How much Ram for Lightroom Classic on m4max?

[chfilm]

Hey guys,

I'm contemplating selling my M1max 10/32/32GB for an M4max. It's being used for some occasional video editing in resolve but mostly for heavy editing in Lightroom of hundreds of images.
I currently have 300gb left on the internal 1TB SSD and am wondering wether I should rather upgrade to a 2TB SSD to have more space for an eventual expansion of the lightroom catalogue and other stuff.. or maybe keep 1tb and upgrade to 64gb of ram? I'm not fully aware of the Ram usage of lightroom. Right now I can see my GPU is the main bottleneck when exporting hundreds of edited images.

 

[jz0309]

Hey guys,

I'm contemplating selling my M1max 10/32/32GB for an M4max. It's being used for some occasional video editing in resolve but mostly for heavy editing in Lightroom of hundreds of images.
I currently have 300gb left on the internal 1TB SSD and am wondering wether I should rather upgrade to a 2TB SSD to have more space for an eventual expansion of the lightroom catalogue and other stuff.. or maybe keep 1tb and upgrade to 64gb of ram? I'm not fully aware of the Ram usage of lightroom. Right now I can see my GPU is the main bottleneck when exporting hundreds of edited images.

are you talking LR or LRC? I have a M1Max Studio with 64GB, I use the LRC/PS subscription, have honestly not paid that much attention but never noticed RAM issues with LRC, PS on the other hand uses all the RAM.
I use PS rarely, mostly for enhancing scanned slides/film photos, most if not all of the other post processing I do in LRC.

I have a 4TB internal SSD and LRC is lightning fast scrolling thru 1000s of images.

If I were to upgrade, I'd consider a M4Pro Mini, 32GB should be sufficient for LRC and I'd go the 2 TB route if I were in your shoes. But I have no intentions of upgrading for at least another 2 years

Might want to check out this site on RAM usage, I used their migration guide when moving my files/catalogs from my iMac to the Studio ... https://www.lightroomqueen.com/

 

[bradman83]

If you're using Lightroom Classic then you can have your catalogs across multiple drives have you thought about taking the money that would go towards an SSD upgrade and getting a quality Thunderbolt drive enclosure? That could follow you across multiple computers.

 

[UnifiedMelody]

Probably 48-64GB to be safe. At lesat that's 'what i think'... from seeing 36GB m3 max go into yellow zone lol on LR/PS only [no DVR/FCP even]

some have told me to go 128GB ram but it's nearly 900$... to double it lol and barely would come close unless you have 10 programs or more open at once in synergy

 

[chfilm]

are you talking LR or LRC? I have a M1Max Studio with 64GB, I use the LRC/PS subscription, have honestly not paid that much attention but never noticed RAM issues with LRC, PS on the other hand uses all the RAM.
I use PS rarely, mostly for enhancing scanned slides/film photos, most if not all of the other post processing I do in LRC.

I have a 4TB internal SSD and LRC is lightning fast scrolling thru 1000s of images.

If I were to upgrade, I'd consider a M4Pro Mini, 32GB should be sufficient for LRC and I'd go the 2 TB route if I were in your shoes. But I have no intentions of upgrading for at least another 2 years

Might want to check out this site on RAM usage, I used their migration guide when moving my files/catalogs from my iMac to the Studio ... https://www.lightroomqueen.com/

Yeah I’m using LRC. I don’t have my catalogues across multiple drives, just the photos themselves, the catalogue is on the internal drive right now.
I have to probably add that the MacBook is in fact mostly used stationary by my wife for her photo work, so she coooould potentially move the LR catalogue to an external SSD too if that’s considered to be safe..
I feel like yes, the m1max is fast enough for the work she does but honestly when I compare working in lightroom to help her out sometimes and compare that to the experience on my m2ultra, it’s a pretty significant difference. Just the whole UI feels more responsive, and the AI tools are really becoming a burden when applied in mass! That’s why I’m thinking to upgrade while we can still sell the m1max at a decent price you know?

 

[jz0309]

Yeah I’m using LRC. I don’t have my catalogues across multiple drives, just the photos themselves, the catalogue is on the internal drive right now.
I have to probably add that the MacBook is in fact mostly used stationary by my wife for her photo work, so she coooould potentially move the LR catalogue to an external SSD too if that’s considered to be safe..
I feel like yes, the m1max is fast enough for the work she does but honestly when I compare working in lightroom to help her out sometimes and compare that to the experience on my m2ultra, it’s a pretty significant difference. Just the whole UI feels more responsive, and the AI tools are really becoming a burden when applied in mass! That’s why I’m thinking to upgrade while we can still sell the m1max at a decent price you know?

well, if you can tell that your M2Ultra is that much faster, the M4Max will certainly make a bigger impact according to the benchmarks and tests recently here.
As for catalogs spanning multiple drives, I suppose there are people who do so and it seems to work. Me personally, don't want to manage my photos/catalogs across multiple drives, but that's just me. It does come at the cost of larger internal SSDs at Apple's pricing but I'm ok with.