Best Storage Config for LR

[ryanide]

I know this has been asked many times and I have read through many of the posts. I'm looking to upgrade my system that will primarily be used for Lightroom and photography.

I'm currently using a rMBP (2.7Ghz i7/16GB/512SSD) with a Thunderbolt LED display. My 100K image catalog is 196GB that I store on the SSD and the Photo images are 1.5TB stored on a Thunderbolt 3TB WD RAID (2-drive). I backup both to a 10TB NAS plus use Time Machine for the system BU.

I have had many sleep/wake problems that I believe is related to the Thunderbolt chain, so I'm considering moving away from that when going to the new iMac.

Do you think it is best to go with a 3TB Fusion drive and put both my Catalog and the Image files on it? Or, go with a similar setup to what I have now, with a 512SSD to store the Catalog while keeping the Images on the Thunderbolt Drive?

As far as performance for using LR, which storage option is going to be optimal?
I would buy the 4Ghz i7/395X/32GB + ??

Hopefully someone else has already done a similar setup and can offer advice. Thanks.


P.S. If I do use the Fusion drive to store everything, then I would probably use the old Thunderbolt drive as an additional backup drive.

 

[desmond2046]

I am a LR user and have about 500GB raw image files (dated back to 2007). I am happy with my 2TB Fusion drive because I really like to keep everything on one drive. The Fusion drive is as fast as the old SSDs I have been used to.

I also keep all the raw image files backup on Microsoft OneDrive (It offered unlimited storage but it is no longer the case...). I always trust the cloud more than a physical drive.

 

[maflynn]

I am a LR user and have about 500GB raw image files (dated back to 2007). I am happy with my 2TB Fusion drive because I really like to keep everything on one drive. The Fusion drive is as fast as the old SSDs I have been used to

That's basically my setup. I couldn't fit everything on a 512GB SSD, the 2TB Fusion drive made the most sense. I went for the 2TB Fusion drive, so I'd have the larger flash storage.

 

[ryanide]

I'm liking the idea of having the catalog and image files all on the main Fusion drive. Seems like it would work better. Thanks for the input.