Call for Referenced vs. Managed Definitive Opinions

Hi all...

I would like to solicit opinions from experienced Aperture users with large, mature libraries, referenced or managed.

My goal is to develop a singular and final well-considered opinion on the pros and cons of each method. Please no conjecture, only facts that you are able to discuss and results that are real and repeatable.

First I will explain my current personal position on this discussion and why. Next I will layout my current understanding of the pros and cons of each method. Hopefully facts will arise out of this exchange of ideas that are not currently in my understanding.

While I do remember an uproar that occurred during Aperture v1 with people worried about the wisdom of entrusting their photos to the Aperture managed library system. The reasoning, if I recall correctly was that people were concerned with the idea of some closed, proprietary monolithic file format that they could not be easily accessed outside of Aperture. They made their dissatisfaction with the managed method clear, and expressed a desire to maintain their files themselves, in Finder-readable format, and access them via reference in Aperture.

There was no discussion or defense of the attributes of managed method from Apple, or an explanation that the managed Library was not a proprietary format, just a delivery of the referenced method in response to user complaints.

To be honest, when the feature of referencing masters became available, I read all the info from Apple and the user feedback. I then realized that to convert from managed to referenced for me at that juncture was too long of a task, with a payback that was of dubious value to me at the time, so I just remained with the Aperture managed Library System.

I have not had any real problems using the managed method. I have had my share of file issues like missing previews or permissions problems, but the fixes have all come through Aperture's rebuild system. I have not experienced an unreadable or unusable Library, although I have read about those who have had this problem. It is my opinion that the victims of these problems did not maintain their data as I do, and the problems arose out of heavy fragmentation finally culminating in file/directory mismatch and ultimately file/Library corruption.

I hope everyone by now understands that the Managed Aperture Library is not a closed, proprietary, monolithic system. It is simply a container holding a full hierarchy of Finder-readable files, with your masters organized in their own folder labeled "Masters" in a simple day-date-time format.

The Aperture Managed Library is nothing but a FOLDER, with special attributes. Instead of simply opening in response to a double-click, this folder initiates the FOLDER ACTION of launching its connected application, and instructing said application to read the contents of the folder.

This folder action is bypassed if the user right-clicks on the Aperture Library, selects "Open Package Contents" from the menu, and Viola! the folder opens, revealing the entire contents of the Aperture Library in Finder readable form. Now you obviously do not want to move or delete anything within the managed folder (after all, you did ask Aperture to manage it), just copy files out of there if you need them.

To my mind, at this point in the discussion, pure managed Library operation offers the following:

PROS
1) Single control location for all my Aperture data. I cannot lose any pieces as I could in referenced operation.

2) Simple, single operation to copy, defrag and maintain.

3) Vaults system within Aperture provide me a simple way of making fast archive backups to multiple locations.

4) Vaults also provide a safety net, trapping deleted masters in the event I did not want to have deleted them.

CONS
1) Masters are not Finder-accessible by other applications.

2) User cannot choose the storage hierarchy design of the master files

3) User cannot maintain a library on a relatively small storage medium, like a laptop for easy portability, and access to Library previews for slideshows and Media Browser use in other apps.

Pure referenced Library operation offers the following:

PROS
1) User can maintain a Library on a laptop, and organize images without being connected to large storage for the master files, with the exception of editing.

2) User gets to determine where and how master files are stored and maintained on disk(s).

3) Very large files, like long format video can be stored offline, and only brought online when needed by Aperture, preventing Aperture library from getting excessively large.

CONS
1) Users are completely responsible for maintaining storage of the Masters. Master files can get misplaced or lost if user makes a mistake in managing them.

2) All files are not in a single location making defragmentation, copying and backup of the media they are stored on more complex.

3) Masters are subject to editing by other programs, possibly changing their content, and therefore changing work done in Aperture, possibly rendering work done in Aperture useless.

The preceding points are my understanding of the two methods at this point in time.

For me, a managed Library is the way to go because it is self-contained. I cannot risk having Masters changed or lost through simple human error. In Aperture, the Master is the basis of all image manipulation. Aperture does not edit the master, but treats if like an original negative, only adding adjustment recipes referencing its content. If the master itself was to get manipulated by another program, the reference Aperture counts on as being unchanged would be invalidated, and the previous adjustment recipes within Aperture would be wrong.
In a Managed system, it is on the same media, and can be maintained simply. Complex storage schemes are prone to human error. In managed, all copies of the Library contain all the data required. Backups and media maintenance are greatly simplified.

I did some experiments taking referenced masters and storing them into a read-only disk image format. Obviously, this requires a bit more work upfront that the user would have to handle themselves, since Aperture knows nothing of creating this kind of storage. It also would require the user maintain the editable hierarchies of masters so they can be added to at any time. There is also a significant amount of time spent in Disk Utility, writing these massive read-only images, and the user would have to open the image files to make the masters available to Aperture when they needed to import or edit, which is also very time consuming.

This said, this method solved 2 problems for me:

1) The masters themselves can never be edited, moved individually, lost, or corrupted as they are read-only, so it removes the problem of possible destructive editing or deletion.

2) The building of a read-only volume in a disk image makes an unfragmented copy of the Master's data. They will never run the risk of fragmentation because the volume is read-only.

While that did make a case for referencing, it did not provide a performance increase over Managed, and actually took a great deal more effort to do than the maintenance of the Managed Libraries, that typically occur unattended at night.

As far as retrieving masters from a managed library, it was simple given the day-date-time hierarchy employed by Aperture internally. Once on the date, I just selected the file(s) by name, and copied them out, no problem.

OK, now I would like to hear from others who have have opinions regarding either method of storage, especially if they have found advantages or disadvantages of which I am not as yet aware.

Sincerely,

K.J Doyle