Speed with network drive

drmrbrewer

• September 15, 2011 19:57

I'm trying to understand why MP is very slow when the media files and/or catalog file are located on a network drive. I have found this with EM2, so it's not particular to MP.

Basically I can understand perfectly well that reading data off a network drive (at least the consumer version I have) is not going to be as fast as reading it off an internal drive.

Nevertheless, I have tried a combination whereby the catalog file is stored on an local (internal) drive, so reading from the catalog file is quick, and with the media files on the network drive (and so might be a bit slower).

I had thought that MP wouldn't really need to be accessing the media files at all, at least not in the thumbnail view where it is reading thumbnails from the catalog file, and likewise where all the file metadata is all stored inside the catalog.

However, doing pretty much anything in thumbnail view results in it hanging for 10 seconds or so. This includes selecting a catalog set... shouldn't that just be looking up info the catalog file itself (stored locally), not actually accessing the media files (stored on the network drive)? Hence shouldn't it be just as quick as if everything was stored on a local drive?

In that respect, when everything is stored on a local drive, the speed is very good.

Thanks for any clues.

0

• 

  drmrbrewer

  • September 27, 2011 20:18

  So nobody else has any such issues?

  0
• 

  Robert Edwards

  • September 29, 2011 06:36

  To speed rendering up over a network go to Edit > Thumbnails & Previews, then check the "Display previews at all times". It does exactly what it suggests, only thumbnails and previews stored in the catalog are displayed, be they 160px, 640px, or 1280px fullscreen previews.
  
  N.B. you won't be able to zoom 1:1 with this option checked.

  0
• 

  drmrbrewer

  • September 29, 2011 19:52

  Hi Robert
  
  Good to hear from you.
  
  Doesn't that "display previews at all times" option apply to rendering in the Media view? The speed issue I'm experiencing is seen even in the Thumbnail view, which as I understand it always reads the thumbnails from the catalog file itself (which is stored on my local drive so there should be no speed issue accessing that).
  
  In the Thumbnail view, when I select a Rating or Catalog Set to change what is visible, the new thumbnails are clearly displayed instantly without any slight pause for re-rendering; it just takes several more seconds before I can actually do anything in the app because it locks up.
  
  This doesn't happen when the media files are on the local drive. I just don't get it because IMO there shouldn't be any need to access the network drive when just changing the visible thumbnails via selecting a different catalog set or whatever.
  
  Cheers,
  
  Mike

  0
• 

  Raffi Hadidian

  • September 30, 2011 16:16

  I've always used network drives via SATA II, with non "green" drives. I use Caviar Black Western digital, which are rather good drives. I have 5 servers that seperate my files. and Mpro is slower than ACDSee, and until Media Pro gets the update, I am using ACDSee Pro4. Super fast and does most of all I need except network-ability. Even Their Manager 14 app is a rather decent manager for $80.
  
  What I am trying to say is that I think Media Pro is on the slower side. But I didn't find that to be its biggest fault. Other clunky and odd behaviors is what made me put it aside.
  
  I would check your connections for any bottleneck in performance. It couple also be the way drives are RAIDed.
  
  1:1 Zoom is VERY IMPORTANT to me in sorting and searching, so that is no option to speed up for me.
  
  I am in no way affiliated with any software company. These are my findings over the 2 decades in graphics, photography and image management.

  0

Post is closed for comments.