iPhoto help (faces/back ups)

iPhoto has way too many photos on it I think (and is really slow, mainly when faces is trying to update itself)...so:

1. Is there anyway to turn faces off/ get rid of it completely/ kill it? I absolutely hate the thing.

2. Same with places?

3. I do backup daily with time machine (1TB hard drive), however I've lost loads of things before and I'm not confident in my ability to do anything on a mac anymore!! Basically, is there any way to remove, say, half of my library from my mac (to quicken it up?) and store it only on the hard drive?

Thanks in advance