palmer999
Level 1 (0 points)
Photos for Mac

Q: External iPhoto library migration to Photos issues

I have been using iPhoto for years and my library is around 130GB. It's time to migrate to Photos... but it's not that easy. My iPhoto library is on my Synology NAS box. If I try to open Photos and point it to my iPhotos library I have progress to around 10% then get the following message: "There were file system or hardware issues that prevented Photos from creating a copy of your library"...

Screen Shot 2016-03-14 at 21.56.14.png

On Apple's support page (If Photos can’t copy or create a library - Apple Support) they recommend making a copy of the library to another drive and trying again as there maybe issues with the original disc.

 

Well, first I tried to duplicate the library on the same disc with the intention of moving it later to my MBP. However, I ran out of disc spae on the NAS....

Screen Shot 2016-03-14 at 22.45.31.png

 

So instead, I tried to move the iPhoto library from my Synology NAS to my MBP desktop. But then I received another error.....

Screen Shot 2016-03-15 at 06.53.48.png

Now I have no idea what is the problem. I can't even move or copy the iPhoto library to another source. I've even tried renaming it and get this same error!

 

NB My MBP SSD is formatted as: Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I'm not sure what format the Synology drive is but it will be whatever is the default.

 

Any advice is appreciated.

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on Mar 23, 2016 12:14 PM

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palmer999

Q: External iPhoto library migration to Photos issues

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Old Toad,

    Old Toad Old Toad Mar 23, 2016 12:54 PM in response to palmer999
    Level 10 (141,223 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 23, 2016 12:54 PM in response to palmer999

    You can't operate a Photos library on a NAS.  It must be on a drive formatted as shown in this screenshot

    ignoreownership.jpg

    and connected by USB, Firewire or Thunderbolt cable. 

     

    The NAS formatting kills the ownership of the library and renders it unusable or non copyable.   Get an external HD formatted correctly, copy the library to it and run it there.  You may have to repair the library according to this Apple document: iCloud Photo Library.

    OTsig.png

  • by palmer999,

    palmer999 palmer999 Mar 23, 2016 5:22 PM in response to Old Toad
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Mar 23, 2016 5:22 PM in response to Old Toad

    Thanks for the reply OT. I've taken your advice and formatted another external hard drive as OS Extended (Journaled) and tried again. However the Synology displays this as 2 shares: usbshare1-1 and usbshare1-2

    The first is exfat and I can write to it but it's only 200MB and the second is HFS+ and is 900+GB but read only. Sigh.

     

    So, more googling and I found this great article on making a HFS+ external drive writable on a Synology NAS:

    http://www.paul-taylor.co.uk/blog/post/write-to-hfs-mac-usb-drive-from-a-synolog y-nas-ds212j

     

    But for some reason, after followingthe steps, it's still read-only....

     

    /dev/sdq2 on /volumeUSB1/usbshare1-2 type hfsplus (0)

    NAS> cd /volumeUSB1/usbshare1-2

    NAS> touch test

    touch: test: Read-only file system


    Any other advice on this?

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Mar 24, 2016 12:25 AM in response to palmer999
    Level 10 (107,629 points)
    iCloud
    Mar 24, 2016 12:25 AM in response to palmer999
    Any other advice on this?

    Use a locally mounted drive for the Photos library as OT recommended.  Even if you manage to make the drive writable on a NAS, it will be risky.

  • by palmer999,

    palmer999 palmer999 Apr 25, 2016 9:08 AM in response to palmer999
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Apr 25, 2016 9:08 AM in response to palmer999

    SOLUTION

     

    Thanks for the explanations but I was at point A, you told me Point C and I needed B.

     

    I'm posting this now just in case it helps someone else who has their iPhotos library on an external drive and wishes to migrate to Photos:

    * Copying your library from the NAS drive to your MBP (Mac OS Extended (Journaled)) won't work due to the HDD format differences

    * You can't copy the library onto ExFAT as it's too large

    * You must copy it to an external drive (NTFS) then transfer it to your MBP. (Your mac can read NTFS but not write)

     

    This worked for me. The migration took a around 2 hours in Photos after that.

     

    Much joy.