Aperture & Time Machine

I am considering an external hard drive and would like to hear of peoples experience backing up Aperture via Time Machine

Hi Ed,
My method is as you have noted; I backup using Time Machine every morning while in the shower with no apps running. This used to work as intended with only the changed files being written to TM, however I had to restart my TM from scratch a few months back and now it seems to backup 20GB of data a day.
I just accept that as the reality of TM for now, and it's not really much of a problem for me. I found out a few months that Time Machine can actually fill a drive to capacity and refuse to add further backups after that - I got a message saying that there were some files which could not be deleted as they were essential to something-or-other, and after talking to other users on this forum, it appears that this is actually the case and that every 4/5/6 months I will have to erase my TM and start the process again.
My point is that these are examples of how TM isn't perfect, and that there are compromises we have to live with. The Aperture backup issue is one of those and I figure that I may as well just live with it.
I think we're spoiled by Apple in some ways; so much of the software and hardware they produce works so effortlessly and correctly that when the odd bugs show up we get worked up and complain and feel hard done by. I think we need to adopt a glass-half-full attitude and accept that what we get most of the time is really great software. That makes the occasional bug much easier to live with.

Similar Messages

  • How can I restore a single image from an aperture time machine backup, do I have to restore the entire library? that does not make sense

    I hope there has been found a more efficiant solution for this,  how can I restore a single image from an aperture time machine backup, I really hope I don't have to restore the entire library? that does not make sense
    any suggestions?

    Did you try browsing your backups in the Finder ?  That is, do not go and "Enter Time Machine".  Instead, navigate to your Time Machine backup via Finder and then manually go to the time period (by folder name) you are looking for ... when you find your Aperture library you can then "Show Package Contents" and find the Master you are looking for.

  • Aperture & Time Machine, again

    Aloha all. I have a problem that I can't find a solution to. I have set Time Machine to exclude any and all Aperture .( v2.1) files. Now Aperture won't start unless I have my external HD for Time Machine plugged in to usb port, and turned on. If I eject the external hd and shut it off, Aperture won't open, and freezes at the start screen. If I have it plugged in and turned off, when I start Aperture, the external hd turns on!
    When I attempt to restart with the external hd off, Aperture seems to turn it on. I don't know if belongs here or on the Time Machine boards, so I'm posting it in both places. I have trashed the preferences for Aperture, it does no good. I have gone as far as reinstalling and up dating Aperture twice, but this strange behavior won't stop. Any help, tips info, suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Mahalo in advance. JB

    I still believe that this is not a copy process but a link verification test. In your log :
    "Feb 15 13:34:10 housekat /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd2104: No pre-backup thinning needed: 45.07 GB requested (including padding), 53.94 GB available
    Feb 15 14:31:23 housekat /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd2104: Copied 51001 files (37.4 GB) from volume HouseKat.
    Feb 15 14:31:53 housekat /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd2104: No pre-backup thinning needed: 245.1 MB requested (including padding), 16.46 GB available"
    look at the time taken to 'copy' 51001 files, its 30 secs resulting in a 'copy'-speed of over 1GB/s. Are your system capable of this speed?
    Later in the log:
    "Feb 15 14:31:53 housekat /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd2104: No pre-backup thinning needed: 245.1 MB requested (including padding), 16.46 GB available
    Feb 15 14:33:02 housekat /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd2104: Copied 21453 files (43.2 MB) from volume HouseKat.
    Feb 15 14:33:23 housekat /System/Library/CoreServices/backupd2104: Starting post-backup thinning"
    here is a copy of 43,2MB taking 21 secs resulting in just over 2MB/s.
    As I have stated in another thread, it looks like TMe is just backing up the change in Aperture, not the entire library.
    Gunnar

  • I have been storing my Aperture and IMovie Libraries on an external hard drive that recently died.  Fortunately I've been using Time Machine to back up to a 2nd external drive.  How do I restore my libraries to a new external hard drive?

    I have been storing my Aperture and IMovie Libraries on an external hard drive that recently died.  Fortunately I've been using Time Machine to back up to a 2nd external drive.  How do I restore my libraries to a new external hard drive?

    This is a tricky one.
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  • After restoring files with Time Machine, I can´t open Aperture

    My HD broke and I had to change it for a new one. I had copy of everything in Time Machine. I restored it with no problem, but now I every time I try to open Aperture, it quits.
    Can anybody help me, please?

    Thanks imigra, I tried the three options and at last I had to install it again. Now my Aperture 2.0 it´s working.

  • If I do a clean install on my MacBook Pro will I be able to re-install apps (FCP, Aperture, MS Office etc.) from a Time Machine backup, or will I need the original install DVDs with authorization codes?

    I have two questions...
    1) If I do a clean install on my MacBook Pro will I be able to re-install apps (FCP, Aperture, MS Office etc.) from a Time Machine backup, or will I need the original install DVDs with authorization codes? (because I don't have them)
    2) Has anyone ever seen anything like this before on their computers?
    The Apple Genius' were stumped by my laptop issues and said they'd never seen anything like it before and recommended I did a clean install. Below you can see my trash bin, and if you look at the "Empty" button it reads "N201" and then there's the "N39" to the left of it. You can also see these numbers over by the folder area--"SD5, SD6, SD7." But that's not all...
    When I right click on items I see the numbers again. Instead of "Open with" I get "N152" and there's an "N35" and "LB1" towards the bottom.
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    You don't lose them.  You can always redownload them from the app store after you log back in with your Apple ID.
    "Buy, download, and even redownload.
    You can install apps on every Mac you use and even download them again. This is especially convenient when you buy a new Mac and want to load it with apps you already own."

  • I have an external hard drive set up as a Time Machine backup on my IMac. I want to add a second external hard drive and put my Aperture Photo Library on it. Is there a way to have the photos on this second hard drive automatically back up to the Time Mac

    I have an IMac with an external hard drive set up as  a Time Machine for automatic backups. I want to add a second external hard drive and load my Aperture Photo Library on to it so that the library can be shared by both me and my wife. Is there a way to automatically backup the photo library that will be on the second hard drive to the Time Machine hard drive?

    Open System Preference > Time Machine
    Click Options....
    Ckick on external disk in list and hit the - button below the list to remove from the Exclusion list
    Allan

  • How do I stop Time Machine from backing up Aperture thumbnails?

    Hi,
    My 2TB backup drive recently became full, and I became curious as to what was filling it up. I wrote a perl script to analyze the Time Machine backups, and I noticed that over 50% of my backup was filled with AP.Thumbnails and AP.Minis from the Aperture project directory. In particular, the AP.Thumbnails files in the backup consumed 737 GB of disk space!
    The problem with the thumbnails files is that they are a single file that contains all of the thumbnails for all of the 40,000 photos I have in Aperture and it is now 20gb in size. Every time I add a new file to Aperture, the thumbnail file changes, and I get a new 20gb of data added to my backup. I add photos often which means that most of my backups have 20gb of Aperture files (which are easy to rebuild and don't need to be backed up).
    I decided to try and stop Time Machine from backing up these files, and there seems to be no way of doing so (without telling Time Machine to skip backing up my entire Aperture project which I don't want to do). In Finder, you can do a "show package contents", but the Time Machine GUI doesn't allow this.
    I tried to tell Time Machine to exclude the files via the GUI, but Time Machine sees the Aperture Library as a single package and won't let me exclude individual files from within the package.
    I googled around, and found the attribute that Time Machine puts on files to exclude them from the backup. I used xattr to set the attributes:
    xattr -w com.apple.metadata:comapple_backupexcludeItem com.apple.backupd <filename>
    I also used this command on the iPhoto thumbnail files.
    I used spotlight to find all of the files with this attribute using this command:
    sudo mdfind "comapple_backupexcludeItem = 'com.apple.backupd'"
    This command returned the iPhoto files, but did not return the Aperture files.
    However, if I run "xattr" on the Aperture files, the attribute does exist!
    During my next time machine backup, the iPhoto files were skipped as I wanted them to be, but the Aperture thumbnails were backed up again
    I thought that maybe time machine was looking at the aperture package as an atomic unit, but iPhoto is stored as a package as well, and the attributes worked there on files inside the package.
    Does anyone have any idea why time machine is still backing up these files? Is there any way I can get around this?
    It seems to me to be an incredible oversight on Apple's part since both tools are Apple. The thumbnails files are very expensive to backup, and they are not necessary for backup since the are easy to rebuild from the original photos which are also backed up.
    Thanks,
    Ron

    Shadow99999 wrote:
    Hi,
    My 2TB backup drive recently became full, and I became curious as to what was filling it up. I wrote a perl script to analyze the Time Machine backups,
    No need to write your own script for that. there are a couple of already made nice GUI tools for this - TimeTracker http://www.charlessoft.com/ and BackupLoupe http://soma-zone.com/BackupLoupe/
    and I noticed that over 50% of my backup was filled with AP.Thumbnails and AP.Minis from the Aperture project directory. In particular, the AP.Thumbnails files in the backup consumed 737 GB of disk space!
    The problem with the thumbnails files is that they are a single file that contains all of the thumbnails for all of the 40,000 photos I have in Aperture and it is now 20gb in size. Every time I add a new file to Aperture, the thumbnail file changes, and I get a new 20gb of data added to my backup. I add photos often which means that most of my backups have 20gb of Aperture files (which are easy to rebuild and don't need to be backed up).
    I decided to try and stop Time Machine from backing up these files, and there seems to be no way of doing so (without telling Time Machine to skip backing up my entire Aperture project which I don't want to do). In Finder, you can do a "show package contents", but the Time Machine GUI doesn't allow this.
    I tried to tell Time Machine to exclude the files via the GUI, but Time Machine sees the Aperture Library as a single package and won't let me exclude individual files from within the package.
    I don't have aperture but I think most people exclude the whole thing from TM backups and back it up separately. but if you want to exclude a subfolder in a package that's easy too. just select the package in finder, control-click on it and select "show package contents". in the resulting finder window drill to the folder you want to exclude and drag it to the TM exclusion list in TM system preferences->options.
    I googled around, and found the attribute that Time Machine puts on files to exclude them from the backup. I used xattr to set the attributes:
    xattr -w com.apple.metadata:comapple_backupexcludeItem com.apple.backupd <filename>
    I was not aware of this method for excluding stuff from TM backups. could you provide a link to where you found this?
    I also used this command on the iPhoto thumbnail files.
    I used spotlight to find all of the files with this attribute using this command:
    sudo mdfind "comapple_backupexcludeItem = 'com.apple.backupd'"
    This command returned the iPhoto files, but did not return the Aperture files.
    that's because Spotlight never looks inside packages unless you start a search inside a package directly. iphoto seems to be the only exception. I don't know how it's done.

  • Aperture Vault & Time Machine on same external drive?

    I learned from an Aperture ProLab teacher that using Time Machine as a backup for my Aperture library is not always successful (something about the packaged file format?) - and it was recommended that I use the Vault in Aperture.  Is it possible (and how, if so) to partition my external drive to be used with both Time Machine (to back up my entire hard drive) and Aperture's Vault?

    Jessica-
    I don't see why not, if the external is really large. Just partition using Disk Utility.
    However personally I recommend buying additional hard drives rather than partitioning. Mass storage is now cheap. We always grow into hard drive space anyway, and there is a design elegance to having spearate physical drives. Design elegance in backup routines tends to lead to less errors.
    I buy quad-interface drives from OWC
    http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/
    for connection speed as well as flexibility in repurposing drives, but for backup-only cheaper USB (slower) drives from Newegg or Deal.com also are ok. Just look at cost per GB to find drives of best value.
    HTH
    -Allen Wicks

  • On imac 10.6.8 using current version of Aperture.  How can I access the Aperture Library  on my external hard drive that I use with time machine for backup?  I can only access the application but not the library..

    On imac 10.6.8 using current version of Aperture.  How can I access the Aperture Library  on my external hard drive that I use with time machine for backup?  I can only access the application but not the library..

    Go into Time Machine (the program not the bundle on the extrnal disk) and using Time Machine's browser go to the Folder where the library lives. You could look in the library bundle in Time Machine but that won't really tell you much,
    If you want to make sure it truely has backed up your library you will need to restore it and open the restored library with Aperture.
    If all this still has you confused you need to read up on Time Machine in order to get a feel for how it works, for what it is doing and for how to restore files from it.

  • How can I restore a .aplib Aperture library from time machine?

    When I try and restore my Aperture I get folders instead of a single .aplib file.  Does anyone know how I can restore the .aplib file so I can open it?

    How are you trying to resore it?  If you enter Time Machine, find the version of the library you want to resore select it and click restore you shouke be good to go.
    If a library of the same nae still exists in folder you're restoring to you'll get a window asking what you want to do, keep current, keep both or just keep the restored version.
    If on the other hand you are opening the Time Machine disk and going to the folder with the library in it and trying to just drag it out all bets are off.
    Message was edited by: Frank Caggiano - What OS version?

  • I have an IMAC and I'm running OSX 10.9.2.  I'd like to store my Aperture /IMovie Libraries to an external hard drive.  In addition, I'd like to partition the external hard drive so that Time Machine can use it to both back up my IMac and the externa

    I have an IMAC and I'm running OSX 10.9.2.  I'd like to store my Aperture /IMovie Libraries on an external hard drive.  In addition, I'd like to partition the external hard drive so that Time Machine can use it to both back up my IMac and the external library drives.  Is this possible? Can I set up a RAID 5 format for redundancy?

    I'd like to store my Aperture /IMovie Libraries on an external hard drive.
    That is fine and recommended.. use the fastest disk you can afford.. ie Thunderbolt>USB3>FW800>USB2.
    In addition, I'd like to partition the external hard drive so that Time Machine can use it to both back up my IMac and the external library drives.
    Let me be clear.. you want to partition the one disk.. use it for TM and move your files to the external disk.. and then backup to the same disk.. You can do it.. but that is not a backup.. that is an experiment in how long you can get away with running files and backups on the same disk before you lose everything.. like Russian Roulette.. pull the trigger enough times and laws of probability will do you in.
    You must have backups on a different disk .. otherwise it is pointless.
    Can I set up a RAID 5 format for redundancy?
    No.. you can buy special USB and Thunderbolt external drives that support RAID..
    BUT that is still not a backup.. let me show why.. you make a silly move and corrupt your file in aperture.. it is not that rare.
    Raid will corrupt all copies of the files.. it is replicated across all disks.
    Delete a photo it is deleted across all disks.. you have no recovery.
    Alway, always consider RAID system one disk.. backup onto another disk.. and if the photos or movies are at all important to you.. ie your family .. make another copy and store in a relatives house.. There is no such thing as too much redundancy.

  • I uses Time Machine to transfer files and program from old to new MacBook Pro. Aperture doesn't work. Every time I open Aperture the computer need me to key in Serial number. How do I fix it.

    Hi There,
    I purchased a new MacBook Pro Retina 15". Since I am using MacBook Pro and I uses Time Machine for backup files and program. Store saleman tell me I can retore my existing program and files from old MacBook Pro to new MacBook Pro computer. After files transfer it seem to be OK. But only Aperture has a problem when every time I open Aperture to edit photos, MacBook Pro ask me to key in the Aperture Serial Number that made me so inconvinent. Did any one have meet this problem and can someone teach me how to fix it, Thanks.
    Nelson

    Either the license files were not transferred or it has to be relicensed.
    Remove and then re-install aperture. On an rMBP this should take only a couple of minutes.

  • Aperture referencing files to time machine HD instead of from 'working' HD

    Every once in a while I will go into a project see the "broken link" icon on my previews. In Finder I check the location I have all my images stored (and initially referenced) on an external HD. They are there.
    I go to File>>Locate Referenced Files and see the referenced images have been changed to a location on my separate Time Machine external HD. I locate them and everything is fine but it's annoying.
    I don't not have Time Machine on automatic because I have a laptop and like to choose when it backs up. I've looked through other Time Machine/Aperture problems and couldn't find anything. Does any one know of a setting, advice, or have experienced this at all?
    Thanks.

    Thanks. Sorry, for the delay to answer your questions:
    I'm the only one managing the files, and it has happened quite a few times now. The files are in multiple projects ranging from recent imports to projects from a few years ago.
    I didn't need to use "File→Relocate Master ..." just the "File→Locate Referenced Files" because my masters are still intact on my working HD. It says that my previous location was on "Volumes/Time Machine/photography/...etc." when I always import masters to "Volumes/My book/photography/...etc"
    Does Aperture notice if I move master files because my thought is that Aperture is noticing my TM copying files to another HD and then referencing those instead of my original working HD I import to. Then, the next time I open Aperture it cannot reference the Time Machine files.
    Is it because I have TM (USB) backing up my internal HD and my external working HD (FW800)?

  • I am changing to a larger hard drive on my Mac. Can I copy the Aperture library from my backup disk running Time Machine without loosing anything?

    I am installing a larger harddrive on my Mac. Can I copy the Aperture library from my backup disk running Time Machine without loosing anything? I am getting help migrating everything else on to the new harddrive, but since copying the 350Gb Aperture library takes a lot of time, I am planning to do that part myself.

    I found the following information on Time Machine help about restoring Aperture library from TM
    Restoring Your Aperture System
    If you buy a new computer or use another system at a different location and want access to the Aperture library, you can install Aperture and then transfer the library from your vault (on your backup disk) to the other computer. If you experience equipment failure or other unexpected events, such as fire or weather-related damage to your equipment, you can easily restore the entire library to your new computer from a backup disk.
    HideTo restore the entire library from an external backup disk
    Restoring Your Aperture System
    If you buy a new computer or use another system at a different location and want access to the Aperture library, you can install Aperture and then transfer the library from your vault (on your backup disk) to the other computer. If you experience equipment failure or other unexpected events, such as fire or weather-related damage to your equipment, you can easily restore the entire library to your new computer from a backup disk.
    HideTo restore the entire library from an external backup disk
    If you buy a new computer or use another system at a different location and want access to the Aperture library, you can install Aperture and then transfer the library from your vault (on your backup disk) to the other computer. If you experience equipment failure or other unexpected events, such as fire or weather-related damage to your equipment, you can easily restore the entire library to your new computer from a backup disk.
    HideTo restore the entire library from an external backup disk
    Connect the hard disk drive that contains the most up-to-date vault to your computer and open Aperture.
    Choose File > Vault > Restore Library.The Restore Library dialog appears.
    Choose the vault you want to use to restore your library from the Source Vault pop-up menu.If the vault doesn’t appear in the Source Vault pop-up menu, choose Select Source Vault from the Source Vault pop-up menu, navigate to the vaults location in the Select Source Vault dialog, then click Select.
    Click Restore, then click Restore again.

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