Aperture 3 backup/copy (before removing from computer all together to make space)

Hi All,

I have Aperture 3 running on a 128gb 2011 MacBook Air. The problem is I have run out of space. The other problem is I am living out of a 33l bag and cannot carry all sorts of external drives for multiple backups. I'm using Time Machine on the one external drive I have with me.

At the present time I have been backing up all versions to the cloud (to Picasa, using the exporter plugin) and I have the 'best' photos elsewhere on the cloud too. Once they are safely in the cloud I have been deleting most of them from my laptop. I have come to the conclusion that this is not the best system as I have already gone back to try and re-edit after downloading from the cloud and obviously I don't have the masters anymore. (I can't re-crop or put colour back into a shot I made b+w for instance) (There is no way I can keep everything on my computer - we've been living out of small backpacks and traveling for almost 2 years now - that's a lot of photos)

I have a new camera and want to start shooting in RAW. It is a 24mp camera so the files are obviously large. I need more room to work!

Ideally I would like to remove, say, most of the files that are more than a few months old from my computer. But, I want them to be saved completely - original, master, version, keywords, and project structures etc onto my (partitioned) external drive. (as well as continuing to put the versions in the cloud.) Then, delete them from my computer and have lots more space.

After all that, which is the best way to move them to the external drive whilst saving all the information about each image? Should I just take a copy of the whole library at this time then have a good old clear out? Would I then be able to access those pics without importing the whole thing back in?

Extra info: Aperture is version 3.4.3 on Lion. Oh, and I'm using the 'shared' iphoto library system from the time before I had Aperture. Library is over 40GB, And, one thing I don't want to do is have the entire library on the external drive. I use the laptop out and about all the time and I don't want to have to take the drive with me. I know I should have TM backing up all the time but once every few days is enough for me with the other back-up systems I have in place.

Bonus question: would I use the same process for making a second complete copy of everything in the cloud?

Thanks in advance experts! 🙂