Moving Aperture 3 Library back from NAS - help please!

Question

Moving Aperture 3 Library back from NAS - help please!

I have spent all afternoon looking at the various threads and pieces of advice about Managed Files, Referenced Files and storage. Thanks to the experts for your excellent advice!

Can I please refer to your expertise just to confirm my next actions please as I think we have got into a slight pickle - should have done this before ... ?

My husband has relocated our whole Aperture Library onto his new Synology DS413j hoping it would solve all storage issues, workflow, etc. I am the Aperture user and am having a nightmare now watching beachball after beachball (both scrolling stripey and rotating rainbow) as I try to do anything in Aperture!

We have 41,423 Masters in this library (not sure of size as Get Info doesn't seem to do it for some reason). I must confess these are jpegs as I don't shoot in RAW.

Do you think I need to:

1. Move my Aperture Library back to the iMac HDD. How do I best do this? Literally click and drag it over using Finder?

2. Relocate my masters to the NAS so I can just work with Referenced Masters on my iMac.

When I am making a photobook, will the system just use the referenced files and they will ‘consolidate’ in the end?

Lastly, I am on Mac OS10.6.8 and Aperture version 3.2.4. Should I upgrade both before doing anything else or won’t it make much difference?

Thanks!

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Mar 19, 2013 1:52 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

léonie

Level 10

194,561 points

Mar 19, 2013 3:41 AM in response to CheekyMonkeyheehee

To have an Aperture library on a NAS is tempting, but has two massive problems: The File System on a NAS is probably not MAC OS X Extendended and thus not supported by Aperture, and the Network access will slow Aperture down considerably. That may account for the beachballing you are seeing. So it is a good idea to move the Aperture library back to a drive that directly connected to your Mac and has the correct formatting, see Apple's advice: Use locally mounted Mac OS X Extended volumes for your Aperture library

How to move the library back? Simply click on the library and drag it in the Finder from your NAS to a drive with the correct formatting.

It is up to you, if you want to risk to relocate the original master image files to the NAS after moving the library back - the access will be slower, and you are risking to lose the reference to the files, when the network is dropping out. Also, as pointed out, the file system is not supported by Aperture. But "File > Relocate" can be used to move them there.

Lastly, I am on Mac OS10.6.8 and Aperture version 3.2.4. Should I upgrade both before doing anything else or won’t it make much difference?

I would move your library back from the NAS first and and check it thoroughly, then run the Library First Aid Tools (Repairing and Rebuilding Your Aperture Library: Aperture 3 User Manual) to repair any glitches, and make a backup before upgrading, for two reasons:

Aperture 3.4.3 will refuse to open your Aperture library on a disk with unsupported formatting.
The Upgrade to Aperture 3.4.3 is a major upgrade that will restructure your library considerably - and this upgrading of the library can go terribly wrong, if the Aperture library has issues. So the backup is important, as well as repairing before upgrading.

Regards

Léonie

P.S. Before upgrading from Snow Leopard to Mt- Lion check all your important applications and device drivers, if they are Intel versions or universal versions. Lion and Mt. Lion do no longer support the Roseta environment, that is required to run Power PC apps. If you do not upgrade these older apps while still running Snowleopard, you may not be able to upgrade them at all. I.e., check your Aperture plug-ins, if they will run with Mt.Lion and Aperture 3.4.3. Aperture 3.4 and later: Some third-party plug-ins are no longer compatible

Message was edited by: leonieDF

Reply

Answer 2

Mar 19, 2013 7:21 AM in response to léonie

Hey Léonie - thanks for your comprehensive reply. Hmm... maybe the best move could be for me is to simply use the NAS for Time Machine + other back-ups.

ie. go back to our original set up which was as you said, to have the Aperture Library on a 'connected hard-drive' and just use it as a 'managed master library' from there?

Alternatively, what would be the advantage / disadvantage of moving the library to my main iMac HD, and then relocating the masters to the connected harddrive so I work day-to-day with referenced files in Aperture?

Like you (I think you mentioned a while ago on another thread), I am currently going through my photos making memory books ;-)

Thanks also for the advice re. the upgrades too. Looks like I have some work on my hands!

Cheers, Jill

Reply

Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

194,561 points

Mar 19, 2013 8:36 AM in response to CheekyMonkeyheehee

You are welcome, Jill, glad to help.

ie. go back to our original set up which was as you said, to have the Aperture Library on a 'connected hard-drive' and just use it as a 'managed master library' from there?

Alternatively, what would be the advantage / disadvantage of moving the library to my main iMac HD, and then relocating the masters to the connected harddrive so I work day-to-day with referenced files in Aperture?

Do you have more than one mac, maybe a MacBook Pro in addition to the iMac? Then I'd go for a managed library on the external. This way you can connect the library to the mac you are currently working with and use it on more than one mac. If your drive has a fast connection (e.g. Firewire, Thunderbolt), it will not be noticible slower than having the library on the internal drive. But if the external drive is slow, referenced will be better. With a referenced library the size of the library is smaller and it can easier be copied and backed up. The managed library is safer. You are better protected against accidentally deleting original images.

Cheers

Léonie

Reply