Is it possible to exclude thumbnails and previews from a vault?

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Is it possible to exclude thumbnails and previews from a vault?

I think in Aperture 1.5, vaults did not include any preview or thumbnail files, but only the files containing metadata, adjustments etc. (and the masters, unless referenced only)

Somewhere along the way to 3.0 this changed so now previews and thumbnails are backed up each time you update your vault.

This has two BIG drawbacks:

- the vault becomes much larger than necessary (I always generate large previews)

- the update process takes much longer as more files need to be copied.

On the other hand, I do not see any tangible benefit of including the extra files - provided I back up both masters and the adjustments, I should be able to regenerate thumbnails and previews after a restore following, say, a fatal hard drive error.

(If I chose to delete all previews and thumbnails prior to creating a vault, I assume that the vault would be significantly smaller, without losing any information that cannot be recreated by 'generate thumbnail/preview')

Is my understanding correct?

If so, is there a way around it?

If not, can we please have this option in Aperture 3.5 or 4.0?

Thank you!

Aperture 3, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Aug 16, 2011 2:26 PM

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Answer 1

Aug 16, 2011 7:14 PM in response to MattBerlin

Hi Matt. You raise an interesting point. What you say makes sense to me.

My general response is: external drives are cheap. Buy what you need and don't spend any time trying to "save" disk space. IME, the administrative overhead is far more costly than the upfront equipment costs.

Here are some specific answers (as I understand how Apeture uses Vaults).

There is no way to exclude Previews from Vaults. Each Vault includes all extant Previews.

Each Vault is a differential back-up. Updating the Vault should update only those files that have been added, changed, or deleted. Unchanged files -- including Previews -- are not backed up anew each time you update a Vault. The amount of time it takes to update a Vault will vary based on the number of changes made, and should have nothing to do with the size of the Library or the number of files in it.

You can test your hypothesis. Delete all your Previews, and create a new Vault. Let us know what you find out.

Suggestions for enhancements should be made directly to Apple via "Aperture→Provide Aperture Feedback". The forum is -- officially -- strictly for user-to-user interaction.

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