zenhog
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: Is there any downside to using a reference type library if I use Time Capsule and will do file management only from within Aperture?

Have done a lot of reading to get prepared to convert to Aperture 3 and have this question regarding setting up my library type.

 

I'm not a professional -just a heavy user hobbyist.

 

It appears that the major factors in using reference style is to backup the images with Time Capsule and always do moves or deletes from within the Aperture application.

 

If my architecture matters here's what I have that may be involved in photo management and editing:

iMac (latest 27" high power version with lots of memory)

Internal 2TB HD where the library is stored

External (FireWire) 2TB HD where the images are stored

External (FireWire) 6TB HD backup drive

In the future an iPad for remote work on images (when/if available) and a Mac laptop (for same remote use)

 

 

I see major downside issues to letting the library manage my files - such as inaccessibility (or awkward accessibility) to the images for other programs, and performance issues when the library gets large (thousands of images or 100+ gb in size)

 

The chief complaints I've seen regarding using a reference mode is the broken link issues created if file management is done outside of Aperture (adds, deletes, moves of files) and the inability to use the Vault function for backup.

 

One feature that I imagine I'd like to have is maximum integration with Final Cut Pro X and that's one area I haven't seen much on and would be interested to hear about if that integration is affected with the choice of managed vs referenced library types. (I like to produce film clips that are combinations of pics and video and want to be set up so that is done in the easiest fashion when working in FCP X)

 

I'm sure I've not seen all sides of this issue and would like to see some discussion around this question.

 

Thanks to everyone contributing!

 

Craig

Aperture 3, Mac OS X (10.7.3)

Posted on Mar 16, 2012 7:45 AM

Close
zenhog

Q: Is there any downside to using a reference type library if I use Time Capsule and will do file management only from within Apertur ... more

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by DiploStrat,

    DiploStrat DiploStrat Mar 16, 2012 9:17 AM in response to zenhog
    Level 2 (345 points)
    Mar 16, 2012 9:17 AM in response to zenhog

    Goody, Goody, you hit a few of my favorite subjects! Herewith some comments, with the usual caveats - true to the best of my knowledge and experience, others may have different results, YMMV, and I could be wrong.

     

    I run Aperture on two machines:

     

    -- 2007 Mac Pro with 2x2.66 GHz Xeon, 21 GB of RAM, a 5770 GPU, and multiple HD. I have about 11,000 images, taking up 150 GB. (Many are 100 MB TIFF, scanned slides)

     

    -- 2006 Mac Book Pro with 1 2.0 GHz Core Duo, 2 GB of RAM and a 240 GB SSD.

     

    Two very different machines.

     

    -- Aperture Libraries are all the same - Managed or Referenced. If Managed, then the Master image files are inside the Package, if Referenced, they are outside, and you can have any combination you want. Managed is easier, but Referenced is not hard if you are the least bit careful.

     

    -- While the sheer size of an Aperture Library is not a big issue, the location on disk of the different components can have a tremendous impact on performance.

     

    -- Solid State Drives (SSD) read and write faster than regular Hard Disks (HD) and, what is more important, empty HD read and write much faster than full HD.

     

    -- Aperture speed requires a combination of RAM, CPU, graphics processing unit (GPU) speed, and disk speed. The more RAM you have, the less paging you will see. With enough RAM, the next bottle neck is CPU (speed and cores) and GPU speed. But even then you will still have to fetch an image (longer if you pull the full resolution Master, read and rewrite the Version file, and update the Preview and Thumbs.

     

    So what works?

     

    -- RAM, RAM, and more RAM. 4 GB will work, but you will page a bit. 8 GB is much faster. On my old MacPro the sweet spot was about 16 GB of RAM.

     

    -- Keep your Library on your fastest (usually internal) drive. Keep that disk as unloaded as possible. How do you keep it unloaded? Either buy BIG, 1 TB+ or move your Masters off onto another disk. The good news here is that as Master files are written only once and never rewritten, speed of this disk, as opposed to the disk that holds the Library, is not important. There is a one second pause as the Master is read into memory and, if you have enough RAM, that is it - the Master will never be paged out. If, on the other hand, you do not have enough RAM, and you do a lot of adjusting at full resolution, then the speed of the disk that holds your Masters will become very important due to paging.

     

    -- I found that I picked up a tiny bit of speed by keeping the Masters on a dedicated disk. Thus, in your configuration, if you can dedicate that 2 TB FW HD to your Masters, you should see very nice performance.

     

    Final notes on backups and archives:

     

    -- One conventional wisdom is that you should make an archive copy of every image file before or as you load them into your system. (Aperture in this case.) This archive is then never touched or deleted.

     

    -- An alternative approach is that you do not keep such an archive, but only the images that you have in your Aperture Library. And when you delete from the Library, you no longer keep a copy anywhere.

     

    I do the following:

     

    -- Card to Aperture. Card is then kept at least 24 hours until all of my backups have run. (I use three - Time Machine, Clone, and off site.)

     

    -- I do not keep archive copies. If I decide to delete a file, my only recourse is to recover it from Time Machine during the six month cycle of my Time Machine backups. Thereafter, it is lost.

     

    There are merits to both approaches.

     

    Hope this is clear, correct, and responsive to your needs.

    --

    DiploStrat

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Mar 16, 2012 9:49 AM in response to DiploStrat
    Level 10 (108,906 points)
    iCloud
    Mar 16, 2012 9:49 AM in response to DiploStrat

    Hello Craig,

    in addition to DiploStrats comprehensive answer just a few remarks that you might consider:

    You were asking about using Time Capsule with Aperture:

    Apple's recommendation is clear:

    Aperture: Use locally mounted Mac OS X Extended volumes for your Aperture library: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3252

    Your Aperture library should be on a locally mounted volume, best would be the System Volume; the referenced masters might be on a volume connected to your Time Capsule. Just make sure that the volume with your referenced masters is always mounted when you need to access the masters, and that it is formatted "Mac OS X Extended"; any other formatting will sooner or later cause problems. If you want to use the Time Capsule itself to store the master image files, create a writable disk image with a fixed size on the Time Capsule to write the masters to. This way Time Machine and Aperture will not compete for disk space.

     

    Regards

    Léonie