Macbook Pro + Lightroom + ???Portable Hard-drive???

l2oBiN

My Macbook pro disk is getting full, and I need a portable storage solution on which I can park my original images, and acess them through lightroom on the laptop. A smaller (bus powered) drive is what I am loooking for, because I want to be able to use it anywhere. Does anyone have any recommendations? experiences with such a system? Looking for speed, quality/durability/safety of data in the 320gb size.

cmason

On my iMac, I use a Newer Tech MiniStack (500GB), a homebuilt 320GB HD in a cheap external enclosure, and a Western Digital Passport Essentials 160GB portable.

One is connected via FW400, the others via USB. I really do not notice a performance difference. Now,I store my images on the external harddrives, but keep my Lightroom catalog on the internal harddrive. I do this mostly because that is the way Lightroom installed, so my experience is based on the catalog being internal, which may make a difference, not sure. I use a simple backup automation to copy the catalog to each harddrive, as well as to my photobackup hardrive (I have 2 that contain ALL images and catalogs).

I really notice no difference in the harddrives, and I don't notice any difference in the harddrives being external. About the only downside is having to make sure to mount/unmount them. (it is tempting, being a long Windows user, to just unplug the USB!). The quietest, and most convenient of the 3 is the WD Passport Essentials. It is tiny, silent and fits in your pocket. The other two are based on 3.5 drives, so are bigger. Both the larger drives are a bit noiser, but only an issue when it is very quiet. The other two also require external power, which makes portability a bit more inconvenient. The WD has no external power.

Future HD purchases will be the WD Passports, especially for backup, they are just incredibly convenient. I also like, but have not tried, the new Seagate Freeagent Go, which also have a docking adapter, which would be super convenient.

jogle

My workflow is to dump all the cards into a folder for each shoot on my MBP's hard drive, then import it into lightroom and work on them. every now and again I'll move them off onto a portable drive, I like the Maxstor One Touch Mini's, I've got 2x 320Gb ones that I carry with me.

If you drag and drop the folders from one drive to another in the folder view of lightroom, it'll happily update it's catalogue as it moves the files and all will be well.

I use a giant time machine drive that then backs up my macbook and all it's portable external drives.