Splitting the database

[Daniel Bauer]

Am 30.10.25 um 01:03 schrieb digikam at sritch.com:
> My current setup is:
> 
> - DK 8.8.0 appimage with the db on the laptop and all the photos on an usb external drive.
> - SQLite db.
> - I currently have have over 50k images and only 8k to 10k are to be keepers.
> - Every image has a corresponding XMP.
> - I use DK only for the DAM functionality. I use Darktable and ART
>    for editing the photos.
> 
> I just bought a second internal SSD (2tb) for my laptop.
> 
> I want to split my images between the 2 drives:
> - The keepers to go to the 2nd internal SSD.
> - The others to stay on the external USB drive.
> 
> What's the better option?
> 
> a: 1 single database: 2 albums.
> 
> One album for the keepers (always online) and another album for the
> others, rarely online. Any change to the 'non-keepers', like keywords
> or labels, and I would have to connect to external USB (not too often).
> 
>   b: 2 databases with 2 different desktop shortcuts with
> --database-directory <dir> and --config <config>

My 2 cents:

it really depends on what you need, how you work, how much you interact 
with both collections, how much you must know about one collection, 
while working with the other, on the sizes of the collections, etc.

In principle Giles is right, of course. You have all in one place, 
everything is searchable at the same place, you can move files from one 
collection to the other and this will be reflected in the database.

On the other hand, you will have, for example, one huge thumbnails file 
for both collections, you will also have the album trees of both 
collections in the album view and you will see the thumbnails, even when 
the according collection is not connected at that moment.

In my specific case two databases were more practical:
when traveling
- I have the most recent images on my laptop, those are the ones I 
usually work with
- I have a huge external USB-Disk with the complete archive, just in 
case I need to check something or use an image from there, which only 
happens from time to time

I first had both collections in the same databases on the laptop, but 
that made, for example, the backups very large, because the huge 
databases, especially the thumbnails, always had to be backed up, 
although the thumbs of the external collection rarely changed but took 
the by far greater amount of bites and time... Also there was much more 
scrolling and in the looong album tree it was not always clear, if I was 
accessing an a "local" or "USB"-collection.

So I use (for this specific situation) two separate databases, thumbnail 
files etc., for the small working collection on the laptop, for the huge 
"just-in-case"-collection on the external drive.

So, in my eyes, the answer is not simply yes/no, it depends, although 
probably the "one for all" fits in most cases.

(I have "Monitor the Albums for External Changes" always on anyway, 
because I do a lot in the file manager, GIMP etc.)

-- 
Daniel Bauer photographer Basel Málaga
Twitter: @Marsfotografo (often explicit nudes)
https://www.patreon.com/danielbauer
https://www.daniel-bauer.com (nudes)