I have a laptop and desktop PC, both have 32GB of RAM. They each have a 2TB SSD to boot from and a 4TB SSD for media handling. Once I'm done editing, I offload to a pair of NAS servers, 4-bay, 4x 14TB drives with 1 drive redundancy, so it's 42TB each.
Then once in awhile, I back the NAS data to a bunch of externals.
But honestly, the still photography stuff takes up very little space. I think all the photos I have ever taken across 20 years only takes up about 10TB, and I output JPEG+RAW. Most of the pictures have been 36 mpx (D800) up to 60 (A7R4).
32 GB memory. LR catalog on a 1 TB Gen 5 M.2 SSD, Image files on an 8TB spinning disk. No issues at all with Canon R5 and R7 files, and I always have multiple files open. I have three backup drives in different places.
Saving layered files can be an issue with spinning disks. While working, I save as TIF uncompressed, and the save is quick. I archive as TIF with both file and layers compressed. This takes a minute.
I have two home offices, both with 32” IPS screens and both with similar laptops with similar specs. The laptop I’m currently using is a Lenovo, the other an Asus, so I’ll describe the Lenovo since it’s nearby.
Intel® Core™ Ultra 9 275HX Processor
(E-cores up to 4.60 GHz, P-cores up to 5.40 GHz)
Operating System: Windows 11 Pro 64
Operating System Language: Windows 11 Pro 64 English
Microsoft Productivity Software: Microsoft Office Home 2024
Memory: 64 GB DDR5-6400MT/s (CSODIMM) - (2 x 32 GB)
Second Solid-State Drive: 1 TB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 TLC
Graphics Card: NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 5090 Laptop GPU 24GB GDDR7
I seldom use the internal SSDs, working from external SSDs with multiple backups at both locations.
I have an R5 and 2 100MP medium format cameras; neither of the laptops even hesitates or hiccups, regardless of the large file sizes, they work perfectly.
I currently have a desktop with a 9800X3D and a 5080FE, but I upgraded right before the rampocalypse from an RX 6800XT. Besides the increased raw performance, I found CUDA acceleration to help quite a bit.
M3 Macbook Air. 24gb RAM and 500gb of storage. I have a ton of external drives from old Macbooks that I bought enclosures for and have some 4tb+ SSD's I use for more of a main backup/storage.
I moved to a new strategy of buying the base mac mini M4 (16GB/256GB) and utilizing a 2TB SSD (external) for my catalog & cache and an 8TB SSD for photos. Both SSD drives are WD SN850X in the OWC Express 1M2 40Gb/s enclosures connected through thunderbolt. LR runs incredibly fast and import and preview building is almost instantaneous. This solution works well for me since I don't do any video editing and it allows me to replace my mac mini every few years to take advantage of the latest apple silicon using the base model. When I move systems, I simply install LR, connect my external drives and I'm up and running.
m3 MacBook Pro, 36gb Memory, 2tb hard drive, with 3 external hard drives. I really love my Western Digital SN850x hard drives, they are insanely quick.
But for years I had my 2014 iMac that I was editing on up until 2022. It's just nicer having a laptop since I don't need to be tied down to any spot.
photonc wrote:
I moved to a new strategy of buying the base mac mini M4 (16GB/256GB) and utilizing a 2TB SSD (external) for my catalog & cache and an 8TB SSD for photos. Both SSD drives are WD SN850X in the OWC Express 1M2 40Gb/s enclosures connected through thunderbolt. LR runs incredibly fast and import and preview building is almost instantaneous. This solution works well for me since I don't do any video editing and it allows me to replace my mac mini every few years to take advantage of the latest apple silicon using the base model. When I move systems, I simply install LR, connect my external drives and I'm up and running. ...Show more →
I went the same route, same machine, 4TB version of the same drive in a Ugreen CM642-15976 enclosure and a 10Gbe Xikestor 10Gbe to thunderbolt network adapter connected to a Qnap with 10Gbe Card. I use it as a studio workstation. Although most of the tasks are automated via custom software so speed is less of an issue, memory is, requiring software tricks to flush ram, etc, so next time I'd go for 32GB ram.
A bit late to this. Main computer is a MacBook Pro m1 max with 64gb ram and a 4tb drive. Purchased it as old stock in 2023 from BH for half off.
Having used it now going on three years I see how much benefit there is having more than enough memory and enough storage that I can keep my current year's worth of raw images (typically about 2tb for me) local to the computer and no longer have to juggle a bunch of smaller ssds like I did when only having 1tb local on the computer. Network storage remains a synology five bay for home backup and archival storage, but it's nice to have a simpler workflow.
Previous laptop was a 2012 macbook pro core i7 16gb ram and a 1tb drive. Was actually still going strong until 2023 but a few back to back kernel panics convinced me that it was too old and weary to continue to rely on for client work.
