# Lightroom with online storage - Setup question



## JoL (Jun 18, 2014)

So I found myself in the position of having a crappy old laptop and a broken tablet and wanting to replace both devices (without going broke). I love working on a tablet and had only used my laptop with an external big monitor for photo editing in Lightroom (which was quite a pita with only 2gb RAM etc...). After going to a store and seeing what's available I finally ended up with a Surface Pro 2 (with 8gb of RAM) in my cart. Lightroom runs on it very smoothly and I can still use my big monitor for serious editing. So far so good.
Now the next challenge I'm facing is how to set up my photo library for the Surface Pro. Ideally I want to have access to any of my photos over the internet without having to plug in an external hard drive. Small preview files could be stored on the device itself and then I would access and download the RAW file from the online storage when I decide to do some editing. Is such a thing easily possible? I'm able to set up the device so that it just stores all photo files in something like OneDrive or Dropbox, but then it still synchronizes everything to the hard drive of the device and it will get filled up pretty soon.
I hope this was not too confusing and my plan makes sense to you. Does anyone have a standard solution that I just haven't come across yet? Maybe even within Lightroom? I appreciate any advice, thanks!


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## cheshirecat79 (Jun 19, 2014)

For your setup, Lightroom is going to need a locally cached copy of the photos to work on. If you're really concerned about hard drive space, I'd either suggest upgrading the SSD in the unit to a larger drive or getting used to working with Smart Previews. 

SSDs have come down in price quite a bit. a 500gb drive actually isn't that expensive at all.


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## JClishe (Jun 19, 2014)

cheshirecat79 said:


> If you're really concerned about hard drive space, I'd either suggest upgrading the SSD in the unit to a larger drive or getting used to working with Smart Previews.



Tablet's do not have upgradable hard drives.


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## JClishe (Jun 19, 2014)

JoL said:


> I'm able to set up the device so that it just stores all photo files in something like OneDrive or Dropbox, but then it still synchronizes everything to the hard drive of the device and it will get filled up pretty soon.
> I hope this was not too confusing and my plan makes sense to you. Does anyone have a standard solution that I just haven't come across yet? Maybe even within Lightroom? I appreciate any advice, thanks!



With OneDrive you can disable automatic sync at the folder level. It syncs a stub of the file which is just the filename and metadata so you actually see the file in Windows Explorer, but the file isn't actually downloaded until you access it. It works great - I have about 100gb of files on OneDrive and I can "see" all of the files from all 3 of my Windows 8 devices (including Surface Pro 2 and soon to be Surface Pro 3 at this time tomorrow) but I only actually sync certain folders on certain devices. But the real question is how Lightroom will handle the stub files of your RAWs. Honestly I have no idea but it would be interesting to test. Create a folder on OneDrive, put some RAWs in it, disable auto sync on that folder, then add that folder to your Lightroom catalog and see what happens.


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## cheshirecat79 (Jun 19, 2014)

JClishe said:


> cheshirecat79 said:
> 
> 
> > Tablet's do not have upgradable hard drives.
> ...


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## JClishe (Jun 19, 2014)

cheshirecat79 said:


> JClishe said:
> 
> 
> > cheshirecat79 said:
> ...


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## JoL (Jun 19, 2014)

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll play around with OneDrive for a little bit, and if it doesn't work I'll just buy a small external hard drive for the daily work and mirror it to the cloud.
Or does lightroom need the files on the actual hard drive of the tablet itself and does not even allow an external USB drive?


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## JClishe (Jun 19, 2014)

JoL said:


> Or does lightroom need the files on the actual hard drive of the tablet itself and does not even allow an external USB drive?



External drive would work fine. You'd want the actual catalog to be on your internal SSD but you place the image files wherever you want.


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## JoL (Jun 19, 2014)

Then I would probably put the catalog file directly in the onedrive or Dropbox folder and sync it with my other devices to have all the editing synchronized. 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk


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## JClishe (Jun 19, 2014)

JoL said:


> Then I would probably put the catalog file directly in the onedrive or Dropbox folder and sync it with my other devices to have all the editing synchronized.
> 
> Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk



I've considered doing that as well, just wasn't sure if there would be any file locking that LR places on the catalog file that would interfere with OneDrive, or vice versa. It would be interesting to try, maybe I'll give it a shot.


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## cheshirecat79 (Jun 19, 2014)

JClishe said:


> No it doesn't.



dude will you take ten seconds and google it, durr. 

here's an instruction manual to show you how to upgrade/replace the msata ssd. 

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Microsoft+Surface+Pro+2+SSD+Replacement/21078


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## JClishe (Jun 19, 2014)

cheshirecat79 said:


> JClishe said:
> 
> 
> > No it doesn't.
> ...



LOL. When you make a suggestion that's unsupported by the manufacturer, will void the warranty, literally involves USING A HEAT GUN TO MELT ADHESIVE, and could potentially PERMANENTLY damage the device, perhaps you should clarify that up front.


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## JoL (Jun 19, 2014)

Let's not get into that discussion. If I wanted a larger internal SSD I would have chosen the 512gb model. 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk


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## Vince.1551 (Jun 19, 2014)

If you are using a Nikon then with Nikon Image Space you could get 20gb storage. Not sure if they could take raw file or psd. Gotta check on that


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## cheshirecat79 (Jun 19, 2014)

JClishe said:


> LOL. When you make a suggestion that's unsupported by the manufacturer, will void the warranty, literally involves USING A HEAT GUN TO MELT ADHESIVE, and could potentially PERMANENTLY damage the device, perhaps you should clarify that up front.



Perhaps the OP can take the suggestion for what it is- a suggestion. Regardless, can we please get back on topic, thanks.


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## The_Traveler (Jun 19, 2014)

JClishe said:


> JoL said:
> 
> 
> > Then I would probably put the catalog file directly in the onedrive or Dropbox folder and sync it with my other devices to have all the editing synchronized.
> ...



When LR has the catalog open it creates a .lok (or .lock) file which is deleted when LR closes the catalog file.
Presence of the .lok file has never interfered with backups using syncback.
(If you try to open LR and it says that catalog is in use, (this occurs when there is unexpected app termination) just navigate to folder and delete the .lok file. Hurts nothing)


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## JoL (Jun 24, 2014)

Alright, so right now I have all my photos stored on an external hard drive. The catalog is local on the Surface Pro.
After thinking about it some more the ideal thing would probably be to have the catalog file located in a dropbox folder to have all the editing synced. At the same time I want to have all the previews and smart previews on the local drive to not waste too much space. But I think this is not possible, right? So I would have to keep everything local and mirror the local catalog file to Dropbox.
Does this sound feasible? If yes, do you know of a simple sync program that would do the job?
Thanks again for sharing your opinion!


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## JClishe (Jun 24, 2014)

JoL said:


> Alright, so right now I have all my photos stored on an external hard drive. The catalog is local on the Surface Pro.
> After thinking about it some more the ideal thing would probably be to have the catalog file located in a dropbox folder to have all the editing synced. At the same time I want to have all the previews and smart previews on the local drive to not waste too much space. But I think this is not possible, right? So I would have to keep everything local and mirror the local catalog file to Dropbox.
> Does this sound feasible? If yes, do you know of a simple sync program that would do the job?
> Thanks again for sharing your opinion!



You are correct that you cannot separate the catalog file from the previews and smart previews; they all live in the same directory path.

Why would you need a sync app to sync your files to Dropbox? Doesn't the Dropbox app already do this?


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## JoL (Jun 24, 2014)

If I want Dropbox to sync the catalog file I'd have to put it into a synced Dropbox folder, or am I mistaken?
That would cause all the previews to be created in the same folder too and thus be synced as well.
Or can I select individual files to be synced with Dropbox?


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## JClishe (Jun 24, 2014)

Yes you're correct. Sorry, I misunderstood your previous comment, I see know that you're asking about a utility to sync only the catalog file to the Dropbox folder, not the entire catalog folder tree. Something like SyncToy might work but you'd have to either manually initiate the sync or schedule it.


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