[digiKam-users] Advice on Digikam (multi-client) setup

[Herman Slotenmaker]

Dear all,

I have been reading this list for a while now. Time to ask a few
questions myself.

I've been using Digikam for a few years. My requirements are not that
big. I need to be able to catalog, asses, rate and export my pictures.
All jpeg for now. I do my rating using the the 5-star system. Mostly
for determining which pictures to send to the print-shop (export). My
wife loves old fashioned photo-books. As the database grows larger
(56.000 pictures and counting) more advanced functions (date,
similarity and recognotion) are highly appreciated.

Situation:
A large collection (55k+) jpegs sits on Synology NAS. Shared network
drive on the family home PC with local installation of Digikam. Works
fine. Not extremely fast, but usable.
I also use photostation/DS Photo (synology) for file upload and quick browing.

What I need:
I need multiple Digikam-clients to be able to access the same files
and share the metadata. I spent days this summer trying to find the
optimal setup (use until now this was mostly occasional), but haven't
found it.

I migrated to a database on my NAS, using MariaDB, but that setup was
not fast enough to be workable.  Maybe now I upgraded router and
swiches this has improved, but the second problem was that every
change in setup ended in a very slow proces of many hours "rescanning"
the database.

So I need some advice on the optimal setup:

- would it be necessary/advisable to split large collection in
multiple collections?
- Can MariaDB on a NAS (Synology DS218play) be fast enough?
- would it be possible to store catalogs on Onedrive, dropbox or
synology drive and then use multiple clients (just not simultaneously)
as if they were part of a local single client setup?
- For performance-reasons, where to store matadata: In the file, in
xmp sidecar-files of in the catalog? Or…
- How can the ratings (5-star-system) be shared with Synology Photostation?
- Should I add the network drive as  local collection ("Z:\photos\" or
network share "\\Diskstation\photo's")
- Any other considerations when accessing files on a network share (SMB/CIFS)?
- Any other suggestions for not ending in endless "rescanning of
database" on startup?

Thanks in advance,
HermanS