Can I use an external HD to start and use a NEW Aperture library?

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Can I use an external HD to start and use a NEW Aperture library?

I am a self employed, semi retired pro photographer, and My Macbook Pro is FULL of images in both Aperture and iPhoto. Furthermore, my equally aging 1 T external HD is also full. But istead of upgrading from my 250 Gig storage on my laptop to a full T (at $300 for the hardware and installation) I was thinking I could add a 3 or 4 T external drive for about $180 and just use it for most (but not all) of my newest images and videos IF I could do it by creeating another Aperture Library on the new, more spacious EXT HD. Will that work?

Thanks for your respone(s) !

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5), I am using Aperture 3.4.5

Posted on Nov 10, 2013 2:17 PM

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Answer 1

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léonie

Level 10

194,767 points

Nov 10, 2013 2:26 PM in response to H. Dean Clark

You can create a new Aperture library on an external drive, if the drive is formatted MacOS X Extended (Journaled). To create a new library use the command "File > Switch to Library > Other/New" in Aperture and select your new drive as the destination in the File Chooser.

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Answer 2

Nov 10, 2013 2:30 PM in response to léonie

Thanks for the very speedy response, LeonieDF, and after posting my question I saw a similar question on the side, and read the responses to it. So I am learning fast! I look forward to any other helpful info. Cheers! Dean

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Answer 3

Nov 10, 2013 2:40 PM in response to H. Dean Clark

Dean -- keep reading the threads 😉 . Your plan is a good one, but there are better. Aim to end up with your _recent_ work on your internal drive, and your older work on external drives. Keep it all in one Library if you can (the Library is, at heart, an index; the more indexed, the more useful the index). One Library means merging all of your iPhoto and Aperture Libraries. This is a big project, but well worth it, imho. Start with verified backups, upgrade your versions of Aperture and iPhoto, and move forward.

--Kirby.

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