Switching to a Macbook Pro, questions about storage, LR and process

I’m a long time desktop PC guy, finally looking seriously at switching over to Mac Pro and have questions about hard drive storage, Lightroom catalogues and process. My current PC is set up with 2 internal 10tb HD’s in which one is a back up of the other. The main 10tb drive has one LR catalogue associated. When I switch to Mac, it’s going to be to a Macbook Pro with a 1 (or 2) tb internal SSD which means I will need to use external drives for storage for the first time. I am trying to figure out what this looks like with regard to internal process & LR catalogues.

I’m thinking I’ll have to buy a HD enclosure to house my two 10tb drives and plan to have my photo processing done on my internal 1 (or 2) tb drive. I envision loading all photos from each recent photo shoot onto my internal SSD, processing them and then move them to the permanent storage once complete. Does anyone see any flaws to processing this way? For those with a similar set up, what’s your process?

I have never moved files around within LR before and am at a bit of a loss as to how this is done. My current LR catalogue is pretty big which is a bit of a burden loading but having all photos in one catalogue is nice for finding things.

I'm not sure about the migration of the LR catalog from your PC to the Mac but the process you mentioned in editing the new files on your SSD and then moving them to the extermals is what I do.

I have two externals and they have mirrored catalogs so LR 'sees' only one of them. I have another external that I take to my shop offsite about once a month.

I have a Synology NAS but have not set it up yet so my mirroring is done manually so far.

Thanks for the reply and confirmation Ted.

I was told that I will be able to reuse the hard drives, but in order for the Mac to write to them they will need to be reformatted. My plan is to reformat 1, copy the files onto it, reformat the second and mirror the first. Then, I'll create a new LR catalogue.

How do you move the files over in LR? Are you creating a "temp" catalogue while they're on your SSD which goes away when you move them onto your storage HD? Are they imported into your LR catalogue after they're physically moved or is this completed in one step?

Also, if you don't mind me asking what size SSD do you have? I'm thinking a 1tb as a minimum and trying to figure out if upgrading to 2 is worth it?

Your drives don’t have to be reformatted. I’m a PC/Mac user, who hasn’t had issues with Paragon’s NTFS for Mac. It lets you write and even format NTFS on the Mac.

davesrose wrote in post #19370932
Your drives don’t have to be reformatted. I’m a PC/Mac user, who hasn’t had issues with Paragon’s NTFS for Mac. It lets you write and even format NTFS on the Mac.

Great to know, thanks Dave!

The general layout of LR is merely

1. location of LR Catalog file on the active (usually internal) storage unit
   
2. location of active RAW files on the active (usually internal) storage unit
   
3. (depending on user) location of the archive RAW files on an external storage unit
   

Thanks Wilt! Sounds simple enough.