Just got Lightroom - Import Question

[dogmamom]

Being a prolific hobbiest, I just bought Lightroom2 and after reading Scott Kelby's book, I am importing all my photos from ONE folder (with subfolders) to import. Problem is that there are ~~it's okay if you laugh: my family is ~~ 160,000 images (and there are two more external harddrives to go). Organizing some of these photos was a goal but maybe it's a lost cause since after 8 hour of importing and a good night's sleep, it's only 18% done! This could take a week and perhaps it will blow up the software. I had planned on just importing as needed but the Kelby book seemed to indicate to do it all at once, unless I've misunderstood.
Any suggestions? Is there a better way? Do I really have to do it all at once to have it work more smoothly in the long run?

Thanks, Ginny

[dogmamom]

*added problem: none of the sub-folders are showing up. I aborted the import at just under 30k images...all dumped into one folder!
Calling Adobe..

[paulsilkphotography]

If its been set to build previews on import then this would account for the long time as it takes between 30 sec and a min to build a preview. I've never been a fan of lightroom as a DAM program but it is a damn good raw converter.

[ernst]

Ginny,
You don't have to import all folders at once. If importing only several (sub)folders suits you better, that's no problem.
What I am confused about: what is your import method?
To me, it seems that you import the photos into LR2 by copying or moving them to the database. In that case you need an extra hard disk of at least the size you have now.
What I do is to import the photos at their original location. So my original folder structure remains untouched and only the file metadata and previews are in Lightroom. If needed, I can also edit them with other software. In LR2 I can organize them as I want, separately.

With a database as large as yours, to improve performance, you may want to optimize the database (via Edit, Catalog settings, Relaunch and Optimize) once in a while. That will take a lot of time too, but it's worth it. Especially after a lot of editing, adding keywords et cetera.

[dogmamom]

Thank you for the responses.
I don't know what a DAM program is..Googling
As for my import method, hmmm. I just went to "Import Photos from Disk" and clicked on a huge parent folder.
I'm glad to know I don't have to do it all at once! I'll check my catalog settings. I'm having trouble grasping the
Library ideology, so I'm just going to play around with Develop until my patience recovers. Maybe the proverbial lightbulb will go off at some point, then I'll worry about order. Hopefully I won't have caused myself too much grief by then. There isn't enough time in the world for me to deal with all the shots I have anyway. My solution: I deleted the partial monster import
from my HD and am starting over, carefully choosing favorites this time! Again, thanks.