A user of Adobe Lightroom Classic on a MacBook Pro M3 reports a sluggish and delayed experience when browsing and editing RAW photos stored on a Synology NAS over a 1Gbps network.

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    "summary": "A user of Adobe Lightroom Classic on a MacBook Pro M3 reports a sluggish and delayed experience when browsing and editing RAW photos stored on a Synology NAS over a 1Gbps network.",
    "category": "integration",
    "comments": [
      {
        "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/1wqlmv9/comment/pc5rvf4/",
        "depth": 0,
        "score": 7,
        "author": "gadget-freak",
        "excerpt": "You should change your workflow. Your active project on the SSD. Archive on the NAS. Backup of the NAS on another NAS.\n\n Also there’s another feature in lightroom called “smart previews” that should speed up things considerably if you can’t fully work on SSD.",
        "posted_at": "2026-09-26T12:35:27.000Z",
        "author_url": "https://www.reddit.com/user/gadget-freak/"
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      {
        "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/1wqlmv9/comment/pc538pj/",
        "depth": 0,
        "score": 4,
        "author": "EducationalCod7514",
        "excerpt": "You have two bottlenecks.\n\n 1Gbps only (the lesser one)\n\n Spinning disks\n\n I use a full 10Gbps network with a 923 with 10Gbps module, also ,four ironwolfs.\n\n The delay is not that big but it's still there the first time only, it's the nature of seek times of hard drives and going from one file to the next.\n\n There's no point to invest in nvme cache because that'll get used up quick but you might g",
        "posted_at": "2026-09-26T09:39:12.000Z",
        "author_url": "https://www.reddit.com/user/EducationalCod7514/"
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      {
        "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/1wqlmv9/comment/pc5igmq/",
        "depth": 0,
        "score": 4,
        "author": "mrdungbeetle",
        "excerpt": "Had the same frustration. My workflow now is to upload to my Mac's local SSD for the initial culling process. When I'm done going through an upload I move it to the NAS for long term storage. I maintain at least one other copy (normally the original SD card) until its on the NAS.",
        "posted_at": "2026-09-26T11:37:49.000Z",
        "author_url": "https://www.reddit.com/user/mrdungbeetle/"
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      {
        "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/1wqlmv9/comment/pc71omw/",
        "depth": 0,
        "score": 3,
        "author": "jaredearle",
        "excerpt": "I found that when I upgraded my NAS to 10GbE, it was no longer a problem for me.\n\n I used a Synology NAS with eight drives in it and it was then fast enough for Lightroom on my Mac Studio.\n\n 1GbE simply isn’t fast enough for raw photos.",
        "posted_at": "2026-09-26T16:18:54.000Z",
        "author_url": "https://www.reddit.com/user/jaredearle/"
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      {
        "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/1wqlmv9/comment/pc524zp/",
        "depth": 0,
        "score": 3,
        "author": "Icy_Coffee374",
        "excerpt": "Stop using SMB, and start using the Synology Drive client.\n\n Then, the photos are locally stored on your computer, but also synced to the Synology. When you're done, right click the files in Finder and use the free up space button, which removes the local copy (it's still visible in Finder with a cloudl icon).\n\n If you ever try to use the file again, the Drive client will just re-download it to yo",
        "posted_at": "2026-09-26T09:29:45.000Z",
        "author_url": "https://www.reddit.com/user/Icy_Coffee374/"
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      {
        "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/1wqlmv9/comment/pc516te/",
        "depth": 0,
        "score": 2,
        "author": "IceStormNG",
        "excerpt": "I do not use lightroom myself, however: Is your Mac also connected via Ethernet or using WiFi? SMB runs much smoother wired than wireless, because of network latency. It doesn't help that Apple's SMB implementation is kinda buggy sometimes, though that is usually rarely a problem with performance and more with stability.\n\n 1Gbps is 125MB/s (including overhead). If your RAW files are 50MB per Image",
        "posted_at": "2026-09-26T09:21:29.000Z",
        "author_url": "https://www.reddit.com/user/IceStormNG/"
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      {
        "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/1wqlmv9/comment/pc5t38g/",
        "depth": 0,
        "score": 2,
        "author": "sulev",
        "excerpt": "Build all previews BEFORE editing.",
        "posted_at": "2026-09-26T12:42:26.000Z",
        "author_url": "https://www.reddit.com/user/sulev/"
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      {
        "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/1wqlmv9/comment/pc6da5q/",
        "depth": 0,
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        "author": "joe_attaboy",
        "excerpt": "Just wondering how mu RAM you have in the 918+.\n\n I have the same device. I'm not doing Lightroom or anything very heavy, but one of the first changes I made when I got this thing was to double the 8 GB of RAM. That change made the performance much snappier.",
        "posted_at": "2026-09-26T14:26:32.000Z",
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      "[post] I’m using Lightroom Classic on a MacBook Pro M3.",
      "[post] The problem is that when I’m in Lightroom and move from one photo to the next, there is a noticeable delay before the next image is displayed. It feels quite sluggish when browsing through a large number of RAW files.",
      "[post] I’m not sure whether Lightroom is waiting for the RAW file to load each time"
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    "post_date": "2026-09-26T08:52:15.000Z",
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    "post_text": "I’m using Lightroom Classic on a MacBook Pro M3.\n\nMy setup is:\n\nMacBook Pro 16 M3 → Lightroom Classic catalog stored locally on the Mac\n\nSynology DS918+ → all my original RAW photos are stored on the NAS (4xSeagate IronWolf Pro 12 TB)\n\nThe Mac accesses the photos over the network\n\nThe problem is that when I’m in Lightroom and move from one photo to the next, there is a noticeable delay before the next image is displayed. It feels quite sluggish when browsing through a large number of RAW files.\n\nThe Lightroom catalog itself is on the MacBook, so I’m wondering whether the DS918+ / network connection (1 Gbps via Ethernet) is the bottleneck, rather than the Mac or Lightroom.\n\nI mainly photograph wildlife, so I often have to go through hundreds or thousands of RAW files and quickly move between images. The delay becomes quite annoying.\n\nThe questions I’m trying to figure out are:\n\nIs the DS918+ simply too slow for this kind of Lightroom workflow?\n\nCould the issue be mainly due to the network connection (I’m not sure whether Lightroom is waiting for the RAW file to load each time)?\n\nWould keeping the RAW files on a local SSD make a significant difference?\n\nIs there a better Lightroom Classic setup where the catalog stays on the Mac but the originals remain on the NAS?\n\nI’d be interested to hear from people using Lightroom Classic + Synology NAS, especially with a large RAW...",
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    "post_title": "Lightroom Classic is slow moving from one photo to the next and editing - is my Synology the bottleneck?",
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