Rethink Your Lightroom Catalog Management
Multiple copies, syncing, off-network processing, and backups are one NAS away
I’ve always found the way Adobe Lightroom CC Classic manages its catalogs to be a bit limiting. The main issue is that it has to be on the local machine, which limits some redundancy and ease of use for people that edit photos on multiple systems. I’ve developed a workflow using a Synology NAS that works around these issues, and allows me remote access and proper data backups.
The Use Case
I use Lightroom across two devices, a MacBook Pro and an iMac. While image files can be stored anywhere the system has access, the only way to manage a Lightroom catalog between the two is to take an external USB drive with me everywhere I go and then hook it back up to the iMac at home. The other issue with this is that Time Machine won’t back up a USB drive, leaving my photos and catalog at risk of loss or theft.
The Setup
I picked up a Synology DS213 several years ago to do pretty simple things: Time Machine backups, store music and media, and be a dedicated network drive to store image files for Lightroom. I went with Synology over Drobo, QNAP, or building out my own due to ease of use, apps available, and the recognition I shouldn’t turn important data storage into another homelab experiment. I’m sure most, if not all, of these options will conform to the workflow below.
Like most NAS appliances it comes with the ability to use RAID1, which will duplicate all the data stored on it to two internal disks. In the event of a local drive failure, you would pop in a new drive (always of the same size) and the data would be copied over to restore the local protection. Pick up a system with 4+ disks and implement RAID5 or 6 to store more, while maintaining the same level of protection.
RAID will protect the local disks, but off-site backups are crucial for any important data. The Synology appliance comes with several USB3 ports and a Hyper Backup app that allows you to encrypt files and folders to an external drive that you can place in a fire safe or off-site location (family, friends, work). It’s certainly not the fastest method, but it will get the job done if you give it the time.
The Improvements
While the catalog needs to be local, that doesn’t mean the data has to stay local. A popular way around this problem is to use an Adobe ($9.99 / 1TB) or Dropbox ($9.99 / 2TB) account to sync data to the cloud. I didn’t want to pay a monthly fee, and I like to keep my stuff local as much as possible, so I opted to use Synology’s CloudStation app on the NAS to perform the same functions, except the “cloud” is your network storage at home. The CloudStation app on each computer monitors for changes to the folder containing your Lightroom catalog, syncs to your NAS, which then updates all the other devices.
This all works great when you’re at home, but what happens if you’re on the road and want to work with files back home? With all of the photos being on the NAS, it is important that you can get back to them anywhere you are. The VPN app will allow you to create a private tunnel back to your Synology in order to mount the drive containing your photos, and to sync data using CloudStation. Once connected, Lightroom will see them as mounted and you can continue with your processing workflow (albeit slower due to not being on the same network).
If you have an Amazon Prime account you might not be aware that you have unlimited backups of image files to their cloud. Synology has an app called Cloud Sync that will monitor your local photo storage directory on your NAS for new files and sync them with Amazon Photos (or a number of other locations). It’s important to note that this won’t back up your catalog, but in the event of a total loss of local and backup disks, at least you have the raw files and can rebuild with a new catalog.
A Note on Smart Previews
A few years ago, Adobe introduced the concept of Smart Previews to Lightroom, which saves small files into the catalog, but allows full edit latitude and exporting of the image. It’s been a game changer for me, as I can generate Smart Previews for the last year or two, and have full control over files without having to constantly be connected to my home network. I have generated Smart Previews for 15k images and only have a catalog size of 7.7GB on the local drive.
In the end, this allows me to perform edits on all of the photos when I’m not connected to my NAS, and perform exports when I get home on the full RAW files. It’s really handy for vacation traveling, where you can spend hours in airports or hotels adding metadata to past shoots, or going through old photos from years ago and applying better post-processing techniques.
There are hundreds of other use cases for a full featured NAS, and if you spend some time on Synology’s App Store, I’m sure you can come up with many reasons to justify the spend.
