Moving images to NAS

[nbagno]

Not that I've moved to a Mac studio, I have to deal with some realities such as Imatch only running on a pc. Because I have a couple of other programs that are PC only, I will need to have a PC on my network. I
m going to get something small and stick it in my network shelf. I plan on using Teamviewer to access these programs. I lost my entire database several years ago and had to re-do all of my categories so I don't want that to happen again. My thought as a first step is to keep my PC running and move my image data to the NAS then once that has taken place and my existing copy of Imatch is happy, then I can migrate Imatch to a new PC.

My NAS already has some images indexed by IMatch so my thought was to simply create a child folder under the NAS in Imatch Media & Folders view and drag the complete folder containing my images to the NAS. Is that the right approach? Can I just drag and they will move or will they be copied?

[Mees Dekker]

In theory, this is indeed possible.

However, I noticed on several occasions that moving an entire folder (with subfolders) form a pc-harddisk to a NAS, takes a loooong time. Even worse: sometimes Imatch freezes completely and had to be killed through the task manager. This especially happens when you have folders with lots of images and subfolders. In these cases the new folders on your NAS have to be rescanned and you loose all categories etc.

More secure workflow:  manually create empty folders (with the same name) on your NAS, then select all (and only) the images on your pc and move them to the manually created folder on your NAS. Repeat for every (sub-) folder. Although it involves (a lot) more manual work, it is a better way.

Second option: close IMatch. Move all the folders to your NAS by Windows Explorer and then use relocate in Imatch.

And make sure that you have a copy of your database (IMatch P&G will do this). If all fails, you can move your images back to the original place on your pc and then restore the database using IMatch P&G.

Good luck.

[Mario]

IMatch moves folders and files using built-in services provided by Windows.
If Windows reports success (and it can fail at any time, especially if networks, SAMBA on the NAS etc. are involved), IMatch has to relocate all files and folders, update metadata to match etc.
If you do this with 50K files in one go, something might fail. If it fails, in my experience, it is usually something in the file system or the SAMBA installation on the NAS that fails for some reason.
The NAS runs some sort of Linux which runs some sort of SAMBA which simulates a Windows file server so your NAS is accessible from Windows. Usually works, sometimes fails under stress or prolonged load (like, copying many files and folders).

I would do this in smaller batches. Or, reduce complexity and potential failure points by taking IMatch out of the loop.
Close it, move the files and folders to the NAS, then reopen IMatch and relocate. See Off-line Folders and Files
Make a BACKUP of your database before you start. This way, if something goes wrong or you relocate wrong, you can always restore the database from the backup and start over.

[Jingo]

I haven't done it in a very long time - but I have successfully run IMatch on a Mac using Parallels in the past... if you search here, you will find my setup and details... granted, this was 6+ years ago!

[Mario]

(...)under the NAS in Imatch Media & Folders view and drag the complete folder containing my images to the NAS. Is that the right approach? Can I just drag and they will move or will they be copied?

IMatch works like Windows Explorer. If you just drag a folder, it will be moved (and all files). If you hold down CTRL while dragging, it will copy the folder.
See Moving and Copying Folders in the Media & Folders help topic for details.

[nbagno]

I haven't done it in a very long time - but I have successfully run IMatch on a Mac using Parallels in the past... if you search here, you will find my setup and details... granted, this was 6+ years ago!

I'm considering that. I have to have a PC regardless. I do have Parallels already installed, so I might just see how IMatch performs for me on a VM. Either way, I should be covered.

Thanks

[nbagno]

Thanks for the responses. I have just over 20K images, many of which are large high-resolution film scans with file sizes from 300-900+ mb. I'll do it in smaller chunks.  Thanks for all of the feedback.

Ned

[nbagno]

IMatch moves folders and files using built-in services provided by Windows.
If Windows reports success (and it can fail at any time, especially if networks, SAMBA on the NAS etc. are involved), IMatch has to relocate all files and folders, update metadata to match etc.
If you do this with 50K files in one go, something might fail. If it fails, in my experience, it is usually something in the file system or the SAMBA installation on the NAS that fails for some reason.
The NAS runs some sort of Linux which runs some sort of SAMBA which simulates a Windows file server so your NAS is accessible from Windows. Usually works, sometimes fails under stress or prolonged load (like, copying many files and folders).

I would do this in smaller batches. Or, reduce complexity and potential failure points by taking IMatch out of the loop.
Close it, move the files and folders to the NAS, then reopen IMatch and relocate. See Off-line Folders and Files
Make a BACKUP of your database before you start. This way, if something goes wrong or you relocate wrong, you can always restore the database from the backup and start over.

Hi Mario, I noticed you said move instead of copy images to the NAS. If I move images and something fails, won't I have a messy situation with some images on the NAS and some on the PC? Maybe that won't be an issue with the relocate command, it would just be that relocate will find the moved images, and the remaining on the PC will be as they were?

Ned

[Mario]

If the move fails halfway you will have the not moved files still in the old place. And the newly moved files in the new place.
Moving 1GB-sized files over a network is stressful as it is. I have seen NAS boxes fail, networks fail, SAMBA fail.
Always verify the files after copying, e.g. using a checksum to notice when bits have flipped or anything.

I would do it with RoboCopy or maybe Windows Explorer, and then just relocate the top-level folder(s) in IMatch.

[Carlo Didier]

I haven't done it in a very long time - but I have successfully run IMatch on a Mac using Parallels in the past... if you search here, you will find my setup and details... granted, this was 6+ years ago!

I'm considering that. I have to have a PC regardless. I do have Parallels already installed, so I might just see how IMatch performs for me on a VM. Either way, I should be covered.

Thanks

As far as I know, the current version of Parallels does not yet support the processor extensions needed by the latest iMatch versions.

[Mario]

And there is the M1 chip...