OWC Express 1M2 USB4 4TB Fast new external SSD holds all my images, presets, and catalog w/backups

[Ken Miracle]

My new master external drive for photography just arrived today an OWC Express 1M2 USB4 4TB . A very fast new external SSD holds all my images, presets, and catalog w/backups. Light Room Classic (LRC) is much faster than it was with my older OWC Envoy Pro SX w/thunderbolt 3 which will now go into my backup drive stable.

Operating on an Apple Mac Studio M1 Max connected to Apple Studio Display (standard glass).

I keep things simple and have only one LRC catalog. All my drives have the same name except the backups have a number at the end. I can rename any of them to what LRC recognizes by taking the number off and plugging it into my Mac Studio or my MacBook Pro if away from home. I get back from traveling and carbon copy cloner to clone the drive I was traveling with now renamed with the number added back to my master drive.

The speed I get with the ProGrade CFexpress™ Type B 4.0 Memory Card (Gold) 512GB in camera is very fast ... have not hit the buffer yet in Z9 raw 20fps but I have not just held the shutter release down to try and hit the buffer and did not with my Delkin Blacks either.

I drag and drop these cards to my desk top and using a ProGrade CFexpress Type B single-slot USB4.0 card reader. Extremely fast and for now the fastest part of the upgrade to the B 4.0 card until camera bodies and or firmware catch up.

I back up the drive using Carbon Copy Cloner and make exact copies of the master disc to 4 4TB SSD external drives ... 2 OWC Envoy Pro FX Thunder bolt 3 and now 1 OWC Envoy Pro SX and 1 Samsung T7 shield 4TB SSD. I keep one of the drives in a fire proof box at home and rotate one to my safety deposit box monthly or sooner if I have important to me new images ... a life bird for instance

 

[JP Onstwedder]

I am jealous that you can fit all your images and catalogs in 4 TB. Between my wife’s and mine we need about 12 TB right now, so allowing for future expansion I am looking to upgrade main storage to at least 24 TB with the same amount for on-site backup. Offsite backup is a perennial intention…

 

[Ken Miracle]

I am jealous that you can fit all your images and catalogs in 4 TB. Between my wife’s and mine we need about 12 TB right now, so allowing for future expansion I am looking to upgrade main storage to at least 24 TB with the same amount for on-site backup. Offsite backup is a perennial intention…

I have only been at it for about 12 years and I cull pretty hard I am still well under 2 TB.

 

[Anjin San]

I’ve actually considered doing the same and moving the catalog on the SSD to the laptop on travel…I keep current year originals on the SSD in my Studio and older years on an OWC raid with about 4TB of images…but I only trash bad shots rather than everything I don’t process because in the long run drives are cheap. On the road I either don’t process at all or use a different catalog and export/import back home. Either single or dual catalog works though. With Smart Previews on the external and the older originals on the RAID…I could even edit some older ones on the road for the blog if I needed to and skipping the export/import cycle is also good…and I carry a pair os Samsung T7s on the road for backup as well. I’ve gone back and forth on this decision at least 3 times now but have never cruelly pulled the trigger. I know Steve uses the export/import route but his catalog and images won’t fit in 4TB anyway I’m guessing…Hudson Henry uses the single catalog on external SSD…what are people here generally doing? I see pros and cons both ways, and the new drive that Ken has isn’t advertised as shockproof and waterproof like some of the older OWC externals. And on a related notes…I really, really need to finish upgrading my on site backup routines and drives to get rid of all the now 5+ year old Seagate usb slow.something spinning 2.5 inch Backup+ clutter on the desk.

 

[Anjin San]

My new master external drive for photography just arrived today an OWC Express 1M2 USB4 4TB . A very fast new external SSD holds all my images, presets, and catalog w/backups. Light Room Classic (LRC) is much faster than it was with my older OWC Envoy Pro SX w/thunderbolt 3 which will now go into my backup drive stable.

Operating on an Apple Mac Studio M1 Max connected to Apple Studio Display (standard glass).

Ken, can you grab BlackMagic Disk Speed test from the pp store if you don’t ready have it and let us know what the R/W numbers for both the new drive and the internal drive? I know what OWC claims the numbers are but vendors tend to…scheme their numbers I guess is the best description…to make products look good. Thanks.

 

[Ken Miracle]

Ken, can you grab BlackMagic Disk Speed test from the pp store if you don’t ready have it and let us know what the R/W numbers for both the new drive and the internal drive? I know what OWC claims the numbers are but vendors tend to…scheme their numbers I guess is the best description…to make products look good. Thanks.

what is a pp store? And if this speed test has to put anything on the drive no. Nothing goes on there that does not go through Light Room Classic

 

[Calson]

Always dangerous to put all your images on a single device where you risk losing them all if the device starts to fail or fail completely. At a bare minimum I would use one of the two-SSD drive enclosures where everything on one drive is automatically duplicated on the second drive.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1750510-REG/synology_8tb_diskstation_ds223_2_bay.html

For $440 you have two 4TB NAS class hard drives in a Synology enclosure. Or for better connection speeds this QNAP has two 2.5GB Ethernet ports, as well as HDMI and USB ports.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1724462-REG/qnap_ts_253e_8g_us_2_bay_desktop_nas_intel.html/specs

6TB Seagate Ironwolf 5400 rpm drives (faster drives do not improve performance when used in a RAID NAS) are selling for only $163

What causes most drive failures is electrical surges that damage the electronics. It is not heat or humidity that kills drives in an external enclosure unless it is one that is air tight and so cooks the drive inside. That is why it is better to buy a NAS enclosure that will have a fan to dissipate the heat and why slower drives are a better choice. The 5400 rpm drives in one of my 4-drive NAS enclosures operate at 20 degrees F cooler temps than my other NAS with 7200 rpm drives installed.

 

[Ken Miracle]

Always dangerous to put all your images on a single device where you risk losing them all if the device starts to fail or fail completely. At a bare minimum I would use one of the two-SSD drive enclosures where everything on one drive is automatically duplicated on the second drive.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1750510-REG/synology_8tb_diskstation_ds223_2_bay.html

For $440 you have two 4TB NAS class hard drives in a Synology enclosure. Or for better connection speeds this QNAP has two 2.5GB Ethernet ports, as well as HDMI and USB ports.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1724462-REG/qnap_ts_253e_8g_us_2_bay_desktop_nas_intel.html/specs

6TB Seagate Ironwolf 5400 rpm drives (faster drives do not improve performance when used in a RAID NAS) are selling for only $163

What causes most drive failures is electrical surges that damage the electronics. It is not heat or humidity that kills drives in an external enclosure unless it is one that is air tight and so cooks the drive inside. That is why it is better to buy a NAS enclosure that will have a fan to dissipate the heat and why slower drives are a better choice. The 5400 rpm drives in one of my 4-drive NAS enclosures operate at 20 degrees F cooler temps than my other NAS with 7200 rpm drives installed.

I have them duplicated to 4 drives. With one in a fireproof box at home and it is rotated out about once a month with one in my safety deposit box at my financial institution. I keep things simple and portable.

 

[Anjin San]

what is a pp store? And if this speed test has to put anything on the drive no. Nothing goes on there that does not go through Light Room Classic

Sorry…the Mac App Store, typing got away from me on the iPad. And the app writes a temporary file to some location you specify on the target drive to test read and write speed but it's deleted afterwards. It's a perfectly safe app and won't harm anything on your drive…but if you're uncomfortable with doing so then that's fine…I was just looking for an actual user real world speed test vice the numbers that OWC might be using. They have screen shots of the app results on their site but they're trying to sell them and sometimes vendors play tricks…it's likely that OWC isn't since they're pretty reputable.

I actually ran the app and tested R/W speeds on all the drives hooked up to my Studio this morning. I have to say as a long time Mac and IT guy that not allowing anything on the drive except through LR seems weird to me…but as I said if you're not comfortable doing so then that's just fine.

 

[Ken Miracle]

Sorry…the Mac App Store, typing got away from me on the iPad. And the app writes a temporary file to some location you specify on the target drive to test read and write speed but it's deleted afterwards. It's a perfectly safe app and won't harm anything on your drive…but if you're uncomfortable with doing so then that's fine…I was just looking for an actual user real world speed test vice the numbers that OWC might be using. They have screen shots of the app results on their site but they're trying to sell them and sometimes vendors play tricks…it's likely that OWC isn't since they're pretty reputable.

I actually ran the app and tested R/W speeds on all the drives hooked up to my Studio this morning. I have to say as a long time Mac and IT guy that not allowing anything on the drive except through LR seems weird to me…but as I said if you're not comfortable doing so then that's just fine.

I have kept my LRC very simple. I hear about and read about a lot of people who have not and have a lot of problems.

Years ago the guy here in Boise who taught me to use a robust keyword structure in LRC and Matt K (Kloskowski) who has been my primary on line LRC guide/teacher said something that I have practiced since then "do not do things behind light rooms back".

So that is why everything going onto and off of the drives were my images, my one and only catalog and presets are goes through LRC. I then clone the drive to other 4 other drives using Carbon Copy Cloner with the safety net turned off and having it just make and exact copy. One of the drives is kept in a fireproof box here and another in my safety deposit box.

So putting any files onto the drive not through LRC is what I have not done and I have not had any problems, so far.

I am 75 ADD and AHD so I have to be quite disciplined and organized to get things accomplished. Had to do that as a Sales and Marketing Manager and as a HR Manager and still do in my retirement. And I had IT staff when I was working to help keep me out of trouble now I do not

I also am not a techie do not get into specifc speeds etc. as many do I just go by is it noticeably faster than what I was using.

I just wanted you to know why I am not comfortable putting files on this new drive behind LRC's back.

However with my simple recovery technique I could fix it if there was a probelm. I name the back up drives with the same name but with a number on the end and to have LRC see and use the back up drive all I have to do is change the drives name by removing the number. When I put the new drive into service I simply cloned the old master drive to the new drive then removed the number from the new drives name and it was then the master drive. I left the old one alone for a week while I used the new drive and ran it through it's paces and now I have put a number on the end of the old master drive and it is now a back up drive replacing one of my older and slower back up drives.

 

[Anjin San]

I just wanted you to know why I am not comfortable putting files on this new drive behind LRC's back.

Thats fine..you’re not comfortable with it and while as a long time Mac guy I know running a speed test would have zero effect on your LR catalog or images, you don’t know me…and I’m good with your decision of course. It’s a little overly cautious to me (well, a lot over cautious but I digress)…but I’m not you and I’m not going to hold your decision against you a bit. Your cloning strategy is good backup and you’ve got a system that works for you. No worries as they say down under.

It is true that things shouldn’t be done behind LR’s back…and I don’t do that either…but in reality running the check is no different than if you had catalog on your startup drive and installed a new app elsewhere on the disk…but not being a techie and this using the keep it simple principle is good.

 

[JP Onstwedder]

I’ve actually considered doing the same and moving the catalog on the SSD to the laptop on travel…I keep current year originals on the SSD in my Studio and older years on an OWC raid with about 4TB of images…but I only trash bad shots rather than everything I don’t process because in the long run drives are cheap. On the road I either don’t process at all or use a different catalog and export/import back home. Either single or dual catalog works though. With Smart Previews on the external and the older originals on the RAID…I could even edit some older ones on the road for the blog if I needed to and skipping the export/import cycle is also good…and I carry a pair os Samsung T7s on the road for backup as well. I’ve gone back and forth on this decision at least 3 times now but have never cruelly pulled the trigger. I know Steve uses the export/import route but his catalog and images won’t fit in 4TB anyway I’m guessing…Hudson Henry uses the single catalog on external SSD…what are people here generally doing? I see pros and cons both ways, and the new drive that Ken has isn’t advertised as shockproof and waterproof like some of the older OWC externals. And on a related notes…I really, really need to finish upgrading my on site backup routines and drives to get rid of all the now 5+ year old Seagate usb slow.something spinning 2.5 inch Backup+ clutter on the desk.

Here is what I currently do: on a trip, each day import new images into a Capture One catalog, using referenced images, on an external SSD drive. In the same process, C1 will make a backup copy on a second external SSD drive. The C1 catalog resides on the laptop internal drive. That’s for two reasons: I can edit images without connecting the external drives, and it separates images from catalogs without needing another external drive. The two drives with the images go into separate pieces of and luggage.

Arriving home, the primary SSD is copied onto a large OWC drive that holds all images (16 TB drive), and that is mirrored to a Synology NAS. The NAS is accessible over the internet. Once copied and verified I will re-use the primary SSD, but I’ll keep the backup SSD for a year or so. 1TB SSDs are now cheap enough to do that.

I have been thinking about the next generation of this setup as the OWC drive will run out of space in the next 12 months. Thinking about the LaCie 2Big Dock as it has CFExpress and SD card readers as well as 2 NAS- quality drives with good throughput, faster than my current OWC drive.

 

[Anjin San]

Here is what I currently do: on a trip, each day import new images into a Capture One catalog, using referenced images, on an external SSD drive. In the same process, C1 will make a backup copy on a second external SSD drive. The C1 catalog resides on the laptop internal drive. That’s for two reasons: I can edit images without connecting the external drives, and it separates images from catalogs without needing another external drive. The two drives with the images go into separate pieces of and luggage.

Arriving home, the primary SSD is copied onto a large OWC drive that holds all images (16 TB drive), and that is mirrored to a Synology NAS. The NAS is accessible over the internet. Once copied and verified I will re-use the primary SSD, but I’ll keep the backup SSD for a year or so. 1TB SSDs are now cheap enough to do that.

I have been thinking about the next generation of this setup as the OWC drive will run out of space in the next 12 months. Thinking about the LaCie 2Big Dock as it has CFExpress and SD card readers as well as 2 NAS- quality drives with good throughput, faster than my current OWC drive.

I'm not a Capture One user so am not familiar with how their catalogs work…is the catalog on the external the master/only catalog or does it get imported into the main one later…or do you just have a bunch of catalogs? I'm currently doing the dual road and home catalog with export/import back home but am thinking that ditching the extra export/import cycle might be a good thing. I'm also using an OWC Thunderbay Mini on the Studio at home and if it runs out I'll either get the big Thunderbay that takes more drives (unless bigger 2.5 inch ones are available to swap) or go the NAS route but probably the former as the NAS then becomes another computer I have to manage and sharing directly from the Studio attached RAID is easy anyway. Hudson Henry went the whole hog route with an 8 bay Synology and 10 GB ethernet NAS…but that seems overkill to me. Backblaze gets the offsite backup and I'm considering getting a dual drive NAS for the closet to clone the RAID at home…that's a lot cheaper than the 8 bay NAS route. Either route I end up with…there's plenty of backup both at home and on the road. On the road currently I have the road catalog on the MBP and a couple of external Samsung T7s with auto running CarbonCopyCloner jobs when the externals are plugged in so after every import I just plug in the two externals and they get updated as well…one lives in my pocket and the second in either the laptop bag or backpack…and if I end up with the external single catalog approach I'll setup a CCC job to copy everything to the internal for another backup on the road.