Aperture backup question

Question

Aperture backup question

I have been spending the last 3 days migrating from iPhoto to Aperture. I left the 15k photos I had in the iPhoto Library and have referenced them via Aperture. I have spent multiple hours organizing the Projects and Folders in Aperture so I finally have a hierarchy that makes sense. Here are my questions:
1) Should I have moved the Library from iPhoto to Aperture? What are the pro's/cons to that move? I left them in iPhoto because my wife likes that application and I want to make sure she can easily view photos, but will move them to Aperture if it resolves question #2.
2) How do I make sure that if my system crashes I do not have to reorganize all the Projects and Folders again? I back up my iPhoto Library, but how do I make sure my hierarchy is not lost? Will simply backing up the Aperture Library cover me, or do I need to do something else to make sure I do not need to go through this again?

Posted on Sep 10, 2007 2:18 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

tidysteve

Level 4

2,975 points

Sep 10, 2007 2:25 PM in response to John Williams6

as far as backup ...

the built in vault is great for back up but only works on a managed system with aperture ...

what you will need to do is to get an additional external drive ... and a copy of superduper, or carboncopycloner, or retrospect ...

anyone of those three will handle the backups, plus allow you to schedule them so you can, "set it, and forget it" ...

you will also want to backup the aperture library file as it contains all the "directions" for image adjustment ...

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Answer 2

Sep 10, 2007 4:38 PM in response to John Williams6

As I understand it, iPhoto now saves all of its photos in a Package, instead of individual photos. That means that, if you add a photo or two (or more), when you do a backup, the backup software will consider the entire library to have changed, and then will back up this single large Package file. I don't believe that is the case if you store the photos in Aperture. that seems to be a big "con" for using iPhoto ...

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Answer 3

jrg_uk

Level 3

720 points

Sep 11, 2007 5:22 AM in response to Russell Menko1

Well, SuperDuper definitely doesn't treat a bundle/package file as one big file.

Nor will anything operating at the "Unix" level.

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Answer 4

Sep 11, 2007 8:49 AM in response to tidysteve

"you will also want to backup the aperture library file as it contains all the "directions" for image adjustment ..."

Does this mean that it will also back up the "structure/hierarchy" even if the photos are in the iPhoto library? I am terrified of losing all the organizational work I have been doing. I am backing up the Aperture Library as part of my back up, but nto sure if it is actually protecting the hierachy since the photos are not in it.

Is SuperDuper that much better than the Apple "Backup" program?

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Answer 5

tidysteve

Level 4

2,975 points

Sep 11, 2007 10:16 AM in response to John Williams6

find your aperture library package and right-click on it "show package contents" ...

you should see your hierarchy, along with small files to point to master, thumbs, etc, etc ...

if your library package gets backed up you are covered from that aspect ...

and yes, imho, superduper is that much better ...

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