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Hi, I have a large photos library (1.5tb) on a regular 3.5” external hard drive. Understandably it lags at times loading and sorting photos, will a external 2tb ssd drive reduce the lag considerably? I’m currently using a new M2 13” MacBook Pro 512GB 8GB ram.
MacBook Pro Apple Silicon
Hi
Regarding the external drive - is it correctly formatted for a photos library?
It must be formatted APFS or MacOS extended (journaled) (preferred for spinning drives). Not case sensitive. If you have not formatted it after purchase it will most likely be ExFat - which is not compatible.
It Must not be (or have been) used for time machine. (A time machine drive can be used if re-formatted)
It must have the 'ignore ownership" checkbox ticked.
It must be directly connected (No ethernet or wifi)
See
Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac – Apple Support (UK)
Hi
Regarding the external drive - is it correctly formatted for a photos library?
It must be formatted APFS or MacOS extended (journaled) (preferred for spinning drives). Not case sensitive. If you have not formatted it after purchase it will most likely be ExFat - which is not compatible.
It Must not be (or have been) used for time machine. (A time machine drive can be used if re-formatted)
It must have the 'ignore ownership" checkbox ticked.
It must be directly connected (No ethernet or wifi)
See
Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac – Apple Support (UK)
You will have to keep the external drive connected to your Mac at all times, even if you are not using Photos, if the large library is your System Photos Library. Photos is expecting your System Photos Library to be always available, as long as you are logged into your user account, the connection to the Photos Library might get lost. This might be inconvenient, if you are moving the MacBook Pro around a lot. Or ist the Mac continually resting on a desk and you never have to carry it around?
As far as I can tell, the library size matters particularly when upgrading or updating the system, because Photos will have to scan the library again. when some algorithm has been improved by the update. The library size matters, when we need to repair the library, also for the "curating of best photos" background processes. These are processes, that will settle down, once they have finished the scanning, but will initially make your Mac slow.
One item will always be slow for a large library. You may want to keep the number of smart albums small, as they are depending on all photos in the library and need updating, whenever a photo is edited, tagged, removed or added.
Hi, thanks for the reply, the drive currently is formatted correctly and working as the main Photos library so it is working correctly, just slow to respond at times, especially when being opened. I am hoping to reduce the delays in responding. Thanks.
I only realised yesterday that the MacBook automatically downloaded my wife’s iCloud photos to the computer and used this library as the default. Our family photos library which is way too big to store on the computer is the one I keep on the external hard drive (and clone for safety) and is the one I would like to increase the responsiveness of. Thanks.
It is impossible to say if it will speed things up "considerably", but I would certainly expect to make things faster.
Then you will need to keep the external drive with the family library connected whenever possible, so Photos can prepare it and scan it, when you are not using the Mac.
Large Photos Library on external drive
