Today’s Question: In Lightroom Classic, the only issue with having photos stored on two drives is that you’ll have two hard drives (and therefore two sets of folders) listed in the Folders list on the left panel in the Library module. Right now, if my [single] drive with photos is disconnected from the computer, Lightroom Classic tells me so. If I had photos split between two drives, then as long as one of the two drives is plugged in, Lightroom Classic would recognize which one and be happy?
Tim’s Quick Answer: When photos are stored on more than one hard drive, Lightroom Classic will show as available the folders and photos on a drive that is connected, and folders and photos will show as missing for a drive that is disconnected.
More Detail: One of the advantages of the catalog used by Lightroom Classic to manage information about your photos is that you can still view and update metadata your photos even when the source files aren’t available. So, for example, if you disconnect an external hard drive that contains photos being managed by Lightroom Classic, you can still view the photos (as long as previews had been generated) and update the metadata for the photos even though they are not currently available.
The situation isn’t really any different if you have photos stored across more than one hard drive. In this scenario you would have a section for each hard drive in the Folders list on the left panel in the Library module. If a hard drive is disconnected, the heading for that drive will be dimmed, and the folders and photos on that drive will show as missing. If a hard drive is connected, the heading will not be dimmed, and the folders and photos won’t appear as missing.
So, if your photos are stored on two different hard drives, but only one of them is connected to your computer, the connected drive will be represented by folders that are available, and the disconnected drive will be represented by folders that show missing. In other words, the section for each hard drive in the Folders list operates independently, so it is absolutely possible to work with photos from just one drive at a time, for example, if you don’t want to have multiple hard drives connected to your computer at the same time.
