Synchronising Lightroom 3 catalogue between Mac and Laptop?

[deepspring]

I have a large Lightroom 3 catalogue that I need to synchronise between a Mac and a PC Laptop, and I need to keep them both up to date. This is so I can take the Laptop on site with me, so I can work on images and synchronise them back into my main catalogue on the Mac when I get back into the office. It is also to serve as a backup for the main catalogue on the Mac.

I was wondering how I go about doing it properly and quickly without corrupting one or the other catalogue, or loosing files in the process?

My current procedure is as follows...

Backing up Main Catalogue
1. On Mac, select everything in the catalogue
2. Export as a new catalogue to an external drive
3. Connect external drive to Laptop
4. On Laptop, in Lightroom: File > Import from Catalogue

Synchronising Laptop with Main Catalogue
1. On Laptop, select everything in the catalogue
2. Export as a new catalogue to an external drive
3. Connect external drive to Mac
4. On Mac, in Lightroom: File > Import from Catalogue

We have two external drives we use. One is setup as a "time machine" in OSX (snow leopard) which is connected to the Mac 24/7 and acts as the main backup device. We also have a smaller portable drive that we use to synchronise the Mac and Laptop.

[jdepould]

Do you just have the catalogue on the laptop set up as a temp working catalogue? I wouldn't duplicate the catalogue completely across both machines, especially when you've got a time machine volume.

Assuming the portable drive is USB? I use FW portable drives, and I'll just create a clean temporary catalogue on the external, then import that when I'm done. Removes the export process. A USB drive may be too slow to work from though.

[deepspring]

Originally Posted by jdepould

Do you just have the catalogue on the laptop set up as a temp working catalogue? I wouldn't duplicate the catalogue completely across both machines, especially when you've got a time machine volume.

Assuming the portable drive is USB? I use FW portable drives, and I'll just create a clean temporary catalogue on the external, then import that when I'm done. Removes the export process. A USB drive may be too slow to work from though.

The catalogue on the laptop is a direct export of the main catalogue. The main reason we want to have the main catalogue backed up to the laptop is to act as a third emergency backup just in case the Mac and the time machine ever go down. The laptop is considered the off-site backup source in our backup plan, as the boss takes it home with him.

The time machine (an external WD 1TB drive) and the external drive are both USB, which makes them painfully slow to backup to, and restore from.

[jdepould]

If it were a Mac laptop, you could just boot it to target disk mode, and import the catalogue straight from the internal drive, but it looks like the system you're using is the best you're going to get with the current equipment.