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Post by kufloyd on Nov 22, 2016 17:22:50 GMT
Hi,
I'm curious how many of you use PSE to edit photos that are on an external hard drive. I'm considering buying an iMac and while it comes with a 1TB drive, it's pretty expensive to upgrade to a 2TB. I know that 1TB won't be enough for me, so am looking into options for external drive-based editing.
How fast is it, compared to editing off the internal drive?
Do you leave it connected always? If not, does PSE have problems when the drive isn't connected? (like complain about missing files etc)
I have PSE 11 but might have to upgrade to the latest one as the PSE11 install CD is only for Windows, I think.
Thanks!
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Nov 22, 2016 17:47:52 GMT
Hi kufloyd,
I have an external drive where I keep one set of all of my photos on. I use this for all of my editing, I don't keep any photos on my internal laptop harddrive. I use predominantly LR and PSCC for editing, but would imagine the same applies to PSE. I have no issues with using my external drive when I edit. All my photos are in RAW, and can be large files at times and I have never had any speed issues yet.
The drive is only connected as and when I need it, but as I use LR for organizing my photos, that does not pose a problem to me, as LR uses virtual copies. I don't think the same can be said for PSE. I believe you will need to have your drive connected in order to be able to work on any files (I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong on this point).
Hope this helps.
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Post by Tpgettys on Nov 22, 2016 18:35:21 GMT
I haven't tried unplugging my external, but it seems clear that the PSE Organizer would say that it can't find any images that are stored there when unplugged. Any speed differences would come from what sort of interface each drive uses (IDE vs USB vs SATA). I did a quick search for "internal vs external disc speed" and found several useful articles, one of which was this one. It is from 2013, but contains many of the relevant terms and concepts. I can't say first hand, but I imagine the speed differences would only become apparent when you are streaming data (movies) or playing high-end games. |
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Post by michelb on Nov 22, 2016 19:27:50 GMT
Hi, I'm curious how many of you use PSE to edit photos that are on an external hard drive. I'm considering buying an iMac and while it comes with a 1TB drive, it's pretty expensive to upgrade to a 2TB. I know that 1TB won't be enough for me, so am looking into options for external drive-based editing. How fast is it, compared to editing off the internal drive? Do you leave it connected always? If not, does PSE have problems when the drive isn't connected? (like complain about missing files etc) I have PSE 11 but might have to upgrade to the latest one as the PSE11 install CD is only for Windows, I think. Thanks! The editing process implies two different kinds of tasks: editing and organizing. Elements users have been using external drives for their libraries for a long time, and that worked very well even with relatively slow USB1 or USB2 connections. I have used this for years to share my library and catalogs between two computers. So, let's have a look at the editor to begin with. With today's raw files and sophisticated plugins, the main factor is the amount (and speed) of RAM. You could ignore the speed of the hard drives if there was not the 'scratch disk' issue: Even with ample amount of RAM, you'll need a scratch disk. Today it's beginning common to use an SSD drive for the OS and programs. The usual advice is to use a different fast and classical secondary physical internal drive for the purpose. In your case, your 1 TB drive would be more than ok for editing. Now, about the organizer; The HUGE advantage of working with catalogs is that the catalog is usually stored on your main internal drive. Most catalog operations don't require very fast disk write or read. Sure, backups would be somewhat slower, but an external drive with USB3 or similar would be a very good choice. Even with catalogs on the external drive in my case, I have no personal experience with Bridge, but I am convinced the cache system would also be good enough with an external drive. Also, I can't imagine not having several external drives available for backups. In that case, it's relatively easy to use one as a test. You do a backup and restore to one external drive. You compare the speed of your present setup to the catalog and library on the external drive. With a big library like yours, I am sure external drives are the best solution. Edit: Of course, if the external drive is not plugged in, your files will be shown as missing. As soon as you plug in the drive, the catalog is updated and you are ready. |
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Moto
Established Forum Member
Posts: 640 
Open to constructive criticism of photos: Yes
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Post by Moto on Nov 22, 2016 21:38:15 GMT
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Post by Tpgettys on Nov 22, 2016 22:08:20 GMT
I checked Amazon U.S. and they have Elements 11. It comes on PC/Mac Disc. Check your disk. PSE 11 came on two discs, one for windows and one for apple computers. |
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Post by Sepiana on Nov 22, 2016 22:22:47 GMT
I checked Amazon U.S. and they have Elements 11. It comes on PC/Mac Disc. Check your disk. PSE 11 came on two discs, one for windows and one for apple computers.
I believe this has been standard practice for the version of Elements sold in a box. You get the installers for both platforms (Windows and Mac). You can, then, install Elements on two Macs, two Windows computers, or on one of each.
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Post by Sepiana on Nov 22, 2016 22:35:01 GMT
I have PSE 11 but might have to upgrade to the latest one as the PSE11 install CD is only for Windows, I think. kufloyd,
You should have the installers for both platforms in the box -- Windows and Mac. If you can't find the disc for the Mac platform, you could try this. Go to the Adobe Download page and download the Mac version of Elements 11. The serial number you have should work for the Mac version.
Download Photoshop Elements | 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10
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Post by kufloyd on Nov 22, 2016 22:47:02 GMT
thanks all for your help! this is great info to have.
Sepiana - I will double-check the box..maybe there are 2 CDs in it; if not, I will try the download from adobe.
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Post by kufloyd on Nov 22, 2016 22:50:26 GMT
Hi, I'm curious how many of you use PSE to edit photos that are on an external hard drive. I'm considering buying an iMac and while it comes with a 1TB drive, it's pretty expensive to upgrade to a 2TB. I know that 1TB won't be enough for me, so am looking into options for external drive-based editing. How fast is it, compared to editing off the internal drive? Do you leave it connected always? If not, does PSE have problems when the drive isn't connected? (like complain about missing files etc) I have PSE 11 but might have to upgrade to the latest one as the PSE11 install CD is only for Windows, I think. Thanks! The editing process implies two different kinds of tasks: editing and organizing. Elements users have been using external drives for their libraries for a long time, and that worked very well even with relatively slow USB1 or USB2 connections. I have used this for years to share my library and catalogs between two computers. So, let's have a look at the editor to begin with. With today's raw files and sophisticated plugins, the main factor is the amount (and speed) of RAM. You could ignore the speed of the hard drives if there was not the 'scratch disk' issue: Even with ample amount of RAM, you'll need a scratch disk. Today it's beginning common to use an SSD drive for the OS and programs. The usual advice is to use a different fast and classical secondary physical internal drive for the purpose. In your case, your 1 TB drive would be more than ok for editing. Now, about the organizer; The HUGE advantage of working with catalogs is that the catalog is usually stored on your main internal drive. Most catalog operations don't require very fast disk write or read. Sure, backups would be somewhat slower, but an external drive with USB3 or similar would be a very good choice. Even with catalogs on the external drive in my case, I have no personal experience with Bridge, but I am convinced the cache system would also be good enough with an external drive. Also, I can't imagine not having several external drives available for backups. In that case, it's relatively easy to use one as a test. You do a backup and restore to one external drive. You compare the speed of your present setup to the catalog and library on the external drive. With a big library like yours, I am sure external drives are the best solution. Edit: Of course, if the external drive is not plugged in, your files will be shown as missing. As soon as you plug in the drive, the catalog is updated and you are ready. Question about the catalog - so you're saying that if I have some files on an external drive and I add those files to the catalog, any further edits on those files will be done as if those files are stored internally? (as long as the external drive is connected)? If that's the case, it seems like the performance shouldn't be that bad. |
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Post by Peterj on Nov 23, 2016 0:38:57 GMT
Hi, I'm curious how many of you use PSE to edit photos that are on an external hard drive. I'm considering buying an iMac and while it comes with a 1TB drive, it's pretty expensive to upgrade to a 2TB. I know that 1TB won't be enough for me, so am looking into options for external drive-based editing. How fast is it, compared to editing off the internal drive? Do you leave it connected always? If not, does PSE have problems when the drive isn't connected? (like complain about missing files etc) I have PSE 11 but might have to upgrade to the latest one as the PSE11 install CD is only for Windows, I think. Thanks! I use PSE 13 & 15, both of which are installed on my internal Windows boot drive. I have an internal SATA drive that houses the pse catalog. PSE ptogram is installed on 1 drive and the catalog is installed on a different drive. I have no issues with speed in this situation; since it's internal it's always connected. My suggestion is to leverage the newest technology (Thunderbolt or USB3.1) when considering an external drive. Having the right second hard drive will speed your operations. If you registered your PSE 11 there's a possibility that Adobe will let you download the MAC version. |
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Post by Sepiana on Nov 23, 2016 3:08:48 GMT
Sepiana - I will double-check the box..maybe there are 2 CDs in it; if not, I will try the download from adobe.
kufloyd, downloading the Mac version from Adobe should work. As Adobe says on that page . . .
Good luck! Let us know how it goes. |
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Post by BuckSkin on Nov 28, 2016 6:45:21 GMT
We have a home network of four computers, three desktop/towers and a laptop.
My wife has one "main" external hard-drive connected to "her" computer via USB 2.0.
My "main" external hard-drive is connected to "my" computer via USB 3.0
We hardly ever store pictures on any of the internal drives (Libraries > My Pictures)
Just about all of our working pictures are on these two external hard-drives.
Elements and any of our other programs will read/write to these ext. drives as quickly and reliably as the internal drives.
Elements will even read/write via our network from one computer to another.
Like already said, so long as the drive is connected, the catalog knows where the files are; if the drive gets dis-connected, the catalog shows those files as missing.
I have also lately discovered, at least on my computer, that it seems to matter not which of the 12 USB ports my drives are connected to, they always show up in the Explorer folder tree with the same letter designation; now that I think about this, I will test further to see if this holds true on our other computers.
I hope this helps; thanks for reading.
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Post by Peterj on Nov 28, 2016 16:09:29 GMT
Another thought about external drives. When I established a NAS [network attached storage] I copied my catalog to it so I was able to connect from various computers in my home both hard wired and wifi. The concept proved to work, but extremely slowly. I now use the NAS for backing up the catalog.
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Post by michelb on Nov 29, 2016 10:50:30 GMT
Another thought about external drives. When I established a NAS [network attached storage] I copied my catalog to it so I was able to connect from various computers in my home both hard wired and wifi. The concept proved to work, but extremely slowly. I now use the NAS for backing up the catalog. And you can't store your organizer catalogs on a NAS if you have a Mac. With Lightroom, according to 'The Lightroom Queen', Victoria Brampton, you can't anyway: "The catalog must be stored on an internal
or external hard drive, not network storage."
www.lightroomqueen.com/quickstart/
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