Bridge Cache-fast, Lightroom Cache-Sloooooow

That pretty much sums it up. Both are on the same drive. What can I do to speed things up in LR. When I select a folder in LR it is terribly slow to show all my thumbnails (all are in the cache already).

Oh.... CS5/LR3.

A little tidbit that seems to have speeded things up for me is the cache that Bridge/Camera Raw uses is shared by Lightroom, and if you increase that cache substantially you can gain speed in LR. I don't have access to my LR/PS computer right now, but check your preferences in Bridge and you should be able to set the cache size in there somewhere, I just don't remember the details.

Aside from that, have you gone over your LR preview preferences? It may be in the Catalog preferences, again I'd need to check to be sure, but you can set the size of previews. There are a few things that can help...also, make sure you have plenty of spare disk space.

It seems that the cache for Bridge and Lightroom are separate.

Two Folders
Bridge 5 Cache 113,550 files
Lightroom Cache 17,885

I have no idea why Bridge has more files but they are .JPG's and are very small in size
LR files are named cachennnnnnn and are .dat files and they are huge (4meg compared to 128k or so for Bridge)

The number of files in LR's cache is pretty much the number of images I have imported into LR

you are not alone http://forums.adobe.co​m …d/656635?start=​0&tstart=0

I have the same problem with it being slow sometimes, I moved the files from the drobo to my other HD and that helped but its still slower than it used to be, some people say the new 3.3 release fixed it but it didnt fix it for me

I have the cache(s) on a Drobo S, eSATA, also. Still, Bridge flies, LR is almost unworkable.

OK, I was mistaken about something -- try opening the Camera Raw Preferences out of Bridge. Check your Cache size -- by default it's pretty small. I raised mine to 8 Gb, but some people set theirs much larger. Try playing around and see if it helps -- supposedly Lightroom shares that space.

And, did you check your Preferences for the Previews? You will find them in the LR Catalog Preferences in the File Handling section. It sounds like you have 1:1 previews turned on, which can have an affect. You can choose different sizes and resolutions -- I have mine set to medium, and I discard 1:1 previews after 30 days.

I raised Bridge's cache size almost to the max, so that's not it. In LR I have Previews at Medium, Size 1024, Automatically discard 1:1 after 30 days.

Hmm, I don't know what else to suggest, although when you say you raised Bridge's cache size do you mean the Camera Raw cache in the Camera Raw Preferences? I believe they are different.

Under the Cache tab.... the slider that goes from 10,000 to 500,000

Under Camera Raw cache I have it set to 120 gig. I'm using about 94 gigs now.

I just noticed something... Under Camera Raw Cache it's pointing to the Lightroom Cache. Under Preferences, Cache, to the Bridge Cash.

Sounds like LR is building huge 1:1 previews, and bridge is building smaller previews. Change that preference in Lightroom, dump the current cache, and rebuild. See how it is after that.

Hmm, I don't know if that would affect things or not, but I'm still curious as to why you are seeing 4 meg files in your LR cache -- at least to me that seems pretty huge for previews. I wonder -- if you checked in the LR users forum someone might have some answers, but Victoria Bampton, one of the mods there, is a POTN member -- I haven't seen any posts from her recently, but she runs a great site, LightroomQueen.com where among other things she has some good info on boosting performance -- you might check it out, as well as the users forum. You're not the only one who has encountered performance issues but it seems like a lot of people get these worked out.

I tried Lightroom recently, that's what it did. If you turn on 1:1 previews, or full size previews, or something like that, it basically makes huge high res jpegs. I don't think bridge ever does that.

No, I have Standard Sized Previews turned on.

Another bit of info. Whereas Bridge shows the fully rendered thumbnails from the start, LR does not. It shows a thubnail, then the fully rendered one.

I wonder what would happen if you purged the cache and started over? I'm not sure what the "safe" way of doing that would be...

If you have standard size previews turned on it shouldn't be making 4MB jpeg files. Like Tony say i'd try purging the cache and generating them for one folder again, and see if they're big or small. If they're 4MB or so change to the next preview size down.