Help with Workflow and External Drives

[BJMRamage]

I am trying to find a good workflow as a hobbyist photographer. …again this is what I do for fun/enjoyment not a paid gig.


I shoot with DSLR and snapshots are made with iPhones (wife and mine).

I shoot RAW format and while I used to use Aperture I have recently switched to Capture One and a new iMac.

(with Aperture I would let it do my library/database – with Capture One I am trying to use a referenced catalog with the database file on the iMac and photos externally)
The iMac has a tiny 256 or 512 SSD.
That said my photos will live OFF the computer. I know I will need backups.

The iMac sits in the family room, I have an SSD and HDD hooked up currently as I was trying to bring photos/libraries over from a work MBP into the iMac system. The click-click-click of the HHD is kind of annoying at times when the computer isn’t being used.

I know some use RAID, some JBOD, etc. and wondering if using an SSD and either USB-C or a Thunderbolt connection would be beneficial. In the past I have had a corrupted HHD on a PC and it cost a bunch. I understand multiple backups should reduce this expensive mistake, but also wondering if SSDs would be beneficial for their longevity over HHD.


I am currently reading through the DAM book 3.0 from Peter Krough but just looking for thoughts, ideas, possible workflows.

I want to START to get into a better workflow with the new computer NOW so in the future everything is in a tidy place.
it would probably be better to know how many files/space I need now but I have files on an old iMac I need to get off and figure all this out.

**a $1,000+ RAID system is not in the budget at this time and 'seems' more than I need.
Thanks in advance

 

[tcphoto1]

You should be good with buying three external drives, one to run Time Machine on and the other two to backup Capture One folders and everything else. I make my living with photography and simply drag the session folder to the G Technology external drives when backing up a shoot. It will ask if you want to replace or merge and I just merge them so it's up to date. I cull the images, make adjustments and delete the unusable images. Once I have two copies on the externals, I will delete the session from the main drive in order to keep it lean. The G Mini drives in 1TB are about $75 each, stack nicely and the others are in a fireproof box until brought off site.

 

[kallisti]

I use Lightroom and not Capture One, but I would imagine it works somewhat similarly between the two.

I have my LR catalog on an external SSD (a Glyph). Very frequently I clone my primary Glyph drive to a second one at home using Carbon Copy Cloner. I also clone it to a third Glyph drive that I keep off site at work. So one cloned drive at home and another off site.

The Glyph drives are small and don't require a separate power source. So it's easy to travel with one (or even two). It is also easy to plug a drive into a different computer in case you work out of more than one machine. In the latter case, you don't have to copy files from one computer to another, just plug in the drive into the different computer and you are good to go. So for example you can upload and edit your pics on a laptop when you are traveling and then plug the drive into your iMac (or whatever) when you get home. In your case you could take the drive with you to work, plug it into your MBP, immediately start working on files, take the drive home with you, and then plug it into your iMac and seamlessly start working again right where you left off.

Having multiple backups is the most important thing. Having everything on external drives means you can just clone the source drive for your backups rather than copying individual files/folders over. This avoids the potential "gotchas" of either replacing the newer version with the older version or copying a folder into the wrong place on your backup drive.

 

[Ray2]

Lightroom here.
1tb internal ssd
1tb external ssd for photos
2tb 2.5” spinner for clone backups.

Both externals are mounted in a Startech aluminum dual enclosure, fan unplugged. 2018 Mac mini fan is audible only when importing to Lightroom and building previews. Backup scheduled for when I’m asleep on the other side of the house. It’s quiet.

 

[BJMRamage]

thanks everyone. we have the flu in our family so have just read through and haven't had much computer time to look into what I have/needs and the pieces mentioened but thank you again to all those that replied.

 

[Razeus]

16" Macbook Pro is where the LR Library is.

Photos get imported into a 1TB Samsung T5 SSD where they live for the year.

The T5 gets duplicated to a 5TB Western Digital Portable Drive, where all my RAW files from prior years and finished work live.

The 5TB WD drive gets duplicated via CCC to another 5TB Western Digital Portable Drive, and lives in a fireproof safe.

My Macbook, T5 SSD, and 5TB portable drive all get uploaded to Backblaze.

5TB Western Digital Portable Drive also gets archived to my 32TB QNAP TS-451+ NAS unit in RAID 5.

The NAS is also backup to 2 8TB internal baredrives and I take them to my office for offsite backup.

Finished JPEG files are uploaded to iCloud Photo Library, One Drive, AmazonPhotos, and Google Photos.

 

[stillcrazyman]

I have a 1TB internal on my 2018 Mini. Libraries and databases go there.
I have an attached Samsung T5 2TB for photo storage. Raw and Jpeg exports stored on this. Most of the time I'll work from that drive. I've not noticed any performance lag working off the external SSD.

I also have a Sandisk 2TB SSD for backups using CCC. That gets stored in a fire safe.
Backblaze runs while I have the computer on.

Currently, I'm migrating my hosted images to iCloud Photos as my needs have changed over the last few years. Smugmug has been great, but it's value to me just isn't there any longer.

 

[fcortese]

I use Lr and have all of my photos on a portable Seagate external 4TB external HD which I take with me whenever I travel along with my 15" MBP. I have a second smaller portable external HD that I take when a travel as backup which I will keep in a separate travel bag should one get lost/stolen or delayed by airport carriers. I have a second 4TB Seagate external HD on my work desk at home and a another one at my office (onsite) Carbon Copy cloner deals with back up daily and I also use Backblaze cloud back up. Yes, I'm a little OCD and paranoid about redundancy! My file structure set up which I use through Lr is date based with folders named using year-month date followed by some description. I make major use of Lr's Collections which are grouped by Family, Landscape, Travel, etc in master Collections with sub collections named specifically. I feel that it really doesn't matter which processing software you use as long as you are comfortable with it. The key, IMO, is to have a single major file for ALL of your photos and create a cataloging system that is easy for you to use and to be consistent with. I do not use the cloud for my photos, only for backup. Maybe it's because of my age, but I like having my photos on a hard drive, hence my paranoia with redundancy

 

[Clix Pix]

Glad to know that I am not the only one who is somewhat OTT with redundancy! . I have several 8 TB HDDs that are used for archives of my images -- just got through adding 2019 and wrapping that year up. I use a 2018 15" MBP as my primary computer and it lives on the desktop, rarely goes anywhere. I have a 12" MacBook and an iPad that travel with me. Although I have iCloud I rarely put anything into it, preferring to keep everything local on HDDs and Samsung T5s. I use DX0 PhotoLab 3 for image editing, and occasionally also Luminar 3. I've never had a formal DAM system and have just more-or-less developed my own as time has gone on.

Current year's images first go into the computer, where I edit them and in the Pictures Folder I have several folders for specific purposes -- RAW image folders for raw files from each camera, plus a folder of the current year, arranged by month, of the edited images, etc. At the end of each month I shift the month's worth of edited images to an X5, as well as also to a couple of backup desktop HDDs and a few T5s. I also back up everything (documents, etc.) from the previous month and that all goes on to the T5s as well. I use a couple T5s for accumulating backups, which I refer to as "supplemental" drives, and these make it easy to remove anything I don't need all the time from the computer and yet the material is still easily accessible and available by simply plugging in the T5.

Each month I also take one set of T5s to the bank to stay in my safe deposit box and swap them for the ones that are in the bank, which come home and are promptly updated. At the end of the month, they will again be updated and taken to the bank.

I always take two T5s with me on trips -- one with a current backup of the primary computer, plus any additional important documents and other files that I might need while away, and the second one is blank, ready to be filled with images if I am shooting photos as part of the trip.

 

[BJMRamage]

Looks like a T5 speed external should be fine.

I have a WD SSD which is like the speed of Sam T5 ~500mb/s
Looked into a Crucial SSD X8 at 1000 Mbps
and the much faster X5 ~2000-2500 Mbps

Obviously it cannot hurt to have faster speeds and with inputs that can take it. But maybe just 1 faster SSD and if using more than one SSD as a copy, that can be the slower 500 speed.


Thanks for the replies so far, great reading through it.

 

[Clix Pix]

If your iMac has Thunderbolt 3 ports, go for the Samsung X5. Yes, expensive, but seriously worth it, especially if you work off the drive rather than within the computer.....

 

[Ledgem]

My setup is a five-bay Drobo (automated RAID system) connected via USB 3.1, further backed up using the online backup service Backblaze (one flat rate cost for unlimited data backups). I use Capture One and Apple Photos.

The benefit of the Drobo - aside from taking less desk space than five drives in their own enclosures - is that a single drive failure won't spoil all of your data. If you favor being failure-proof, you can configure Drobo to be able to deal with two simultaneous drive failures, although you lose some free space in doing so. It's also easy to keep expanding. I originally bought four new drives for the Drobo, and then threw in an old, smaller hard drive that I had lying around. If there's a good sale on larger-capacity drives then I can just swap out a drive or two (or more); the Drobo will automatically spread the data across the new drives and then I'd be set again.

I use the Drobo primarily for archiving, and do all of my photo culling and editing on my Mac's internal SSD. But truth be told, for about a year I was working purely off of the Drobo, and I haven't noticed a huge difference in performance between the SSD and the Drobo. I'm doing it partly out of principle, so that the SSD (that I paid extra for...) doesn't go to waste. There is a more expensive Drobo that connects via Thunderbolt and that also has an optional SSD slot for caching of data that would theoretically offer faster performance.

I did consider external SSDs, but in my view it's a waste to have data sitting unused on a SSD. HDDs are more cost-effective for pure archival and viewing; SSDs are better used for heavy access.

A bit about Backblaze... their price is fair (I think it's $100 per year or so; they charge extra for Time Machine-like versioning), and they're unique in that they offer unlimited backup. Most online backup services have storage limits, or charge more for more storage. However, Backblaze's pricing is per-computer, whereas some other services allow for shared family plans. Also, Backblaze is just a really cool company. If you've ever read about hard drive failure rates, there's a chance that the report was made from data collated and released by Backblaze from their own massive server farm. The leader of the company released a statement about a year ago discussing a price increase, and nearly every reply that I saw to it stated that it was fine, the price was fair, and everyone would still stick with them even if they raised the price higher. (I felt the same way, especially because I'm probably a high utilizer of their storage space with my Drobo...)