Help!! Aperture Library Question

[Buffalo]

Hi

I moved my Aperture library to an external HDD to try and free up some spade on my MBP. In preferences I have shown Aperture where the new library is, but it is not showing any of my images from there when the external HDD is on.

What do i need to do..?

Thanks

[Olf]

Buffalo said:

Hi

I moved my Aperture library to an external HDD to try and free up some spade on my MBP. In preferences I have shown Aperture where the new library is, but it is not showing any of my images from there when the external HDD is on.

What do i need to do..?

Thanks

You may have to give it time. Can take aperture a while to display stuff if it's coming down USB.

Did you check it worked before you deleted the original Lib? Also did you make a back-up vault?

[Buffalo]

Well it seems to be working ok now. I didn't make a back-up vault but i did check that the two libraries were identical before getting rid of the original.

Regarding the back up vault - would the vault file be identical in size to the original..? I was thinking of keeping the original library on my external HDD, but then at a loss where to back up to. I could back-up to the MBP provided the file size is not mental as the whole point of shipping the photos to an external HDD was to give my (now somewhat tiny) 100Gb hard drive a bit of breathing space!

Thanks!

[Olf]

Buffalo said:

Well it seems to be working ok now. I didn't make a back-up vault but i did check that the two libraries were identical before getting rid of the original.

Regarding the back up vault - would the vault file be identical in size to the original..? I was thinking of keeping the original library on my external HDD, but then at a loss where to back up to. I could back-up to the MBP provided the file size is not mental as the whole point of shipping the photos to an external HDD was to give my (now somewhat tiny) 100Gb hard drive a bit of breathing space!

Thanks!

Pretty sure the vault is a good chunk smaller than the operating Library. Will check tomorrow and confirm.

To be honest if your library is that big you probably need to think about starting a new one. I'm going to do a new one every couple of years.

Sounds lke you need to invest in another external drive...

[Buffalo]

It's not *that* large, yet. About 45Gb, but when your hard drive is only 100Gb it starts to add up. I shoot in RAW so the files tend to be abotu 9Mb each - stacks up I suppose.

What are the benefits of having multiple libraries..? I never thought about that before... Jst to limit the chance of losing photos perhaps..? Can Aperture look at multiple libraries at once, or is just a case of having a library from say 2004-06, 2006-08, etc..?

Thanks

[Olf]

The only benefit for you in having multiple libraries would be to keep the size down and thus allowing you to manage it from your computer hD which will be a huge amount quicker than a USB drive.

Here's a good alternative:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=...

Store older master on an external HD drive but keep the thumbnail/previews on your internal HD. That way you get the preview you need, the EXIF data (I think) and if you need to pull an original off you only need to plug in the HD at that point.

I'm a bit nervous posting on this as this stuff is highly sensitive to personal preference and also very costly (in terms of heartache) if it goes wrong. Thats why it sounds to me like you need a backup vault as a failsafe.

[Buffalo]

Olf said:

I'm a bit nervous posting on this as this stuff is highly sensitive to personal preference and also very costly (in terms of heartache) if it goes wrong. Thats why it sounds to me like you need a backup vault as a failsafe.

No it's cool! I realised that i posted this in computers - maybe t would have been better in the photography section? But i was in here reading the Hackintosh chronicles at the time...

I don't know much about this stuff at all and i don't really experiment. I generally learn something on here and then try it for myself. So it is good for me to learn from others that have tried something different and if it works for me that is good; if not then i haven't really lost anything (i hope!!! )

I'll probably back-up vault to DVD if i can. That hopefully will solve that issue, but at the moment the only thing on my 500Gb external HDD is my aperture library, which is fine for the moment. Unfortunately i need the space on the mac to pollute with windows for some programs that won't run on OSX (queue my next question)...

~PHIL