How can I transfer / migrate / copy a 1.5TB Managed Aperture Library from one external HD to another?

Moving a Managed Library is very easy.

MAKE BACKUP FIRST, then:

-- Copy it.

-- Open Aperture and tell it to look at the new Library.

-- Delete old Library once you are happy.

That said, I have seen lots and lots and lots of posts about people being dreadfully unhappy with Aperture on a Drobo.

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DiploStrat 😉

Good luck! It is not a single file, but rather thousands of 'em.

Sorry I can't help as I don't own a Drobo and my Library is only about 150 GB.

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DiploStrat 😉

Number of Masters is not a problem with either Aperture or the OS, at least within the range I've looked into. I tested a Library with over 400,000 Masters. Performance was the same as much smaller Libraries, with the obvious exceptions ("Photos" takes longer to load; importing 200,000 files can take several days to process, Faces was close to unusable, etc.).

The problems you are encountering seem most likely to be related to your Drobo (as DiploStrat implies). Borrow a 2 TB FW800 or faster external drive and see if you can move your Library. I can't think of any reason you should encounter any problems. (Fwiw, I've moved 1 TB Libraries regularly, but haven't tried anything larger than that.)

What format is the Drobo?

Aperture needs to have the Library sitting on disk formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

Regards

TD

Aperture is designed to bite into small chunks at a time, so TBs of data do not bother the app itself. However, handling super-large batches of data like 1.5 TB on consumer hardware tends to be problematic, it is that simple.

Slower speeds seem to exacerbate handling large data chunks, and Drobos historically tend to be slow.

IMO referenced Masters make far more sense than building huge managed-Masters Libraries. With referenced Masters one has no need to copy a 1.5 TB sized file.

• Hard disk speed. Drives slow as they fill so making a drive more full (which managed Masters always does) will slow down drive operation.

• Database size. Larger databases are by definition more prone to "issues" than smaller databases are.

• Vaults. Larger Library means larger Vaults, and Vaults are an incremental repetitive backup process, so again larger Vaults are by definition more prone to "issues" than smaller Vaults are. One-time backup of Referenced Masters (each file small, unlike a huge managed-Masters DB) is neither incremental nor ongoing; which is by definition a more stable process.

Managed-Masters Libraries can work, but they cannot avoid the basic database physics.

Note that whether managed or referenced, original images should be separately backed up prior to import into Aperture or any other images management application. IMO after backing up each batch of original images importing that batch into Aperture as a new Project by reference makes by far the most sense. Building a huge managed Library or splitting into multiple smaller Libraries is less logical.

HTH

-Allen

So that's a NAS then? Can’t use an Aperture Library on a NAS.

Regards

TD

This goes back to the original point; Drobos may have many good points, but speed has never been reported to be one of them.

Normal editing of images is going to thrash the stuffings out of you Version files - if all of this I/O has to go over a Drobo, it is going to be painful.

But, if you leave your Masters on the Drobo and move the rest of the Library back to your fastest internal drive, you should see a tremendous increase in speed, especially if you have enough RAM to keep your Master image in RAM during your entire editing session. (Search for any of Allen's excellent posts on this for details as to how to do it.)

FWIW - A Vault is simply a backup device. It may or may not be useful in your workflow, but it is not/not a good device to use when moving files.

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DiploStrat 😉

Your "unclear" image looks like corrupted by jpeg-artefacts. Did you export them with a preset "jpeg original size"? Then check the value of the quality slider. Anything less then 10 may cause a dramatic loss in quality.

I'd like to simply store my Master Files offsite as suggested so I exported a test group of about 2000 images and imported them back as referenced files.

To store your master image files offsite do not export them and reimport them, but use the Aperture "File -> relocate master" command. This way no image conversion will take place and the quality of the master image file will stay the same.

Regards

Léonie