Best solution for a Photos library that is too large to fit on the current drive?

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Level 4

1,388 points

Best solution for a Photos library that is too large to fit on the current drive?

Asking for a friend. Seriously. I have a new MBP M1 Pro with a 2 TB SSD so I have plenty of space for my Photos library.

But this friend has a MacBook Air with 256 GB SSD. Her Photos library has, as of today, completely filled her 512 GB SD card volume that she has been using, and she can't open up Photos anymore.

She also has a Time Machine backup on an external HD.

What are her best options?

(1) She can, I suppose, get a larger SD card and restore to it from Time Machine? I heard SD cards are no longer recommended for Photos libraries though. Is that right?

(2) She could get a 2nd external drive and connect it (she'll probably need a hub) and move her current Photos library from the SD card to the new drive.

(3) She could increase her current 200 GB iCloud subscription to a 2 TB subscription and turn on disk optimization. But... in that case she wouldn't have a complete backup of her photos anymore, and there'd be no point in using Time Machine, right?

Any ideas?

Thanks.

MacBook Air

Posted on Nov 19, 2021 2:55 AM

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Answer 1

Yer_Man

Level 10

165,918 points

Nov 19, 2021 3:15 AM in response to Doug Lerner2

SD cards are not recommended for storing a Photos Library as they are not robust enough.
The second external drive formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or APFS is the correct answer.
Correct.

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Answer 2

Nov 19, 2021 3:50 AM in response to Doug Lerner2

Here are the instructions from Apple. Pay particular attention to the format of the external drive - it is important.

See

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201517

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Answer 3

Old Toad

Level 10

215,388 points

Nov 19, 2021 11:04 AM in response to Doug Lerner2

Put the library on one of these: I recommend drives from OWC (MacSales.com) as they have proven reliability, excellent customer support and warranties. Consider one of these depending on your budget and needs:

1.0TB OWC Envoy Pro FX Thunderbolt 3 + USB-C Portable NVMe SSD

1.0TB OWC Envoy Pro SX Rugged Portable NVMe SSD with Thunderbolt/USB4

1.0TB OWC Envoy Pro Elektron USB-C portable NVMe SSD

Envoy Pro EX with USB-C or USB 3

OWC Envoy Pro SX - up to 2847 MB/s

For your model contact OWC's customer support and get their recommendation for the SSD model that would best suit your iMac model and needs. They may have additional models other than those I've shown above.

I have a number of OWC SSDs and am a very happy customer.

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Answer 4

léonie

Level 10

200,537 points

Nov 19, 2021 9:46 PM in response to Doug Lerner2

She will still need to make regular backups of her photos, because iCloud will now be the primary storage of her photos. She will be working with the photos in iCloud, so iCloud cannot double as a backup. Having the photos n iCloud will make it easier to move the library to a new Mac, if her Mac should get damaged, lost, or stolen, but it will not suffice to recover her photos, if she should make a user error and accidentally delete photos permanently or accidentally modifies the titles or keywords for a large batch of photos. Then she needs to restore a previous version of the library from a backup. She should keep using Time Machine to backup her Mac, including the library. The library backup will be incomplete, because original image files may be missing, but her albums, folders, metadata will be saved.

To save her precious original image files, she can proceed as described here: Archive or make copies of the information you store in iCloud - Apple Support

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Answer 5

Doug Lerner2 Author

Level 4

1,388 points

Nov 19, 2021 6:22 PM in response to Doug Lerner2

One followup on this. If she did go with option (3) and increase her iCloud subscription to retain all her photos, what are the implications? Of course she would no longer use Time Machine, right? But all her photos would always be there in the cloud, available on all her devices, without needing to lug around extra drives, right?

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