Storage

Helmetman · 05 Apr 2017

Firstly I know very little about computers so if possible could any advise be put in simple to follow steps, my problem is I store a lot of photos, my 'C' drive is quite full, 1.56 GB free of 199 GB where as my 'D' drive has 1.47TB free of 1.6 TB, my question is can the photos be stored in 'D' drive and if so is this something I could do with some advice or could it be set up so the photos are sent to an external hard drive which I can then pull into Lightroom as I store most of the photos in Lightroom editing program,

bobkn · 05 Apr 2017

Not sure what you're asking.

I believe that it's possible to change the location of your "photos" library, although I have never done it. I doubt that it's possible to set it to a removable drive.

You can manually move your current pictures to a directory of your choice. Be careful to not delete them instead.

I have no experience with Lightroom. I'm a very non-expert user of Photoshop CS6. I'm not aware that Photoshop has any default location to save files. I generally open an image from an arbitrary location, and the edited version is saved to the same directory. It certainly doesn't store anything "in" Photoshop.

dalchina · 06 Apr 2017

Hi, it is an excellent idea to keep your personal data off C: as far as reasonably possible. Why? If you reinstall your OS, your data is untouched.

You could rt click your Photos folder, Properties, click Location tab, and move it to D: if you wish.

However, I would like to offer an alternative as the above can get complicated for some users occasionally.

Create a new folder e.g. My Photos on D:
You can use that if you wish as is.

You can also do this:

Here I have a Dummy .... folder on drive H: and I'm including it in my Pictures library.

I don't put any personal data in the default folders under the default libraries Documents, Videos.... - it's all on a physically separate drive to my Windows drive/partition.

Why? Those folders are full of folders created by photo processing programs, video convertors etc etc. So as far as I'm concerned those folder are 'their' folders, not mine !!

As far as Lightroom is concerned, you should be able to set the default folder or folders it uses in its options or preferences.

DeaconFrost · 06 Apr 2017

You don't need to worry about relocation. Most "power users" stopped using the My folders a long time ago. Just make a folder on your D drive called Photos, then cut and paste from C to D:\Photos. Lightroom should remember your "open" location each time and go to D.

NavyLCDR · 06 Apr 2017

This is the way I like to move my data to a different drive letter. I'll just use the Pictures folder as an example, but also do it with all the user file folders for data like Music, Documents, etc. Just don't do it with the hidden AppData folder. My user name is John so my folder under C:\Users is John.

Make a folder on D: drive called John. Create the subfolders under that for Pictures, Music, Documents, Downloads, etc. Move the files from C:\Users\John\Pictures to D:\John\Pictures. C:\Users\John\Pictures should now be empty.

Open a Command Prompt (Admin). Run the following commands:

cd C:\Users\John
rd /S Pictures
mklink /J Pictures D:\John\Pictures

Repeat the rd /S and mklink /J commands for the other folders you want to move to D: drive (just make sure you have moved the files out of them first!). This creates nearly invisible shortcuts under your C:\Users\Username folder to the data which is actually stored on D: drive now. The "folders" under C:\Users\Username appear to operate the way they always did, but the actual data is in the D: drive folders.

ArazelEternal · 06 Apr 2017

NavyLCDR said:

This is the way I like to move my data to a different drive letter. I'll just use the Pictures folder as an example, but also do it with all the user file folders for data like Music, Documents, etc. Just don't do it with the hidden AppData folder. My user name is John so my folder under C:\Users is John.

Make a folder on D: drive called John. Create the subfolders under that for Pictures, Music, Documents, Downloads, etc. Move the files from C:\Users\John\Pictures to D:\John\Pictures. C:\Users\John\Pictures should now be empty.

Open a Command Prompt (Admin). Run the following commands:

cd C:\Users\John
rd /S Pictures
mklink /J Pictures D:\John\Pictures

Repeat the rd /S and mklink /J commands for the other folders you want to move to D: drive (just make sure you have moved the files out of them first!). This creates nearly invisible shortcuts under your C:\Users\Username folder to the data which is actually stored on D: drive now. The "folders" under C:\Users\Username appear to operate the way they always did, but the actual data is in the D: drive folders.

Isnt this the same as going under the folder properties, opening the location tab and using that to move the folder or is this different?