Don D

Q: Aperture vault on WD MyCloud NAS

Has anyone succeeded in creating an Aperture 3 vault on a WD MyCloud NAS?  I have a new 3TB NAS and when I try to create an Aperture vault from Aperture it writes about 120 GB and then hangs.  This has happened repeatedly.  The total size of the library is 700 GB.  Is this a disk format issue?  I believe the NAS is NTFS and can't be changed.

Aperture 3

Posted on Jan 16, 2014 8:11 AM

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Q: Aperture vault on WD MyCloud NAS

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  • by léonie,Helpful

    léonie léonie Jan 16, 2014 8:24 AM in response to Don D
    Level 10 (108,438 points)
    iCloud
    Jan 16, 2014 8:24 AM in response to Don D

    A vault is essentially an Aperture library. If you change the file name extension to .aplibrary it will be usuable  as a library.  And an Aperture library needs to be on a drive formatted MacOS X Extended (Journaled) or you are risking problems with incompatible filenames. Even if you should manage to create a vault on a NAS, I doubt, that it will be a safe backup method and you can restore your library from the copy on the NAS.

  • by Don D,

    Don D Don D Jan 16, 2014 9:55 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 16, 2014 9:55 AM in response to léonie

    Thanks, that was useful information and confirms what I suspected about the NTFS file system being a problem.  If I backup my Aperture library to the NAS by other means (e.g., CCC) won't the backup have the same problems, such as issues with filenames, that a vault would have?

  • by léonie,Solvedanswer

    léonie léonie Jan 16, 2014 10:56 AM in response to Don D
    Level 10 (108,438 points)
    iCloud
    Jan 16, 2014 10:56 AM in response to Don D

    If I backup my Aperture library to the NAS by other means (e.g., CCC) won't the backup have the same problems, such as issues with filenames, that a vault would have?

    Yes, use the NAS for other files. You can store folders with documents or image files there, only not photo libraries.

    See:  Use locally mounted Mac OS X Extended volumes for your Aperture library

  • by rusty141,

    rusty141 rusty141 Feb 17, 2014 11:25 PM in response to Don D
    Level 1 (15 points)
    iPhone
    Feb 17, 2014 11:25 PM in response to Don D

    I just purchased a WD My Cloud but before cutting the shrink wrap did a check on Aperture compatability. Luckily I found this and other posts. It seems that WD have created their own file system for this and similar drives!

     

    "The Western Digital units mentioned above [eg My Cloud] use a proprietary file system and cannot be reformatted as FAT32, NTFS, or a Mac File System."

     

    That means no HFS+ so expect, at the least, file name issues when trying to write to the drive, and loss of other niceties like iPhoto/Aperture compatibility. So its back to the shop with this one.

     

    http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1391/~/reformatting-a-wd-nas-dri ve-as-fat32,-ntfs,-or-a-mac-file-system

     

    See also the comments here: http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Western-Digital-My-Cloud-Review/?page=4

     

    "Great idea, but not Mac OS ready...."

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Feb 17, 2014 11:46 PM in response to rusty141
    Level 10 (108,438 points)
    iCloud
    Feb 17, 2014 11:46 PM in response to rusty141

    Luckily I found this and other posts. It seems that WD have created their own file system for this and similar drives!

    The NAS needs the software on that drive fro the network features, and reformatting would erase that software. You can store single files on the NAS, but photo libraries are packages, that need to be stored as an entity, with all references inside intact.