Lightroom Catalogues and networked drives

Before anyone points out the obvious......I know I should have checked first......

Last week I bought a 2TB NAS storage device and configured it to RAID1. So far so good. Then I copied around 400GB of data across, including some Lightroom (2.whatever, not 3.0) catalogs. Super - Loads of space with some redundancy.

Now when I try to open any catalogs stored on the NAS device, Lightroom complains and says:-

"Lightroom cannot launch with this catalog. It is either a network volume or on a volume on which Lightroom cannot save changes".

Its fine on a USB drive.......

Any thoughts or solutions to this?

Before anyone points out the obvious......I know I should have checked first......

 

Last week I bought a 2TB NAS storage device and configured it to RAID1. So far so good. Then I copied around 400GB of data across, including some Lightroom (2.whatever, not 3.0) catalogs. Super - Loads of space with some redundancy.

 

Now when I try to open any catalogs stored on the NAS device, Lightroom complains and says:-

 

"Lightroom cannot launch with this catalog. It is either a network volume or on a volume on which Lightroom cannot save changes".

 

Its fine on a USB drive.......

 

Any thoughts or solutions to this?

Have you tried putting the catalogs and/or cache on your local drives and then reconnect to the media on the NAS? Also, have you done something to the permissions on the NAS? (Could be two different things happening.)

Quick update:-

Apparently Adobe don't want more than one person at a time opening a catalog across a network. This makes sense.

You can fool Lightroom in thinking the drive is local by using:-

subst p: t:\

Where t:\ is where the catalog is and p: is the virtual drive letter you can now access the catalog through.

i had the same situation, so i have the picture files on the NAS box, and LR catalogue on my PC HDD. The LR catalogue backups get saved onto the NAS box. This way I still keep my image files if my PC dies, and only lose some catalogue information.

I also do backups of the NAS box to an external HDD, because if the RAID controller fries, there goes everything in the box if it's not set up for mirroring (RAID 0? can't remember). Actually I think even with mirroring there might be some risk of data loss or corruption. Not too sure on this, so perhaps someone more tech savvy on consumer RAID controllers can comment.

I tried this last year, cant be done Simon, I also now have a portable External hard drive that I move from one PC to another, works for me

i had the same situation, so i have the picture files on the NAS box, and LR catalogue on my PC HDD. The LR catalogue backups get saved onto the NAS box. This way I still keep my image files if my PC dies, and only lose some catalogue information.

Yes, I do the same. Best to keep data on a dedicated drive imo and a NAS box can be kept off the desk out of harm's way. The challenge with USB and LR is getting the same drive letter assigned every time you connect it - unless someone has found a way of telling LR what the new letter is ????

I also do backups of the NAS box to an external HDD, because if the RAID controller fries, there goes everything in the box if it's not set up for mirroring (RAID 0? can't remember). Actually I think even with mirroring there might be some risk of data loss or corruption. Not too sure on this, so perhaps someone more tech savvy on consumer RAID controllers can comment.

I had a NAS controller go up in smoke, one disk was fubar but the other mirror disk stayed good. Got a new box (with bigger disks - as you do), put the old disk in one slot and copied across. Then installed the second new disk and re-built the mirror.

Yes, I do the same. Best to keep data on a dedicated drive imo and a NAS box can be kept off the desk out of harm's way. The challenge with USB and LR is getting the same drive letter assigned every time you connect it - unless someone has found a way of telling LR what the new letter is ????

I re routed one of my PCs (a small HP one, the wife's now) on top of the kitchen cupboards with the Network Drive and modem and router, well out of harms way, I lost an NAS once by knocking it over, very sensitive items, I also have it velcrod to the base unit up there, dont know why they design them upright when they are so sensitive!?? Wires are then routed from there to my main PC, wireless isnt the fastest!

I think I sussed the drive letter out Tim. It always works for me now, It may be a combionation of regular switching which I do, depends where I want to edit, on the macbook or on the desktop.

But I think the main thing is once your hard drive appears on your desktop, rename it to something you recognise (eg Portable HD), it is recognised as that and drive J, everytime I switch now. Months we're talking, and I havent stopped editting lately.

My 1TB NAS is just used as a back up now from Lightroom, all my pics go on the 500GB portable, as well as the Vosonic after every dive day

I tried this last year, cant be done Simon, I also now have a portable External hard drive that I move from one PC to another, works for me

Well I got it working!

Have a re-read of post #3:-

You can fool Lightroom in thinking the drive is local by using:-

subst p: t:\

Well I got it working!

 

Have a re-read of post #3:-

 

You can fool Lightroom in thinking the drive is local by using:-

 

subst p: t:\

I remember that tip, I couldnt fool it when I tried I guess I have a cleverer NAS than you!

The threads in here somewhere, feels like over a year ago, maybe 2

Well I got it working!

 

Have a re-read of post #3:-

 

You can fool Lightroom in thinking the drive is local by using:-

 

subst p: t:\

Can you expand on this a little.....where do you use 'subst p: t:\'???

Thanks

Duncan

Can you expand on this a little.....where do you use 'subst p: t:\'???

Thanks

Duncan

Sure:

On a Windowz PC open up a DOS (also known as the Command Prompt) and type:-

subst p: t:\

This tells the PC to treat the p: drive as a virtual one and the t:\ is the networked drive.

Access the Lightroom catalog through P:\ and life is good.