Can I back up multiple Aperture 3 libraries in one vault?

Each library goes into its own vault. The vault will be named after the library. You can have multiple vaults on a single disk.

know I have to limit myself to one vault per backup disk

Why do you think this?

Message was edited by: Frank Caggiano

Could you post a link to that reference or tell me where in the manual you are seeing it. It does seem to imply that you need a seperate HD for each vault but that isn;t correct.

The citation is from this page in the User Manual.

What is trying be said is to not put two vaults of the same Library on the same drive. (Added:) The assumption on the page is "one Library, multiple Vaults".

Message was edited by: Kirby Krieger

Cliff,

you are referring to this?

Click Add.

The new empty vault appears in the Vault pane.

Important: To ensure preservation of your image assets, make sure to assign a separate external hard disk drive to each vault.

When you create a new vault, it is empty. Therefore, as soon as you create a new vault, you should update it.

OK I think I see the confusion.

The section. Creating Vaults, is discussing the strategy for backing up one library.

Before you can back up your files, you must create a vault and assign a hard disk to it. After you assign a disk to the vault, Aperture uses the vault to back up the entire library. You can create additional vaults and assign hard disks to them, and each additional vault also records a complete backup of the library.

(emphasis added)

So Apple is telling you here that you can have multiple vaults for a single library, something you may want to do to be extra safe as one backup is never enough especially with something as irreplaceable as digital images.

Then below is your excerpt

Important: To ensure preservation of your image assets, make sure to assign a separate external hard disk drive to each vault.

which is really addressing the issue of multiple vaults for a single library. What this is saying is if you make multiple vaults for a library having all those vaults on one disk is not going to really buy you anything.

To get the extra protection multiple vaults of a single library will give you each vault needs to be on a separate disk. Or else if the disk with all the vaults for this library goes then all the vaults are gone.

Hope this clears up the confusion.

regards

So Apple is telling you here that you can have multiple vaults for a single library, something you may want to do to be extra safe as one backup is never enough especially with something as irreplaceable as digital images.

Frank's post is referring to multiple vaults for added safety by having more than one backup of the same library. But if you want to have a versioning history and keep several vaults as snapshots of different versions of the same library, you could keep them on the same drive.

cjfn wrote:

Is everyone in agreement on that interpretation?

Cliff

Not a question format that one unhesitatingly replies to, but "yes". 😁

➕ 1 😀

Yes vaults for multiple libraries can go on the sane drive, multiple vaults for a single library should go on separate drives. (unless you are doing a versioning system wit the vaulrs as Léonie mentioned then…)

I have to say, working with Aperture must be wreaking havoc on my blood pressure: the price of a wrong move can be so high🙂.

That is why having backups is so important, think of backups as your favorite blood pressure medicine (either legal or not 😉)

Seriously knowing that no matter what happens or what you do you can get your library back is a great stress reducer.

I have to say, working with Aperture must be wreaking havoc on my blood pressure: the price of a wrong move can be so high🙂.

Photos are really precious, you are right to protect them.

Have you considered to use other backup schemes in addition to vaults?

I simply include all Aperture libraries in my regular system backup - Time Machine and a clone of the system drive ond the data drive.