Aperture library on external drive for multiple computers

I would like to store my aperture library and all masters on an external hardrive (with a backup). Ideally I'll be able to only transport this external drive to work to edit photos and return home to my personal computer and continue where I left off. I've tried something similar but ran into problems with lost adjustments, etc and am wondering what the simplest method is that others have discovered.
Cheers

All the editing work is stored in the *****.aplibrary file.
THe most obvious way will be to keep it on the external drive. If you experience it is to slow with USB you could probably have a better performance with FW800. Probably not so much with FW400.
I have no experience with ***-aplibrary on external drive. Probably ist it to slowdown the editing.
The best way to edit on 2 different macs will need in my opinion some extra preparation.
Set both Aperture in exactly the same way pointing to referenced files on the external drive.
Keep the *****.aplibrary file on the HD of the mac you are using and at the end of your work copy it somewhere (may be on the same external HD where you keep the referenced masters). Before starting to work on the second mac copy this ****.aplibrary on it. You will need to do the same reversed to go back to the other mac.
This will probably give you the fastest editing but you will need time to copy the *****.aplibrary files, may be a lot of time. Even if you use a program like Tri-Backup to do the copy you will se that even if the *****-aplibrary has few changes it takes a lot of time to overwrite the older copy.
Keep projects and libraryes as small as possible, or you will waste more time coping it compared to the more speed in editing.
This is only my opinion, and I am not 100% sure of it. I'm giving it to you only as a suggestion you could try and see if it works for you.
Regards
Walter

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Move Logic 9 to External Drive for Multiple Computers

I'm looking for advice on moving ALL my Logic-9 data & settings & plugins to an external HDD, so I can seamlessly move between two different computers: a 2010 MBP with OSx10.6.8 + Logic 9.1.7 and a MacPro with OSx10.8.5 + Logic 9.1.8 (different Logic versions because different OSx’s?). I researched and learned plenty but found nothing consolidated into one thread. Blending various --sometimes contradictory-- instructions, I moved a lot & all works so far, but I wonder if I’ve moved too much or not enough. I took 8+ hours (very methodically) to get this to work, but had I found this already written-up, I would have taken only a couple hours. I hope my experience might help others (if I’m over-posting I apologize).
Both computers are running Logic 9, with software instruments: Addictive Drums 1.5.2, Kontakt 5.0.1 + Mojo Horns, and Bass Station 1.6.0. , as well as the plugin effects: iZotope Nectar 1.1.4, Ozone 5.0.4., Insight 1.02, Alloy 2.0.2, Focusrite Plugin Suite, Midnight Plugin Suite. Before starting the move I opened Logic on each computer and did the “Download Additional Content” to download everything available; funny thing is… the laptop ended up with 102 [Apple Loops or Garageband?] files while the desktop came out with 104. Also, I had to unhide my “User/Library” folder which Mountain Lion hides, using one of the methods described in other postings.
Here’s a step-by-step of what I did so far:
1) Save every project’s assets (audio, etc) within its project folder.
2) Copy the “EXS Factory Samples” folder from Laptop HD/Library/Application Support/Logic/ to the ExternalHDD. I created a symlink of this folder, and put the symlink back in the original Laptop HD/Library/Application Support/Logic/ folder, so Logic will be pointed to the ExternalHDD. I renamed the original folder in the laptop to “EXS Factory Samples MOVED” rather than deleting it (until I’m sure it’s totally safe). I renamed the “EXS Factory Samples symlink” to “EXS Factory Samples” so Logic will think it is the original folder. I followed this same symlink-&-rename method for all the rest of my transfers that followed. 3) Move the “Sampler Files” folder from Laptop HD/Library/Application Support/Garageband/Instrument Library/Sampler , to ExternalHDD.
4) Transfer “Logic” folder with all my Logic projects from Laptop HD/Users/My User-Home/Music/ to ExternalHDD.
5) Transfer “iZotope” folder from Laptop HD/Users/My User-Home /Documents/ to ExternalHDD (this has all my presets for Alloy & Ozone), transfer “iZotope Nectar” from the same location. I also transferred the folder where I kept all my audio/midi interface & controller settings.
6) Transfer “Apple Loops” folder, “Presets” folder, and “MIDI Configurations” from Laptop HD/Users/My User-Home /Documents/Audio/ to ExternalHDD. Remember that all these are done using the same symlink-rename method for safety purposes.
7) I was afraid there may be bad consequences to transferring the entire “Logic” folder from Laptop HD/Users/My User-Home /Library/Application Support/ , so I instead transferred INDIVIDUALLY each settings-folder within Laptop HD/Users/My User-Home /Library/ Application Support/Logic/ (“Channel Strip Settings”, “Chord Grids”, “Data Management Settings”, “Key Commands”, “Plug-in Settings”, “Project Templates”, “Sampler Instruments”, “Temp”, “Undo”). BTW, some of these folders did not exist on the desktop computer yet.
8)Now connect the ExternalHDD to the desktop computer and copy all the same symlinks that were created that ExternalHDD, and paste them each into their respective places on the desktop computer. Use the same symlink-rename method just-in-case. In some cases I had to create folders that did not yet exist.
9) Trash the no-longer-necessary symlinks that are still on the ExternalHDD.
Although I consolidated lots for this write-up, DO ALL THESE STEP-BY-STEP, TESTING THAT EVERYTHING WORKS AT EACH STEP.
Question: Should I also transfer some other folders from [Laptop HD/Users/My User-Home /Library/ Application Support/]? In there lie more folders called Addictive Drums, iZotope, Focusrite-SaffirePro24DSP, Native Instruments, Novation, "LogicLoopmasters sample library", etc. that I wonder about, because the appear to include settings files as well as data files. Perhaps just copy paste some of these settings from one computer to the other? All suggestions & experiences appreciated!
-Chris Jones

Hello Chris Jones,
I just found this and I'm trying to figure it out so your post is an excellent starting point, thank you! Since you posted this in Feb are there any things you would change or you found out after doing it? And how is everything running?
As a data point, I just added a SSD as the startup drive to an older mac pro (1,1) which is only used for Logic Pro and the speed now is amazing. Now I want to see if I can off-load the same things you have dealt with. Any additional insight will be greatly appreciated and thanks again for taking to time to document it.
ld foster

Backing up Aperture library on external drive.

Lately I haven't been using Aperture, I've just been organizing all my pictures into folders, and keeping the folders in my Pictures folder. Then making a copy of the whole thing onto my external. I decided to start using Aperture.
I finally just finished organizing everything the way I want it. But how should I go about saving a backup to my external.
I have 2 libraries. I also have 2 vaults saved (one for each library). So when I go in my Pictures Folder, I see Aperture Library, Aperture Library 2, and my 2 vaults. Is it enough to just put the Vaults on my external? Or do I need to put the whole "Library" on the external. I would think it would be enough to put the Vaults, cause that's what I would think the vaults are for. To completely restore the library incase anything goes wrong. But I just wanna be sure before something happens to my computer, and all I have are Vaults that don't do me any good.

Issues,
I would think it would be enough to put the Vaults, cause that's what I would think the vaults are for. To completely restore the library incase anything goes wrong. But I just wanna be sure before something happens to my computer, and all I have are Vaults that don't do me any good.
Yes, that is what vaults are for. With a vault you can restore everything that was in your library. Remember that referenced photos are not stored in your library and therefore not backed up in a vault. Also remember that the most likely reason to use a vault is because the disk with your library is damaged or unavailable in some way. For instance, my MacBook internal drive bit the dust absolutely, completely, just before Christmas. No booting up; the Apple store couldn't even look at the hard drive by attaching it as a secondary drive to a different computer. If you find yourself in that situation, your vaults in their current state would be completely useless.
nathan

Large aperture library on external drive; too large to move to internal before switching to photos

I have a 395gb aperture library on an external drive. It used to reside on my old macbook pro, but i got a new one (retina) with a smaller hard drive and i haven't found a way to bring it over yet. My plan was (and i started) to slim it down by getting rid of photos and projects that I don't need, but it'll take a while.
I was hoping i could bring it over piecemeal, like by exporting some folders/projects as aperture libraries, and then importing them into photos, but i'm not sure that's possible.
I tried opening the aperture library (on the external) in photos so it would migrate, but it said i need much more space (the external is pretty full). Any ideas?
Thanks,
Adam

jpvp wrote:
Hi,
NoisyScott: do I understand it correctly that your masterfiles on the server are just sitting in a folder individually, or are they within an aperture library that is on the server that just has your masterfiles???
And FINALLY: can you back up your referenced files (or versions) as well, and how do you go about that?
My master files are just sitting in folders on the server. I leave the Aperture Library on my laptop hard drive as it just contains thumbnails, previews and the actual Aperture database.
You can back up your master images any way you want; a separate hard drive, a Network Attached Storage device, Mozy.com, Amazon S3, etc. The issue is that backing up these images is now up to you as you can't use the Aperture Vaults with referenced masters.
For what it is worth, moving master images around in Aperture is ridiculously easy once you get used to it. You can Reference your masters to a new location at any time you want, as many times as you like then change your mind and consolidate them to your Aperture Library (and thus make them managed masters again) all without Aperture missing a beat.
The critical thing to remember is you must do any and all Master Image file operations through Aperture.
If you decide to re-organize your Master Image folder structure through the finder, Aperture will no longer be able to connect to those Master Images and you then have to attempt to re-connect the images to the references in the Aperture database. This sounds like it should be easy, but for some reason Aperture has a very difficult time doing this. If you only ever use Aperture to move the files around, everything works swimmingly.
Try all of the Relocate and Consolidate Masters functions with a small test project or two at first until you are comfortable with how you want to organize all of your files and then go for it.
Good luck.

Aperture Library on External Drive Keeps Locking Up

Hello all!
I have the aperture library that I created after my most recent wedding shoot on an external hard drive. Since I was importing photos out in the field, I created the library on my external from my laptop. I now want to edit photos on my desktop mac at home, and am able to launch aperture to my wedding library on my external, and browse for up to a few minutes, but then it freezes, and sometimes will unfreeze after a few minutes, but sometimes I am simply forced to force-quit. The external is properly formatted (Extended, Journaled), and is connected via USB 3.0. What could I be doing wrong?
Paul

and browse for up to a few minutes, but then it freezes, and sometimes will unfreeze after a few minutes, but sometimes I am simply forced to force-quit.
Have you repaired the Aperture library after the Force -Quitting? That is strongly recommended.
Next time you launch Aperture, open the Activity viewer (From the Windows menu > Show Activity). This way you will see, which media Aperture is currently processing, when it is starting to hang.
You may have a corrupted video or photo in your library, that cannot be processed and is causing Aperture to hang. You can test that by launching Aperture while holding down the Shift-key. This will defer the generation of preview images. If Aperture does not hang when launched this way, it is very likely, that a corrupted file is causing this, and you have to try to identify it.
If the shift-key does not make a difference, test with a new, empty Aperture library and add a few test images. DO you have the same problem with a different library?

Aperture library on external drive that just died...

Not sure if this is the right place to post, but here goes.
I recently moved my Aperture library to an external firewire drive. I set my Time Machine to back it up from the external drive. Its the only thing I backup from that drive, all other backups come from my built-in interal drive on my iMac. Problem is, I don't remember the name of the drive and where I put the library file. So I am planning to get a new drive and I want to restore it from the backup. Any ideas?
If you know of a better area to post this, please advise.
Thanks

Alfredo,
Is your old drive no longer available?
You can browse your Time Machine backups like a disk in the Finder. Perhaps you can tell, what the name of your old drive and the name of the Aperture Library was. For example, my Backup drive "Lacie RaidBackup" looks like this in a Finder window:
It has a folder "Backups.backupdb" and with in folders for each Computer, then folders for each drives. Here you can see the backed up drives on your machine.
You can search the backup for Aperture libraries:
Select the the backup of your external drive and type ":aplibrary" into the search field, then set the search range to the name of your exterternal HD.
The Path bar at the bottom of the search window will show you the location of your Aperture library.
To restore your Aperture Library from Time Machine, open a Finder Window showing your "Computer" with all drives in "Column View" - set the Finder's Preferences to show all devices in the Sidebar, if you have not already done so:
With this window the frontmost Finder window dive into the Time Tunnel from the TM menulet:
Go back in time, until you are seeing your external drive appear in that window:
If you named your new drive exactly like your old drive, you should be able to restore your library using the "Restore" button .
For more general Information on TM see Pondini's excellent page: Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions
Reagrds
Léonie

Aperture - library on external drive Firewire 800 or S-ATA?

Hi
Which is the best kind of connections to store and edit images on Aperture library?
Do you suggest FW or S-ATA external drive?
thanks
Koferc

While eSATA is marginally faster in real world use than FW800, the fact that you have to retrofit it makes the calculation a little more difficult. I have a MacPro and was thinking of using the Newer Technology upgrade kit ($25) to add this to my setup. But after reading the experiences of a number of users regarding the complexity of the upgrade compared to the benefit, I decided to hold off. You can see some comments by people who've actually done the upgrade after the article.
http://www.macworld.com/article/133689/2008/05/newertechesata.html?
It seems that eSATA on a MacPro is a bit faster than FW800 on writes and about the same on reads. I was looking for a huge speed increase connecting a Nexto DI Extreme unit I use on the road, as it is limited to eSATA and USB2 (SLOWWWWW). But I only use this unit once a month, and once I factored in spending an hour taking my MP apart I decided it was better to do file transfers while I was out of the office. The cheapest way to "speed things up" - just do them when you aren't looking!

Aperture library on external drive - Aperture not responding

as my laptop filled up - I created an external Aperture library on an external drive - with a matching drive used as a vault - worked fine - then I was deleting images from the laptop library that were also in the library on the external drive and when I re-connected the external library drive Aperture would be unable to start, had to force quit - I can not open the library on the external drive in Aperture - I can open the library on the laptop - but I need the images in the external drive - the vault was updated 6 days ago -
I am in the process of restoring the library from the vault - my question -
can anything be done to open the current library on the external drive? - any kind of work around?

Well, yes and no. When my laptop drive got full, I copied the laptop library to the external 500gb drive and gave it a different name. Then I proceeded to use it as the primary library as I shot 3 weddings. So, yes, I have 2 separate libraries, the one on my laptop and the one on my external drive(s), both have masters (no referenced files), the external drive has everything that the laptop has - the external drive has probably 100 gigs more than the laptop (the laptop has about 85 gigs of files) - I also have a second matching 500gb external drive that backs up the first external drive which is where the vault for the first 500gb drive is located.
I just restored the library from the vault (from December 1) to create yet another new library on another totally spare drive just to see if it would work - that was successful now it is recovering the 41 projects
that were in the vault - it looks to be running pretty smoothly - although the process has so far taken several hours. Recall, however, that this vault backup is 6 days old. The most current library still will not load. This new restored library opens fine. So, there is something corrupted (a bad image perhaps?) in the most current 500gb library that is hanging Aperture.
I still have the original cards that I shot in the past 6 days (about 20 gigs) which were not in the vault, but I did a lot of work with those files and would like to recover the projects from the library
that can't currently open. I have a desktop at my studio and I am thinking I will try opening the problem library (on the 500gb external) there and see what happens.
This whole thing started when I figured I could clear some files from the laptop that were both on the laptop and the external drive. I have done this before to create more working space on my laptop.
Have I clearly answered your questions? - thank you for your P.S. - I didn't know I could get the .approject files out - I may try that -

Aperture use of external drive for storage

I am trying to set up my aperture library on an external shared drive connected to my airport extreme. Aperture will import all of my pictures to this library, but crashes on startup after creating the library.
I have tried this many items.
What am I doing wrong?

I would not expect an Aperture Library to reliably work across a network. Instead keep the Library on the internal hard drive and try using Referenced Masters (From within Aperture, import images from the hard drive folder into Aperture selecting "Store files in their current location."), which I would expect to work across a network.
Good luck!
-Allen Wicks

Use same external drive for 2 computers

On my desk top I use an external hard drive to store my pictures. It is named local disk (m:). I want to work on pictures with my laptop, but when I connect external drive to laptop, is named local disk (f:). LR does not recognize this drive. I want to switch back and forth between desk top and laptop.
Any ideas?

Ha! Sorry...wrong link (right link, actually, wrong thread).
You can just map the drive with explorer, or you can use disk manager to make the drive letter what you want it to be. Lastly, you can use a batch file and the SUBST command to map the drive.

Setup drop-box folder on external drive for multiple Macs

Greetings,
I have a classroom full of photography students who need to turn in 4GB folders with pictures in them so that the teacher can grade them. We've discussed various options for facilitating this, with the only feasible solution we can come up with being setting up an external 2TB MyBook and having the kids go up, plug in the firewire and xfer their folder to the drive (see requirements below for why this is the feasible solution). One snag with this is that I want to set it up so that when the drive mounts, it's mounted as a drop-box share to prevent plagiarism as well as kids deleting/messing with other kids' projects. The problem is that each computer has different profiles so when the drop-box is setup correctly on one computer, another computer is plugged in and the folders are wide open again. Since I obviously can't setup the permissions for each profile on each computer, what options do I have to set this up? I'm open to different ideas/different ways to accomplish this, but here are the requirements:
- Drop-box-like functionality. Students can basically "submit" work, but only the teacher can view the files.
- Preferably the device needs to be hardwired to the MBP using Firewire. USB is too slow and these are wireless laptops without benefit of having any ethernet jacks accessible to them. They are all connecting through an Airport Extreme and xferring 4GB files wirelessly is not an option due to class time restraints.
- This has to work across 30 laptops with multiple user profiles.
- If software is a suggestion, free and/or OSS is preferable since this problem will be mitigated next school year with implementation of iMacs and Xserves in this program.

I would love how to do this as well. I actually tried moving a .mbox file out of ~/Library/Mailboxes/Mail and onto an external hard drive. Then I created an alias of the .mbox file and put it back into ~/Library/Mailboxes/Mail. No luck.

Library on external drive with two computers and a backup...

Hi there,
I'm a video editor (and Adobe Cloud user) and I'm about to start using Lightroom for my photographs.
I don't want to have my photos in the same place as my other projects just to keep everything sorted.
My question's are:
1. Can I put everything (photos and catalog) on an external hard drive?
This shouldn't be a problem I think.
2. Can I use this one hard drive and switch between my desktop and laptop? Both have the latest version of Lightroom.
3. Can I use CarbonCopyCloner to backup everything to a second hard drive in case hard drive 1 fails?
And if hard drive 1 crashes continue working on hard drive 2 without any problems?
Thanks a lot

Yes, yes and yes.
If tragedy strikes and drive 1 fails and drive 2 is put in its place, if drive 2 is identified with a different letter (Windows) or name (Mac), Lightroom will need to be redirected to the new location for the catalog and photos, but this is easily done. Same thing could apply when switching the external from desktop to laptop if the drive letter/name differs between the two machines, but they can be set to always use the same letter to identify the drive.
See this: Catalog getting too big in MyPictures/C Drive, What to do?!

Can I setup common iPhoto library for multiple computers...

Hi -
Is it possible to have one library that is accessible from multiple computers in different locations? For example, my office Mac, my home Powerbook and our vacation home iMAC can all share the same photo library? I am downloading pictures from many different sources and in different locations and would like a centralized library.. I guess this would be the equivalent of cloud computing for iPhoto...
Thanks,
M.

Possibly. I've not used the feature but if you have a MMe account you could setup "Back to my Mac" so that two of your Macs could access the Mac designated to house the library you might be able to do what you want. It would be best to have an external FW hard drive connected to that library to house the library.
I've used an iPhoto library on my iMac from my laptop on our home WAN. But that was with Screen Sharing. Don't know if the Back to My Mac method would work.
I've used VNC to connect to my iMac from the laptop but don't know if that will let me add photos to the library there as that method has me virtually on the iMac. You could try it with a test library and one of the VNC applications. I use Chicken of VNC. You must setup Remote Management under Sharing on the host computer and install CVNC on the remote Macs. Create a test library and give it a try. Both with VNC and Back to My Mac if you have it.
If any of the two satellite Macs would be wirelessly connected that will be a problem due to occasional dropouts. If a wireless Mac was using the library and had a dropout that could damage the library's database and require some rebuilding effort which may or may not be 100% effective. That connection would also be slow.
If they are hard wired to the internet it would be much more probable that it would work as you'd like and be more reliable.
An alternative method for "syncing" the libraries (if you have a MMe account) would be to create iPhoto MMe galleries of new photos from each Mac with the option for downloading the full sized image file. Once each Mac has downloaded and imported the new photos the gallery could be deleted.

Having one iTunes music library for multiple computers via TimeCapsule

Hi there,
I'm just wondering how to best set-up my iTunes library. I want the library on my TimeCapsule wireless hard drive, and to be able to set this as the library for multiple computers at home. It's a waste of space to have duplicate libraries on both computers.I had this working with an earlier version of iTunes, but its not working now.
I also want to know how I can get the wireless device to fire up simply by pressing the iTunes icon. If I do this without, iTunes says it can't find the library.
Thanks.

Frank, yes. Only one library of the songs and content if it's stuff from the Music Store.
If the music is your own CD rips, then you can put all the music on a central server and have all the computers connect in on your home network.
You do NOT set your iTunes to share their libraries, or look for shared libraries, you manually do the drag-and-drop with your networked music folder into the iTunes library window and each copy of iTunes behaves as if the network volume is it's own.
The only shortcoming to this is if you add music with one machine, the others will NOT have the new songs added to their own library lists unless you drag and drop the songs into the iTunes library manually for each computer.
I have enough music that I have broken down the library list into five folders, A-E, F-J, K-O, P-T, and U-Z. When I add new songs, the folders they're in will be added at the root Music Library folder level, so I can refresh the libraries with the new music THEN manually file it into one of those five correct folders.
This is what my network library looks like:
http://home.comcast.net/~foodandart/Network%20Library.jpg - you can see that I haven't added the Clapton, BBC, Roxy Music, etc, to the library lists for the entire house.
The G4 frankenbeast computer in our living room, is the media server for the house and has the stereo system rigged through it and is used to rip vinyl and watch the video. I still have to refresh the libraries in my husband's laptop, and on my main internet computer, so those albums haven't been filed yet.
Of course the caveat here is that I haven't a single item that's purchased through the Music Store and thusly locked down, since I rip my own LP's and CD's, so everything is much more flexible in how I can handle it.
Deb.

Using one library for multiple computers and accounts (not store accounts)

Okay, we currently have four macs in the house. One was recently bought: i7 iMac (late 2009), another is dying: (mid 2005 iMac), another is going somewhere else: (late 2006 iMac) and another is a laptop: C2D MBP (late 2008). We might add another computer into the mix some time later.
Anyway, what I want to do is have one iTunes library which all of the computers can access (even guest's/friend's computers). We have a Time Capsule, and as I have heard one can make the TC the HDD for the iTunes library, I thought it best for it to be there.
The only thing is, how can each computer (and the possible multiple accounts) each access the same library, without duplicating and messing anything up? Is that possible? If it is too hard for multiple computers to do this, I would still want the (late 2009) iMac to be able to use the same library for the two accounts on it.
Thanks.

Make sure everything you want to share is on the centralized drive (music, video, and books, but if any of you have mobile devices, keep the apps on your local drive). Mount the drive on your computer. (Remember, from now on you must do this before starting iTunes.) If iTunes isn't running, start it now.
At the moment iTunes thinks the library is on the local computer and has all the music on it so that has to be changed. Click on Music in the left window pane, select all, and delete. This deletes all the music from the library and, if you choose, from the computer too. (Until you are sure this set-up is to your liking, don't delete the music from the drive.) Now go to Preferences and select the Advanced tab. Set iTunes to look at the music folder on your shared drive. And finally, select File>Add to Library to repopulate your iTunes library. This could take a while if you have a large music collection.
Since you changed the music location, anything that is added to one person's library will be saved onto the shared drive so it isn't too much of a hassle to manually add music. You'll have to rebuild playlists which is a minor hassle but it’s a one time deal.

Aperture library on external drive for multiple computers

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