[Leica] Questions about using NAS with LR

[Brian Reid]

> Thanks for the very clear explanation, Brian. I have a simpler
> question. Now that I am beginning to travel more again, I want to work
> on photos when on the road. What I usually do is to create a dedicated
> small LR catalog on my laptop for the photos I do during the trip.
> When I come home, I connect the portable disc to my desktop computer
> and use the “import from another catalog” command in LR to get the
> travel photos into my normal LR catalog.

That is exactly what I do.

> Could I instead synch the main LR catalog to a portable drive, add to
> it and work on it during the trip, and then synch back to the main
> catalog when I return?

Yes but.

It would normally work, but it is a bad idea to separate a LR catalog 
from its images. For this technique to work with 100% safety, you would 
need to sync over not just the main LR catalog but all of the associated 
images. Dropbox will do this reliably as long as you are careful to 
check the Dropbox sync status each time you launch LR, but Dropbox has a 
limit of 3TB for most of its plans and most of those plans are hundreds 
of dollars per year.