External hard drive as "main library"

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Level 1

4 points

External hard drive as "main library"

I have a question. Until now i have imported all of my pictures to the internal harddrive, and it is getting full. I have an external harddrive (lacie 1 TB) connected in a network via airport extreme.

Is it possible to move my library (the master images) to an external harddrive, and still have access to the versions without being connected to the external harddrive?

If it is, or you have a better suggestion for managing my pictures, please let me know.

Macbook pro, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on May 31, 2012 1:13 PM

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Answer 1

léonie

Level 10

194,647 points

May 31, 2012 1:26 PM in response to Gunfighter

Is it possible to move my library (the master images) to an external harddrive, and still have access to the versions without being connected to the external harddrive?

Yes, if you create a referenced library and build high quality preview images. This way you can browse your versions, rate them, share them to the Media Browser. The only thing that you cannot do with master image files offline (when the external volume is not mounted) would be to edit your images - anything that actually needs the master files.

- Connect your external volume - make sure it is formatted MacOS X Extended
- Select the images that you want to move to an external volume in the Browser.
- From the main menu bar select: File > Relocate Masters, and select a folder on the external volume to move them to
- In the Aperture Preferences open the Previews Tab and enable the sharing of previews. Select a reasonable size for the previews. preferrably the pixelsize of your screen.

Regards

Léonie

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