Sharing one Library over two computers?

[Mike Guilbault]

I have a Library stored on my MacBook Pro (so I can make Library changes away from home) with the images stored on an external HD at home.  I want to use the images at work on my MacPro for printing on my 4900.

What's the best way? 

[Schewe]

Both the images and the catalog will need to be on the external drive to be able to move everything with the drive.

[Mike Guilbault]

That's kinda what I was thinking Jeff.  I have a small portable Lacie that's plenty big enough to hold the library.  The desktop HD at home is larger but would be a pain to transport back and forth (separate power supply).  I'll have to be very stringent in my backup procedures. I'm just not sure I want to commit my 'main' library to a small portable HD... just doesn't feel right.

[Schewe]

You can set LR's back to save the BUs to an external drive...the problem with that is that YOU would need to make sure to copy that catalog back to your main drive after working on it. I prolly would not suggest doing that.

At this point there is no elegant solution for what you want to do...and no, I would never trust the external HD to be the ONLY copy of either the catalog or the images...

You could use a 3rd part BU software to sync the catalogs between the one computer or the other. But the easiest solution is just keep the catalog (and previews) with the images and move that drive back and forth and make sure that drive is backed up daily.

[ario]

I have all my photos and LR catalog on an external drive connected to the main computer, a second portable external dive which can be connected either to the main computer or to the Mac Book Pro has the same content (photos + catalog) and I keep the two HD's syncronized using Carbon Copy Cloner after each use. I have then a third external HD again with the same content which is for back-up only.
Ario

[wolfnowl]

Some people also use a cloud solution like Dropbox, keeping their catalog backed up there so it's always the current version no matter which computer you're working with.

Mike.

[Mike Guilbault]

I have all my photos and LR catalog on an external drive connected to the main computer, a second portable external dive which can be connected either to the main computer or to the Mac Book Pro has the same content (photos + catalog) and I keep the two HD's syncronized using Carbon Copy Cloner after each use. I have then a third external HD again with the same content which is for back-up only.
Ario

That sounds pretty much like what I'm attempting except I'm using SuperDuper for my sync.

thanks for all the help guys

[Rendezvous]

I'm not sure if I'd be keen for that - my catalogue is over 1GB!

[StuartOnline]

That sounds pretty much like what I'm attempting except I'm using SuperDuper for my sync.

thanks for all the help guys

I also use SuperDuper for my sync and it works good.
For my main storage for images are stored on a G-Technology 2TB G-RAID External Hard Drive Array.
I sync it to another G-Technology 2TB G-RAID External Hard Drive Array using SuperDuper.
Down the road I am looking to get couple of the G-Technology 4TB G-SPEED Q External Hard Drive Array.
However I am looking to upgrade my current MacBook Pro (June 2009) to a newer one with the next release of the MacBook Pro this June (hopefully).
Then I plan to look at Thunderbolt external Hard Drives. Just hope the cost will come down.
Also have a couple of G-Technology 750GB G-DRIVE mobile Hard Drive that I take on the road with me.

Should also add I back up the catalog (not images) to the MacBook Pro. Also backup the catalog to the G-Technology 2TB G-RAID External Hard Drive Array.
So now when I use SuperDuper the Catalog along with the images are backed up to the other G-Tech drive.
Finally I also have another hard drive (external) that I archive (using SuperDuper) everything to and store that off site.
It sure does not hurt to have a number of backups.

So having the catalog and images stored on external hard drives, if I had more then one Computer and I had Lightroom on each computer all I have to do plug in the hard drive and off I go.