How to Span 'Aperture Library' Across Multiple Volumes

Question

How to Span 'Aperture Library' Across Multiple Volumes

Answer: Create a Symbolic link(s) inside of Aperture's Package to any Folder or Project of your Choice.

1. Open Terminal
2. Change directory into 'Aperture Library.aplibrary/'
3. At desired location within the library, Create a Symbolic Link to a folder.
ln -s Target Alias_Name
4. Open Aperture and drag Folders/Projects from the 'Aperture Library' to the linked-to drive.

(Now because the Library spans across multiple drives, moving projects will take longer.)

I would suggest Using this to link to a Folder. Projects can be moved under this within Aperture. Look at the Folder you linked to, you will see the newly moved / Created / Edited Projects.

If you Link to a Project then be sure to add '.approject' to the end of your link. Be careful... funny things might happen and it could get confusing because symbolic links are moved and not the projects. Deleting a linked Project in Aperture only deletes the Link and not the project. On a positive note, working with a linked Project is exactly the same as working with a Project in the original Aperture Library.

Warning: Do not link to a project in an aperture Library or have the same project appear twice in a Library. Editing one might cause data integrity problems.

Here is a Possible Structure
Aperture Library = ~/Pictures/Aperture Library.aplibrary
Folder and Projects on Drive0 = /Volumes/Drive0/Aperture
Folder and Projects on Drive1 = /Volumes/Drive1/Aperture

Examples for this Structure
cd ~/Pictures/Aperture\ Library.aplibrary/
ln -s /Volumes/Drive0/Aperture Drive0
ln -s /Volumes/Drive1/Aperture Drive1

If the Drive is not mounted then it will appear Grayed out in Aperture. To access a Project on this Drive, first mount it. Aperture will be able to see it without restarting. (But don't click on it until the Drive is mounted, or you might have to restart Aperture to see the Project)

Please Try and Provide Input, but remember... Backup First!!!

PowerMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Posted on Dec 14, 2005 4:59 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 14, 2005 11:12 PM in response to Steve Kirtley1

While acknowledging the urge for unsupported workarounds, I just want to throw a tip in for anyone reading this who is not comfortable doing symlinks in terminal: the supported solution is to make a RAID from two or more of your hard drives, which you can do in Disk Utility without terminal commands... of course a RAID for Aperture would need to be one volume so it would not be "spanning a volume" but certainly would be spanning drives.

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Answer 2

Dec 15, 2005 4:55 AM in response to Jack Burden

Spanning of course is just for people wanting to solve a specific issue that to my knowledge that only this solution can solve. My Aperture Library is currently 108GB. I do have drives 4 times larger then my Aperture Library, and several drives that could be RAIDed to support a Library over 1TB still maintaining redundancy. Thank you for suggesting RAID as I did want comments and suggestions. RAID is safer, unspokenly supported with Aperture, and will most likely not cause any issues. Symbolic Links are supported amazingly well in Mac OS X, and this is one reason why I love it so much and switched to Apple. I use it for my iTunes Library, Apache, and many more. Now Symbolic Links can be a solution for someone looking for a Larger drive to hold the entire Aperture Library's contents. (note Symbolic Links can be a little different then an Alias which does not require using the Terminal, but did not seem to work in this solution.)

But My Issue is that a RAID drive is not portable. My large 500GB Drive (as small as they come) still requires a power brick and I do not want to carry that around with my Laptop on jobs. I could have a different Aperture Library for the Laptop, but time would have to be taken to Export and Import the Projects before and then after they are edited.

Here is how I believe that spanning with Symbolic Links are the best known solution for the previous mentioned dilemma. Spoiler below:)

I could take an Aperture Library small enough to fit on a Thumb Drive (or very small that it could be Synced or Copied quickly and easily). This drive is where all of my computers would point Aperture to so there would be no need to change the library location at every startup. What the application decides to write to the Aperture Library would always stay up to date. Inside this 'Aperture Library.aplibrary' there would be links to Aperture Folders on external drives. Example: /Volumes/Drive0/Aperture could mount the same drive on multiple computers without any problem. Apple Supports symbolic links and it works great in this solution.

So with this setup I could be using Aperture on my G5 PowerMac with a large external hard drive for most of my projects, and a small portable drive (80GB) for my projects that I want to take with me on the road. When I hook this portable drive up to my laptop, I will then be able to access, add to, and edit these projects. Aperture still works wonderful, and the only downside is that the project you don't want to work with are grayed out. They are still at home and are not taking up precious space or time. Not so much of a downside when you think about it.

And this is what is even better!!! When you come back to your main computer and plug that portable drive back in, then all of your Projects are easily accessable just like they would be using Aperture's original setup. It is just that now all projects are up to date and there is no need to export and import to get everything back to how it should be. This is a Wonderful thing!

Plus Aperture's Vaults are great ways to backup the entire library before heading out on the road. The road would be where the greatest chance of loosing your data would be.

I hope this helps clarify to some people how well this can work, and possibly it will be a solution for those who are in dire need for a more portable Aperture Library.

PowerMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.3)

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Answer 3

Rupp2758

Level 1

38 points

Dec 15, 2005 12:51 PM in response to Jack Burden

RAID is certainly a decent idea. My problem, though, is that unless I invest in an x-serve RAID, the only truly native Mac RAID is in OS X. To achieve a bigger volume, you need to stripe (RAID 0). One disk goes, so does library. Same for backing up to a RAID, which I am doing. Again, higher risk of disc failure resulting in data loss. It would be nice if OS X RAID could handle striping and mirroring of multiple disks. If Aperture ever gets good enough to use seriously, I might consider an x-serve raid to use RAID 5.

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Answer 4

Dec 16, 2005 3:56 AM in response to Steve Kirtley1

I would like to provide some additional details about using the Vault to Backup Data with the previous mentioned workaround. It does still backup items in the main library, but when it reaches the Symbolic Link, then it currently appears that only that link is backed up. It treats it like a file and maintains exactly what it is. It does not backup what it points to.

The solution: There are other backup clients that will do this. To list an example Chronosync: http://www.econtechnologies.com/site/Pages/ChronoSync/chrono_overview.html should do a good job at this. And of Course manualy backing up will work too. I know that many people will not keep originals in Aperture yet so this will not be a problem. However I am one that was using the Vault. So now I am sure that I can find a better way. ChronoSync will work on a schedule so this also resolved problem people had when they are required to active Aperture's Vault Backup and Wait until it was done.

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Answer 5

Dec 16, 2005 10:46 PM in response to Steve Kirtley1

Steve -

Thanks for the extra perspective on your strategy. I am in fact a big user of ln -s over the years, mainly to relocate originals into one directory for easy backup, so I'm sure I'll monkey with this at some point.

As to those who criticize RAID 0, think about it this way for a minute.... If you rely on the higher recoverability of a non-RAIDed volume, you're still thinking wrong, because recovering a failed non-RAID volume is not guaranteed, and it can cost thousands of $$ to recover just one drive from a first-rate recovery company, so the obvious solution is that you must keep a live back up at all time, e.g. a vault. Furthermore that means that with Aperture you must always keep 2x the storage space you intend to use at all times -- regardless of RAID or not. So if you are going to use RAID 0, you need to own a minimum of 4 drives (2 for the working volume and 2 for the vault).... If you were going to span your library across 4 drives without RAID, you will still need to own four drives (2 for backup and 2 for vault). Using RAID properly does not change the risk profile in any inappropriate way or provide any major disadvantage, if we assume that a person not using RAID is operating in a safe manner for an apples-to-apples comparison.

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Answer 6

Dec 16, 2005 11:49 PM in response to Jack Burden

Just a warning here.

RAID0 should only be used when you need maximum speed or you need some big storage to apear a one volume.

The risk of a RAID0 volume of say four disk is four times as big a single volumen as using four disk that does not distribute data. In RAID0 one disk failure will make all of your data corrupt, whereas the four disk setup one disk crash preserves the data of the other three disks. And the there is the restore time, in the RAID0 case you need to restore all data, in the four volume setup you need only restore 1/4 of the data, making it about four times as fast to recover.

To sum it up, use RAID0 for speed only. If you want to do RAIDs in a Aperture setup, i'll recommend that you use a RAID system were you can survier a disk failure.

- Per.

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Answer 7

Ian Wood

Level 5

4,350 points

Dec 17, 2005 1:34 AM in response to Jack Burden

Furthermore that means that with Aperture you must
always keep 2x the storage space you intend to use at
all times -- regardless of RAID or not.

And regardless of the use of Aperture or not - recreating a large collection of images back onto HDs from DVDs or tape just isn't pretty... I generally don't feel happy until files are duplicated on at least two physical HDs and not safe until it's on at least two DVDs or tapes.

'There are two types of backup - multiple and none at all.'

Ian

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Answer 8

Dec 17, 2005 4:55 AM in response to Rupp2758

RAID is certainly a decent idea. My problem, though,
is that unless I invest in an x-serve RAID, the only
truly native Mac RAID is in OS X. To achieve a bigger
volume, you need to stripe (RAID 0). One disk goes,
so does library. Same for backing up to a RAID, which
I am doing. Again, higher risk of disc failure
resulting in data loss. It would be nice if OS X RAID
could handle striping and mirroring of multiple
disks. If Aperture ever gets good enough to use
seriously, I might consider an x-serve raid to use
RAID 5.

X-Serve RAID is not the only native hardware RAID available for the mac. I have a hot-swappable hardware RAID5* with a terabyte of storage (and the ability to rebuild damaged drives automatically). Total cost less than $1500.

Get an empty Burly Case:
http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/sata/hotswapsatakits.php

A hardware SyncRAID controller:
http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/RAID/SyncRAID.php

And then wait for drives to go on sale somewhere. Then you're set to store a terabyte of Aperture Libraries or Vaults on a RAID5 with hot-swappable drives.

*Yes I know... the SyncRAID card does RAIDXL their marking speak for a RAID3/RAID5 combo.

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Answer 9

Dec 17, 2005 8:46 AM in response to Jack Burden

The 2x requirement for RAID and for backup is an interesting point, Jack. But my biggest argument against RAID 0 is that it's twice as likely to fail. With good backup, that failure isn't necessarily catastrophic, but it isn't going to be a 'rebuild in the background while still keeping all your files available in real time' either. If you're going with a four drive solution, maybe you can think RAID 10. Then, of course, you're going to need another two drives for off-site backup. 🙂

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