Move iphoto/aperture 3.5 library off macbook pro to external drive

Question

Move iphoto/aperture 3.5 library off macbook pro to external drive

Hi everyone,

We'll I've purchased RB Designs Aperture organsation and file management ebooks, I've paid 25 $ for a subscription to Lynda... all to try to understand how to locate my aperture/iphoto library onto our house ReadyNAS so that I don't have 220GB of data churning around on my MacBook Pro. But I really can't figure out how to do it. I get the gist of the referenced vs managed masters mostly but even with all of the instruction I find nowhere where I learn how to take one library (currently an iphoto library that I can also see in aperture) and safely move it onto an external drive.. Does it need to be an aperture library first? Why do I need to create a second library (in aperture) if both applications can use one library? And how do I move all this data to the external drive. Everywhere says it's very easy to do but I actually am still totally confused! Any help is appreciated. I've now spent a lot of $ to buy aperture and try to figure out how to use it because it seemed that the functionality of having it all on an external drive (but yet useable) was worth it but I'm wondering if I'm in over my head.

Please help!

Thanks,

Ariadne

Aperture 3, iOS 7.0.6

Posted on Mar 1, 2014 7:58 AM

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Answer 1

léonie

Level 10

194,761 points

Mar 1, 2014 10:55 AM in response to arianefrombaltimore

Ariadne,

to move an Aperture library or an iPhoto library to an external drive, connect the drive to your mac and drag the library to the drive using the Finder.

all to try to understand how to locate my aperture/iphoto library onto our house ReadyNAS so that I don't have 220GB of data churning around on my MacBook Pro.

On a NAS? An Aperture library needs to be on a directly connected drive. Storing an Aperture library on a network volume is nt supported. If you try that, you are risking data loss.

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

Regards

Léonie

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Answer 2

Mar 1, 2014 1:14 PM in response to léonie

Thanks Leonie, I appreciate your quick reply.

RE: Using a NAS with Aperture as a no-no: Yes, I did unfortunately come across that article regarding the directly connected drive just today (after I bought all of the books and read everything I thought I could read over the past several weeks and invested hours in trying to figure out how to make it work) ;-(.

So a Synology (NAS) networked disk station would not work or is it that Mac just does not recommend it? I do use the Synology for my time machine back ups so wondering what the difference is there. Do you know?

RE: moving the library to an external drive-- I also have two external HDs (Lacie Porsche 2TB and 3TB) so I could use those but I'm so confused because I thought that you're supposed to direct the files within aperture using 'relocate originals' etc.. What I wanted to do was what apple in their over simplified way claimed we could do if we bought aperture: https://www.apple.com/aperture/iphoto-to-aperture/ storing one aperture library across multiple hard drives.. Everything I've seen on Lynda etc suggests making multiple aperture libraries while at the same time many of these forums caution against having multiple libraries.. so confused! The more I know it seems the less I know but thanks for trying to keep it simple. Eager to hear your thoughts on these questions.

Thanks so much,

Ariane

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Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

194,761 points

Mar 1, 2014 2:23 PM in response to arianefrombaltimore

So a Synology (NAS) networked disk station would not work or is it that Mac just does not recommend it? I do use the Synology for my time machine back ups so wondering what the difference is there. Do you know?

An Aperture library is a database and storing the database on a NAS will endanger the integrity of the database. There are two problems with storing an Aperture library on a NAS - the filesystem and network transmissions:

As Apple stated in the support document, the Aperture library relies on the fact, that the filesystem is MacOS Extended (Journaled). Other filesystems may cause ambigious filenames and filename collisions, causing loss of image files. A NAS cannot be reformatted.
The second problem is the network access. Apple does not say, why locally connecte ddrives are required, but this recommendation suggests, that the internal databases are not protected against race hazzards and database inconsistencies caused by interrupted database transactions.

Aperture has been designed for single user access and is not a network database system.

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Answer 4

léonie

Level 10

194,761 points

Mar 1, 2014 2:40 PM in response to arianefrombaltimore

RE: moving the library to an external drive-- I also have two external HDs (Lacie Porsche 2TB and 3TB) so I could use those but I'm so confused because I thought that you're supposed to direct the files within aperture using 'relocate originals' etc.. What I wanted to do was what apple in their over simplified way claimed we could do if we bought aperture: https://www.apple.com/aperture/iphoto-to-aperture/ storing one aperture library across multiple hard drives.. Everything I've seen on Lynda etc suggests making multiple aperture libraries while at the same time many of these forums caution against having multiple libraries.. so confused! The more I know it seems the less I know but thanks for trying to keep it simple. Eager to hear your thoughts on these questions.

What kind of mac are you using? A desktop or a portable mac?

Everything I've seen on Lynda etc suggests making multiple aperture libraries while at the same time many of these forums caution against having multiple libraries.. so confused!

That is entirely your decision. My recommendation is to keep all those images in one library, that you might possible need together.

If you have multiple libraries, you need to switch between libraries to be able to browse all photos. And it will not be possible to use photos in the same album, slideshow, book, that are in different libraries. If you split your libraries by years, you cannot put baby photos of a person into the same album as grown-up photos. It is much easier to have all photos in one library, that would be possibly related. You could however have a private and a business Aperture library.

What I wanted to do was what apple in their over simplified way claimed we could do if we bought aperture: https://www.apple.com/aperture/iphoto-to-aperture/ storing one aperture library across multiple hard drives..

Split the Aperture library across several drives: That is possible and is recommended, if your library becomes too large for one drive. You could do that, if you want to have the library on the system drive of the computer, but the bulk of the images on an external drive. This is useful for portable computers,when you want to leave the external drives at home, while on the road. On a desktop computer you could simply move the complete library to an external drive and keep it one library. This is safer for Aperture beginners, because all image files are inside the library package and managed by Aperture. You do not have to keep track of the originals and manage them on your own.

So, are you using a portable mac? And does your aperture library still fit onto a single drive, or do you need to split it?

-- Léonie

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