Best way to set up hardware on new PC for lightroom?

[mikeyw]

Hi,

I recently posted about thinking on upgrading from an old i5 PC to a newer i7 model with 32GB over 16GB.

Well i snared a HP Z240 SFF - Intel Core i7-7700@4.20GHz, 32GB@2400MHz DDR4, 512GB NVME SSD with 2 x 3TB sata drives for £175 which i thought was reasonable.

Now before i migrate to it i want to be sure the hardware is optimal.

I plan to Install LR Classic on the NVME drive where windows is.

Originally i was going to put my images on one of the 3TB sata and clone everything to the other but i'm wondering whether it would be wiser to drop in a 1TB SSD drive instead of one of the 3TB sata drives for my 'live' working files and recent projects and make the remaining 3TB sata more of an archive with a copy on external HD.

Would the SSD drive instead of sata for the images and catalog make a significant difference ? Also would you put the catlogue on the images SSD drive or is it better on the 3rd archive drive ?

Finally i had an Nvidia GT 1030 on my old PC, would you move that over or just use the Intel HD630 graphics built in on the HP PC ?

Don't plan to do this again for quite some while so want to get it right from the start if possible.

Many thanks in advance.

Mike.

 

[Llewellyn]

I have always kept the operating system and all programs on the boot drive (usually C). All data files including photos go on a separate drive. I would put the files you are working on on an SSD drive which will load them faster and use the 3TB as a back up drive for all your data. Being somewhat anal I have an additional back up drive in case the first fails.

In my view the catalog file should go on the SSD drive and copied to your back up drive(s) when you do your backups.

I use Goodsync to manage both my backups. If you set this up correctly doing this all work in progress on the SSD drive will be copied onto the backup drives as you make changes. This would save you losing work you are doing on your active files in the event of hardware failure.

I am not sure of the specs of the NVidia card but it is probable that it will be better than the onboard graphics card. You would be well advised to see if you can compare the specs for the two.

Good luck