.

Jan 29, 2020 at 03:49 PM

dmcphoto
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · external hard drive storage advice

One issue is that the cost of SSDs above a few TB becomes astronomical. Two 8TB spinners for a mirrored RAID setup will cost a total of just over $400, while a single 8TB SSD is around $2000 and up. The SSDs are much faster, but then the time it takes to load a 50MP image file from spinning platters isn't exactly a lifetime. It depends how much you're willing to pay for a couple of seconds.

Jan 29, 2020 at 04:01 PM

Chris Court
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · external hard drive storage advice

It’s a waste to use SSDs for archival storage, IMHO. For current work files, sure, but once you are done, stash ‘em away on a nice cheap (and backed up, of course!) spinning disk.

C

Jan 29, 2020 at 11:16 PM

jeraldcook
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · external hard drive storage advice

Chris Court wrote:
It’s a waste to use SSDs for archival storage, IMHO. For current work files, sure, but once you are done, stash ‘em away on a nice cheap (and backed up, of course!) spinning disk.

C

I tend to agree. I keep the current year's and last year's photos (and videos) on my NVMe, as I'm using these images often enough it makes sense to keep them on the faster drive. All older files are kept on platter drives.

Jan 30, 2020 at 10:34 AM

Faraday
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · external hard drive storage advice

Chris Court wrote:
It’s a waste to use SSDs for archival storage, IMHO. For current work files, sure, but once you are done, stash ‘em away on a nice cheap (and backed up, of course!) spinning disk.

C

I agree with this also. I use SSDs for a working drive (current selects, priority projects) but it's expensive when you get into real storage, and you have to choose carefully for a long-lasting drive.

For the OP, you just need to future-proof - will you need massive storage in the future or will a few TB do you in perpetuity? As files get bigger I find my storage needs keep expanding. (I used to have a few TB of storage, now besides the working drive I have a 14TB external DAS drive and a 24 TB NAS RAID 1 array onsite plus offsite backup.)

Jan 30, 2020 at 10:52 AM

schlotz
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · external hard drive storage advice

If you haven't done so, it might be time to determine what your total storage and backup process (DAM - digital Asset Management) should be going forward.
- How to deal with current photos that you will be editing in the short term (and how long that term is)?
- When will photos enter 'archival' status? How & where will you put them? Will they still be accessible for editing, etc?
- What method/software will be utilized to do a complete backup, including at least one duplicate backup that will be stored separately?

Regarding SSD v HDD for external storage. If this is just for current photos (I define that as less than a year old) most likely a 1 TB drive will be sufficient. A SSD but hooked to a USB 3 port is still reasonably fast as opposed to HDD. I'm setup this way and the reads are running 420MB/s and writes vary but still near 150MB/s. This is my current year storage drive.

Anything from last year and back gets moved to the main RAID with an additional copy to a second RAID. (RAIDS are 4 & 5 drive spinners) The two RAIDS are kept in sync along with the data from both my current external and internal SSDs nightly using Carbon Copy Cloner. Additionally, I maintain a copy of all photos on an small external USB powered 5TB spinner which is stored offsite (safety deposit box) roughly on a monthly basis. That one is getting tight on space and I'll have to replace it with something bigger soon.

Feb 03, 2020 at 10:47 AM

EB-1
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · external hard drive storage advice

docsmiles17 wrote:
I have been storing my image files on internal HD but I have almost 2 TB of images and time to move to external for storage. My plan is to change the import location in LR to external drive. I already back up with external hdd

I am considering a SSD vs HDD but it seems like the price is $400+ for a 3tb ssd drive

Am I being silly not to seriously consider the ssd vs hdd?

I know the ssd is more durable but is there any noticable speed difference between ssd and hdd?

For those who have switched like I am,...Show more →

I prefer SSDs to be internal, other than portable SSDs for offsite use.
Depending on your mainboard, there should be 2-3 NVMe slots and a number of SATA III ports.
In addition to a 512GB NVMe boot drive I have 2x2TB NVMe M.2 backed up to a 4TB SATA SSD internally. That allows me to work on a project without using external drives. At regular intervals I fire up two NAS units and copy the data to them. When done with a project I delete those files from the SSDs and copy others to the SSDs for the next project.

EBH

Feb 04, 2020 at 12:11 AM

jcolwell
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · external hard drive storage advice

docsmiles17 wrote:
...I know the ssd is more durable but is there any noticable speed difference between ssd and hdd?

SSD runs at the speed of memory, while HDD is a collection of spinning platters. When I swapped out my i7 desktop system HDD for a SSD, the boot time (from power off, to login window) went from over one minute to about twelve seconds. SSD is way much more faster than HDD.

My desktop has two internal SSD (sys & work), plus four internal HDD, at 2GB, 3GB, 3GB, and 4GB. The 2x 3GB and 1x 4GB internal drives hold my 'online' archive, and a matching set of mirror-disks holds the archive backup. The backup drives are SCSI HDD in single-disk enclosures.

When I travel, I use a portable Samsung 500GB T5 SSD for backup: files are loaded into the phone's microSD card through a USB 3 card reader (with OTG cable), and later can be off-loaded to the SSD (with the same OTG cable). The card reader and SSD have the same throughput on my phone, notebook, and desktop computers - it's fast.

Over the last twenty years, I've probably bought and used at least three-dozen SCSI HDD drives, internal and external (some start as internal and go external, later in life). Over that time, I've had three HDD failures; two were completely my fault (wrong P/S with same connector). The other fail was probably a power bump (many years ago), from which the gear is now isolated. All three times, I was able to restore all from the backup copies, with no problems.

Edited on Feb 05, 2020 at 07:00 AM · View previous versions

Feb 04, 2020 at 07:06 AM

EB-1
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · external hard drive storage advice

Panasonic

Perhaps you mean Samsung. Their T5 drive is basically an 860 EVO with an SATA-USB 3 bridge and a different form factor.

EBH

Feb 04, 2020 at 07:59 PM

jcolwell
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · external hard drive storage advice

Thanks. Too many brands, not enough wet memory.

Feb 05, 2020 at 07:00 AM

peter_n
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · external hard drive storage advice

docsmiles17 wrote:
Any advice on which ssd or hdd?

I've only ever used Samsung SSDs and have never had a failure, but you don't need an SSD for storage. I'm a tech consultant and the consistent mantra I've heard from many IT guys is HGST hard drives. Until about a year or so ago I'd never had a failure and then had one croak. It was a pull not a new one. I was so upset about it I posted a picture of it on this forum, serial number and all. HGST was taken over by Western Digital about eight years ago and they phased out the Hitachi brand a couple of years ago. The WD Gold brand is now called WD Ultrastar SATA which I think is now their enterprise-class product. I'm still running my HGST drives.

Feb 05, 2020 at 12:22 PM

docsmiles17
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · external hard drive storage advice

Lots of good info/advice here.

------Update----

my internal hdd failed on my imac. Took it to apple and was gonna take a week to replace so I decided to do my self. I was shocked that the original 3TB hdd was a seagate barracuda. And no I didn't replace it with a ssd. The iMac is a few years old and I will likely be getting a new one this year so didn't want to splurge on the ssd.

I really don't know the technical difference between what 'archive' vs 'storage' is but I do go back thru my images and re-process some typically when a new version of LR comes out with new editing tools or sometime just randomly. So I do need access to them and don't want to be waiting much time to load them.

I think I am going to look into a RAID set up. I really don't know much about it but it seems like a wise set up thus far.

Feb 07, 2020 at 03:45 AM

docsmiles17
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · external hard drive storage advice

jcolwell wrote:
SSD runs at the speed of memory, while HDD is a collection of spinning platters. When I swapped out my i7 desktop system HDD for a SSD, the boot time (from power off, to login window) went from over one minute to about twelve seconds. SSD is way much more faster than HDD.

My desktop has two internal SSD (sys & work), plus four internal HDD, at 2GB, 3GB, 3GB, and 4GB. The 2x 3GB and 1x 4GB internal drives hold my 'online' archive, and a matching set of mirror-disks holds the archive backup. The backup drives are SCSI HDD in...Show more →

I presume the 4 internal HDD are not enclosed within your i7, but enclosed externally, right?

Why do you use your phones micro SD when you can load the files straight to the portable Samsung ssd from your reader?

Feb 07, 2020 at 03:50 AM

jcolwell
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · external hard drive storage advice

docsmiles17 wrote:
I presume the 4 internal HDD are not enclosed within your i7, but enclosed externally, right?

No. They are in my desktop. I could mount three more of them, too.

docsmiles17 wrote:
Why do you use your phones micro SD when you can load the files straight to the portable Samsung ssd from your reader?

You can't transfer directly to the T5, from the card reader. Also, I often don't need to offload the phone, anyway - it usually has about 100GB of free space.

Feb 07, 2020 at 07:07 AM

docsmiles17
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · external hard drive storage advice

jcolwell wrote:
No. They are in my desktop. I could mount three more of them, too.

You can't transfer directly to the T5, from the card reader. Also, I often don't need to offload the phone, anyway - it usually has about 100GB of free space.

is your desktop an iMac i7? If so, I didn't know there was enough "ports" to plug them into, let alone the physical space.

Feb 07, 2020 at 12:15 PM

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