Backuping Aperture Library On W7 to FAT32 HDD

[For some reason, I can no longer boot to OSX Mountain Lion on my 2010 MBP, so im stuck on W7 Bootcamp (in BC boot partition selection, i see OSX partition as efi boot, which wont let me boot OSX. i tried repair-no success). I decided to backup all important data, including my Aperture photo library to external FAT32 HDD on W7 and with software, which allows me to read and write on Mac OS Journaled partition. My second EXT HDD, Mac OS Journaled formatted, somehow, cannot wake on W7]
As im backuping to FAT32 HDD, ms explorer wont let me copy entire aperture.applibrary(i dont think there are files bigger than 4GB), so I decided to copy all the folders and subfolders manually (Masters folder,Database,Aperture.aplib,Attachments,iLifeShared,iMovie-Thumbnails,iPod Photo Cache,Masks,Previews,Thumbnails and ApertureData,Info files).
Question is, will be that copied library readable by Aperture? Am I not missing something? And one more thing.. is it possible to NOT copy Versions subfolder inside Database folder and still create working library? Its 2GB, its has about 2000 folders with subfolders and i found out I would have to copy each one separately. I wouldnt really miss edited photos(i edited maybe 10), masters are the most important for me.
Thank your for your time.

Similar Messages

Unable to restore aperture library using time machine

Aperture's UI was being barely responsive earlier today, and when I deleted a photo, it ended up actually deleting an entire album.
So I close Aperture and go to my last Time Machine backup to restore my Aperture library. The restore is going perfectly normally, but it gets about halfway through and stops. It throws up a "You do not have permission to do that" notice.
I've tried doing this numerous ways, including an actual "Restore" via Time Machine and also simply pulling the Aperture library off the Time Machine HDD via Finder. Same result no matter what I do.
Help please! I'm looking at an icon of my Aperture library that has all my photos in it, but I cannot copy it!

Thanks, MacDLS. I had checked the permissions under Get Info, but I don't remember an "ignore ownership" option. I'll look for it.
The problem may be a corrupted HDD. After posting my question, I ran Disk Utility, and it was unable to complete a "Repair Disk" on the backup HDD. So I'm assuming there are some corrupted sectors.

About backing up Aperture Library

I must confess I never have done a Vault of my Aperture Library. My masters are stored directly in the Library and this library with the rest of my Mac is backed up in an external drive with Time Machine.
My question may be silly but really I´m a llittle worried about it:
Is the same to backup Aperture Library with T.M than with Vault?
Regards.
Guillermo

what you see is completely normal. Time machine uses hard links not soft ones.
on every backup it only backs up afresh new and changed files. everything else is hard linked to existing backup copies. finder has a bit of trouble with that and counts every hard link separately hence the size discrepancy.

Aperture - library management and external HDD question

Hi all.
I have just graduated from a point and shoot to a Panasonic GH2 (love it), and have now begun using Aperture 3 rather than iPhoto on my early 2008 MB Pro to manage my photos going forwards. Of course, I’ve now discovered that Aperture is quite the resource hog and so it’s upgrade time (darn, “have” to buy a new ‘puter!). I have a 2011 MB Pro (2.3Ghz i7 with 512GB SSD) on order and 8GB of DDR 3 arriving from Crucial. Since I have this brand-new-computer opportunity I want to make sure I’m organising things properly before I start transferring things across, and so have a few Aperture-related questions. (In case it’s relevant, I’m shooting in RAW+JPEG. So far I’ve been using RAW as master, but have since learnt it might be a good idea to import JPG as master and switch to RAW only when I need to make corrections, so I’ll probably do that going forwards.)
I understand that moving to referenced masters on an external drive might be a good idea and save me precious SSD-space. To that end, questions are:
1. Can anyone recommend a companion external HDD for Aperture and the 2011 MBPro? I guess either FW800 or Thunderbolt are the way to go. The Lacie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt might be an option but is this overkill for Aperture masters or would FW800 be sufficient. I’ve also seen the G-Tech G-RAID mini, Lacie Rugged – thoughts welcome.
Key requirements are a) as compact as possible, and b) bus powered.
2. What kind of performance can I expect if I go down this route? Is there going to be significant loading/processing delay whenever I switch to a new image?
3. How will Aperture cope with (eg) syncing photos to iPad / iPhone if the drive containing the masters isn’t connected? Put another way, are JPG renders saved in the Aperture library (i.e. on my MBP SSD) or with the masters?
Thanks in advance to anyone who responds!
Aljrob

Aljrob_UK wrote:
...I have a 2011 MB Pro (2.3Ghz i7 with 512GB SSD) on order and 8GB of DDR 3 arriving
...I understand that moving to referenced masters on an external drive might be a good idea and save me precious SSD-space.
1. Can anyone recommend a companion external HDD for Aperture and the 2011 MBPro? I guess either FW800 or Thunderbolt are the way to go.
...Key requirements are a) as compact as possible, and b) bus powered.
OWC (an excellent vendor) has the Elite Pro Mini hard drive that meets your specs:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/EliteALmini/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
Thiunderbolt drives are not mainstream yet but eSATA and FW800 both work well. The multiple connection methods of OWC drives allow very desirable flexibility when purposing/repurposing drives.
Note too that the MBP optical drive can be replaced with up to a 1-TB hard drive DIY or OWC will do it for you. That is what I am doing with my 17" 2011 MBP.
2. Is there going to be significant loading/processing delay whenever I switch to a new image?
SSD latency is orders of magnitude less than hard drives. Switching to a new image even fast hard drives with fast connectivity add significant latency delay. To avoid that what I do is leave (Referenced) Masters on the SSD until all editing is complete (which may be a few weeks). Only then do I use Aperture to change the Referenced Masters location from the SSD to a large external drive.
What kind of performance can I expect if I go down this route?
With Masters on the SSD and 8 GB RAM imports/exports are very fast and all Aperture editing is essentially instant. You will be pleased!
Suggested workflow steps for Referenced Masters:
• Use a FW card reader or MBP slot to copy to a file folder on the SSD (never directly into Aperture or any other images management app). With fast camera cards copy times are quick, but cheap slow cards can slow this step down a lot.
• Eject and physically disconnect the card reader.
• Back up that file folder on external drive(s).
• Only after backup is complete, reformat the camera card in-camera.
• Import images into Aperture from the file folder on the SSD.
HTH
-Allen Wicks

Aperture Library Backup Copy Issue

Hi!
I am hoping some you will be able to help me out with a problem I am having with my Aperture library. I currently have Aperture 3, but I was previously running Aperture 1.
Recently I lost my HDD on my iMac, and I am starting to rebuild from scratch on my new OS and HDD. I had made back-up copies of my files on an external Seagate GoFlex drive, and all of the files seem to be intact. However, I am rather stumped with my Aperture library. I distinctly recall having manually copied my library file from my internal HDD to my back-up external drive a few months back. And I recall waiting for hours while the system reported "copying XXX of 90GB". Given the length of time it took and the report of copying XXX of 90GB, I had assumed that it had copied the full library. The problem I have is, now that I view the back-up file on my HDD via Finder, it only registers as an 80MB file. Yet, when I check the free space left on the HDD, it registers as if around 90GB is consumed. I am assuming this is actually the space consumed by the Aperture library.
What could be the problem here? I am hoping that the file was actually copied and backed up properly, but, somehow, simply does not register properly in the Finder window. Is there any way I can access the full file, since it seems to be consuming space?
I have already tried accessing the library via Aperture. It reflects all of the project names, folders, even the file names. However, the actual files to not come up.
It would be great if someone could clear this up for me, and, hopefully, help me access my library.
Also, moving forward, what would be the best way to back up my library, since this method of manual copying does not seem to work.
Thanks.

What do you mean by "However, the actual files to not come up"?
The Aperture Library is Finder package. It shows in Finder as a file, and can be treated as such. Your backup choices are:
- back up this file as you would any file -- manually triggered, and always a full back-up.
- use Aperture's Vault feature -- this is a differential back, manually triggered.
- use Time Machine -- also clever enough to do a differential back-up, automatically runs.
Note that this is for only the Library. If any of your Images have Referenced Masters, you will have to back them up separately (Referenced Masters are not included in the Library, and thus are not backed up by the Vault.)

Aperture Library on Internal HDD with Managed Video Files

After spending quite a few hours reading through the discussions on how to set up Aperture Libraries and the best practices on where to import files and how to treat them (managed/referenced), i'm finally about to dive in, but there's still one unresolved question which i hope someone can shed some light on ...
From what i can gather:
1. It's best to keep the main Aperture Library on your Internal Startup Drive
2. Use a mix of Managed and Referenced files
3. Keep Highly rated Photos and Recent Ones as Managed
4. Relocate older Managed Photos to an External HD to limit the size of the main Library
5. Managed and Referenced files are not fixed, they can be changed at any time
6. If possible, it's best to keep everything on one big Library so that all files can be found in one place, instead of using multiple libraries
My Internal HD is only 212GB and there's only about 100GB free at the moment. I've got a 2TB and another 1TB (USB connected) External HDD as well.
If i am just working with photos, i could probably juggle things around with the 70+GB avail space on my Internal Drive (assuming 10-15% is left free), but even then, it will be quite a tight setup that doesn't leave much room for growth. The thing is, i've got lots of large video files which are taking up most of the space, and there doesn't appear to be much option to keep them as managed files within the main Aperture Library.
As it is, my iPhoto library (which i've just moved from the Internal HD to the External HDD) is already about 90+GB (over half must be from videos). And i've got 200+GB more photos and videos to import into Aperture too. Before starting, i really want to make sure i've got a suitable infrastructure and system, but the rather limited space i've got on my internal Drive and the large storage requirements for my video files has got me stumped on how to proceed.
For users who have quite a fair bit of videos, what's the best way to use Aperture with managed files on the Internal drive? Is it just a matter of getting as large a Startup drive as possible, getting a Firewire connected external drive (that's faster than the USB connected ones), or is there some better work around?
One option is to keep the videos as referenced files, but (i think i read) that they won't be visible in Media Browser (and iMovie?) unless they are managed. After importing and cataloguing the videos in Aperture, i would like to access and edit them in iMovie, which is why i thought it would be essential to keep them as managed files.
Thanks for any advice and thoughts shared. It's been a long journey over the last few days to do backups, upgrade to Mountain Lion, buy Aperture, upgrade iPhoto, and read through countless discussions in these amazing forums. Hopefully, that first import is only around the corner.
Message was edited by: Paddy99

Paddy99 wrote:
Thanks for your feedback Kirby.
You're welcome. Sorry more knowledgeable folks haven't chirped up.
You're right, getting a larger internal drive is the way forward. It appears that (from Apple) 750 GB seems to be one of the largest sizes
I would call OWC (or browse the site) and see what the largest drive you can install is. You might also look into replacing your system drive with an SSD, and putting a large drive in place of the Super Drive (if you have on).
750 GB should be big enough to comfortably hold your currently-being-worked-on video files. If it's not, you should probably upgrade to a Mac Pro.
You can put not-currently-being-worked-on files on external storage (in Aperture-speak, convert them from Managed Originals to Referenced Originals). Aperture makes it very easy to convert your Originals from Managed to Referenced and back.
(Just to be clear, the distinction is whether or not the files are inside the Aperture Library package. You could have Referenced Originals on your system drive.)
I've currently got a mid-2010 MBP, so i think there's a USB2.0 and a Firewire 800 port. I presume getting a External HD connected via Firewire 800 is a good temp solution.
Yes, it is. FW-800 works fine for Libraries and for Referenced Originals. I don't recommend relying on USB-2 (FW-400 is OK as a part-time compromise). Note that the performance needed for a Library is much higher than that needed for Referenced Originals (they are read into system RAM). If you need to cut corners, the first place to do it with the storage for your Referenced Originals.
There must be many other video heavy iPhone users who come across this issue with iPhoto or Aperture, but it's strange that there aren't too many discussions about this topic.
Aperture is really a photography workflow tool. The DAM is excellent -- and it can handle video. But nearly everyone who works regularly with video uses other programs for their workflow.
Message was edited by: Kirby Krieger -- corrected formatting.

Big Aperture Library - iMac with SSD HDD - how to?

Just ordered the new 27 inch i7 iMac with SSD plus 2TB HDD , and want to plan the move from my old MBP.
I currently have a managed Aperture Library which is about 400GBs (on an external drive). Clearly this will not fit on a 256GB SSD, but I'd like to get some speed benefit from the SSD.
So I'm thinking I'll change to a referenced library, placing the masters on the 2TB drive and the aplibrary on the SSD.
To get there, I plan to to go through the following steps, and my questions are, do you think this is a good approach? Is there a better way? Can you see any risks?
Make a backup copy of the aplibrary on my old Mac to an external drive
Open it on the iMac
Relocate Masters from this aplibrary to the 2TB drive
Close down Aperture.
Copy the (now smaller) aplibrary from the external drive to the SSD
Open it there.
I tried these steps between external hard drives with a small (less than 5GB) aplibrary to test the concept and when I opened the copy of the (now smaller) aplibrary, all worked fine. The copy of the aplibrary knew where the masters were.
Background:-
My thinking is that the performance should be quite good since the library will be quite small (I'm guessing about 30GBs) and accesses to this library will be to quite small items (average in my test is 0.2 MB per item), whereas the images are quite large (up to 25 MB per image). Hard disks are better at moving big items and SSD benefits tend to be higher for reads and writes to small items, since there is no seek time or rotation time. Of course the system and applications will be on the SSD as well.
PS I may even try this approach on my MBP, putting the aplibrary on the internal drive and the images still external.

Interesting!
Thanks, Ernie.
I am expecting that Aperture will launch faster since the app will be on SSD, but I also expect that due to accesses to the aplibrary, Aperture will be much faster. For example, the aplibrary will contain the previews, thumbnails, metadata and adjustments. I don't really expect that Aperture will transfer images being edited to SSD, rather that it would simply read them into RAM directly, bypassing the SSD.
What I definitely WILL do is to try to observe the performance differences with the library on SSD vs HDD.
I can see this turning into a science experiment for me!
PS, I will have 12 GBs of RAM, the original 4 plus 8 more
Message was edited by: John Kitchen - added postscript

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 migrate an Aperture library from an external HDD with Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted) format?

How can I migrate an Aperture library from an external HDD with Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted) format?
I used to store my pictures on an external hard drive using the latest version of Aperture. Now I tried migrating my Aperture library to Photos. However, after a short moment an error message popped up telling me that "Photos was unable to make a copy of your library before preparing it. Photos does not have the necessary permissions...".
My external HDD doesn't need any permission repairs nor is the system prohibited to read from or write to it.
Thanks for any advice in advance!
Gohtac

My guess is that the encryption is the problem for the new app.

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.

Access denied to Aperture backup on external drive. When I hold the comman key adn open aperture to acces a remote drive I receive the message "There was an error opening the database for teh library "/Volumes/VERBATIM HD/Aperture Library BU.aplibrary".

When I attempt to open an Aperture backup on a remote drive using the Command key when opening Aperture., I receive the message-
How do access these files?

How do I copy the libray onto another drive? Drag & drop? Can I put it onto my iMac drive without loosing the Aperture files already there?
yes, you can drag the library to your internal drive. if it has the same name as your current Aperture library rename it or drag it to a different folder.
I followed the instrucitons when formatting the drive, although I would not rule out an operator error
You can see the name of the file system on the drive, when you select the drive in the Finder and press the key combination ⌘I (for File > Get Info). The file system will show in the "General" brick of the Info panel.

Library Update rqstd on Aperture 3.2; now won't open get msg "error opening data base for the library "~/Pictures/Aperture Library.aplibrary" TIme machine won't load backup "error code -8003"

Aperture working on OS 10.6.8 then Library Update rqstd on Aperture 3.2; said yes;
now Aperture won't open, get msg "error opening data base for the library "~/Pictures/Aperture Library.aplibrary"
TIme machine won't load backup "error code -8003"
Tried reloading Aperture 3.2 but get same result.

You’re running an outdated copy of Safari on your Desktop. That won’t work.
In the Finder, select
Go ▹ Applications
from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-A to open the Applications folder. Check that the Safari application is in that folder. If it is, use it, and delete the copy on your Desktop. Never move or copy built-in applications.
If you've deleted Safari from the Applications folder, back up all data, then reinstall OS X. If your Mac was upgraded from an older version of OS X, you’ll need the Apple ID and password you used to upgrade, so make a note of those before you begin.

Aperture: Can I backup my entire Aperture library at once?

Soon I will be backing up my my entire notebook to a portable external hard drive to be placed in a safety deposit box as an off site backup. For a general day to day back up I use Aperture's Vault system. But I am very hesitant to do so for a MASTER backup because I don't like the idea of being tied to Aperture if I ever needed to retrieve my data. So is there a way to just have aperture export my entire collection to the hard drive at once instead of going to each project and exporting project by project? Thanks!!

Well...
Note there is no way to export the adjustments you make (levels, retouching, definition, saturation adjustments, etc.) out of Aperture.
As far as your master backup, note you really aren't tied to Aperture if you need to retrieve your data. The masters are always accessible, even when they are inside the Aperture library. That's because the Aperture library is just a set of folders. They are what is called a "package," but if you want to check out what's in the Aperture library you can just right click the library and select "Show package contents..." All your masters are in there.
So as for exporting all your masters in one fell swoop, I don't know of a way to do it. You have to do it a project at a time (and you can elect to export XMP sidecars containing all your keywords, if you wish to read them from some other app that can read XMP files). But that's not how I'd do it if I wanted to access all my masters... here's what I'd do:
Right click my Aperture library and select "Show package contents..."
Once I was in there, I'd type a period in the Finder search box (all file names have a dot in them...)
I'd change the search scope to Aperture library
I'd click the plus below and select "Kind... images"
Voila... every image in your Aperture library will show up in the smart search... your master files, as well as any JPEG previews that Aperture has generated.
You can easily copy these wherever you want, at any time, without needing Aperture installed, so no reason to do the export IMO.

Aperture Library and Retrospect Backups

I am a new Aperture user and I'm wondering if any other Aperture users have successfully come up with a Retrospect selector that will NOT include the Aperture library when performing a backup.
I have tried several different versions, to no avail.
Running Retrospect 6.1.126 with latest Driver Update 6.1.102.
Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance.
Power Mac G5 Quad Mac OS X (10.4.3) 2.5GB RAM

I am a new Aperture user and I'm wondering if any other Aperture users have successfully come up with a Retrospect selector that will NOT include the Aperture library when performing a backup.
I have tried several different versions, to no avail.
Running Retrospect 6.1.126 with latest Driver Update 6.1.102.
Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance.
Power Mac G5 Quad Mac OS X (10.4.3) 2.5GB RAM

Aperture Library/Database hacks

After one week playing around with aperture, i want to share my current insights with 'customizing' (my) aperture's way of dealing with my picture files.
Warning:
The following thoughts and arrangements are working for me, they're
undoubtly NOT supported by apple and the programmers of the aperture
application!
Reading a lot of articles in the forum when aperture hit the masses, i've been disappointed about how aperture will fit with me.
Over the years my growing picture collection moved over from one computer to the other, deploying more storage, and will continue to do so in the future. So the technical equipment has to be independent from the treasure's of my data, to follow state of the art hard- and software development.
For me, aperture approved to be of such a kind.
Despite aperture stores away all my digital masters into it's own Library, thus duplicating data during imports, it just brings in some kind of more detailed
directory hierarchies to my way of organizing my picture library. How does it do?
How do i store my Library?
Sorry to be that longish, but to explain my concepts i have to.
Modern operating systems distinguish private/personal and public/common data for their file storage locations. Hopefully they follow the 'FHS' (Filesystem-Hierarchical-Standard) brought up by linux, to name the diverse locations for classified data.
I do run mixed os'es within my networks, as no computer should be isolated from a networked environment anymore. But to be honest it's more a single-user situation in reality, then the multi-user aspects i always keep in mind when designing my infrastructure environment for a network.
My picture library/online-archive is classified 'common' data, so it stores outside my home-directory, and every user allowed to, has access to it. I do not support locales within my filenaming-conventions, users and me are german-spoken, so the 'common' data for my systems is always called
'/Bibliothek'.
Furthermore we're dealing with pictures (Bild), movies (Film), music (Musik) and documents (Dokumente) in all common used operting systems (os x, windows), storing private data to the home-directory within appropiate directories and public/common data to the equivalent directories at a common storage.
/Bibliothek
/Bibliothek/Bildarchiv
/Bibliothek/Filmarchiv
/Bibliothek/Musikarchiv
BTW, i customized windows to reflect this filetree within explorer windows, so users click to 'Eigene Bilder' (my pictures) and 'Bildarchiv' (common pictures) there, to change between directories, making it very convenient to work with.
Especially the 'common' picture files are strongly organized by date, which is reflected at the directory-structure, for example:
'/Bibliothek/Bildarchiv/2004/2004-04-17, make a good description/'
'/Bibliothek/Bildarchiv/2005/2005-12-00, a bunch for the whole period/'
A descriptive directory name is highly portable between operating systems, applications and last but not least, users!
For now, aperture seems to be pretty much a single-user solution.
But it's library can be 'distributed' to accomodate my needs.
I started to import my data by drag'n'drop, which works best for me. I didn't like the import assistent, which seemed to result in a different structure of my data in aperture's 'all projects' list. By creating a folder in aperture for the year, then drag'n'drop the multi-selected directories from the finder, i got within aperture:
All Projects + * (<-Aperture)
<div class="jive-quote">Library (smart-albums, collapsed)
2005 (folder)
2005-11-00 (folder, nested)
2005-11-17, sample bla (project, from directory)
Images from 2005-11-17, sample bla (album, inherited)
2005-12-08, take a better name (project)
Images from 2005-12-08, take a better name
Using aperture's preferences to switch between libraries i did import to different aperture libraries for the years, resulting in a bunch of directories, each holding an 'Aperture Library.aplibrary' paket there.
/Bibliothek/Bildarchiv/2004/2004.aplibrary
/Bibliothek/Bildarchiv/2005/2005.aplibrary
Yes, the pakets can be renamed, to better reflect whats in there. Aperture has to be restarted to change from one library to another!
The total amount of imported data, yet: 130 GB, ~33164 pics.
I am working with a 15" powerbook, 1,5gb ram, 80 gb hdd on the road and a 200gb external drive at home/office.
to make me feel comfortable with aperture, i switched to (terminal hacking!):
~me/Pictures/Aperture Library.aplibrary/
~me/Pictures/Aperture Library.aplibrary/2004/ ->
/Bibliothek/Bildarchiv/2004/2004.aplibrary
~me/Pictures/Aperture Library.aplibrary/2005/ ->
/Bibliothek/Bildarchiv/2005/2005.aplibrary
~me/Pictures/Aperture Library.aplibrary/Texturen/ ->
/Bibliothek/Bildarchiv/Texturen/Texturen.aplibrary
~me/Pictures/Aperture Library.aplibrary/...
/Bibliothek/Bildarchiv/2004/2004.aplibrary
/Bibliothek/Bildarchiv/2005/2005.aplibrary
/Bibliothek/Bildarchiv/Texturen/Texturen.aplibrary ->
/Volumes/HD39.1/Bibliothek/Bildarchiv/Texturen/Texturen Library.aplibrary
Linking folders to where i believe they are right placed in my systems.
Now aperture's settings don't have to be changed each time to switch between libraries. Not connecting the external hdd gives me grayedout
folders within aperture, for data stored on the external drive. Having a folder located on my inetrnal hdd and 'linked' to aperture:
~me/Pictures/Aperture Library.aplibrary/local ->
/Bibliothek/Bildarchiv/working.local.aplibrary
i can work with aperture normally, even if the external drive is not available.
the grayedout folders/subfolders/projects are browsable, but all thumbnails are just gray rectangles with its 'version name' underneath. same with smart-albums. available pics have colored thumbnails, unavailable pics are gray, naturally.
And aperture's database? well, i am very happy with it, really. Compared to my pre-aperture structure all the above mentioned tweaking gave me:
~me/Pictures/Aperture Library.aplibrary/Aperture.aplib/Library.apdb
This file is actually the sqlite3 database file. it's size is 111 MB now.
~me/Pictures/Aperture Library.aplibrary/Local ->
/Bibliothek/Bildarchiv/Working.local.aplibrary
I can store pictures there into folders and projects when i am on the road, filling up my local harddisk. Inspecting the paket shows up how aperture differenciated my pre-aperture filestructure:
/Bibliothek/Bildarchiv/Working.local.aplibrary/2005-12-08, take a better name.approject/2005-12-08 @ 01/49/06 PM - 1.apimportgroup/DSC0168/dsc0168.nef
All nicely packed into a single unit from the finder, easily browsable from aperture, and searchable by sql queries. Every Master enclosed in its own folder box, hm. Every import of files seperated to one folder, which makes clearly apparent that we will import redundant(duplicate) files for ever.
Adding two/three levels to my previous filestructure, strange namings all inclusive. As i sort my files with aperture into projects, the files accordingly move around at the filesystem-level. I'll let them go. They are there if i need access to them in case of failure.
T H E G L I T C H E S
within my setup the most current sql database is stored at:
~me/Pictures/Aperture Library.aplibrary/Aperture.aplib/Library.apdb
importing the way i did results in a sqlite3-database file for each library i switched to before linking them together. Right after linking one of those aplibrary pakets as a new folder, aperture will rebuild the current database at startup, which can indepently be invoked with 'option command aperture' anytime the program is started.
Changes to the metadata of a picture are written to the current database aperture is running on, but can be transfered to any other database file
when rebuilding the library at startup (which can be a time-consuming thing!)
Even if the external hd is reconnected before startup, some thumbnails are not properly generated all the time. At the current state i don't have any glue what's the cause for this. All Versions are properly accessable anyway.
Once again,
DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK,
if you try some of the suggestions i've made. Better you know how to handle a terminal before you even think about what i told here. Don't bother me, if something does not work for you - it works for me.
I can do this because it's my data, i am the only one affected by failure and i still do have my data on my windows system as a backup, for now.
Do the same before you trash your treasures.
Why i did made this post? Aperture really lacks support for team-working now. I cannot see how aperture can be really employed to its potential for an environment with more than a single user?. The sqlite3 database is said to handle concurrent users, i read on its homepage. So i still hope, there will be a group-worked aperture someday.

my reports, just for the logs.
drwxr-xr-x 2 fo03c fo03c 68 Dec 19 20:15 ArchiveInfo
-rw-r--r-- 1 fo03c fo03c 362 Dec 19 20:17 DataModelVersion.plist
-rw-r--r-- 1 fo03c fo03c 173107200 Dec 20 00:26 Library.apdb
comparing the timestamps, the time needed to recreate 'my' library, is:
4h 11 min.
The sql database contains 972 projects with 57952 picture items, as the startup overlay tells me. not that bad, i think. depends on the situation, and how much zen you learned, if you can wait for the 'recreate'.
but i didn't stop to mature aperture!
i switched to one of my 'old' libraries (choosing from preferences panel) and set some new
a) ratings
b) keywords
c) deleted a master from that 'old' library.
after changing back to the 'linked' aperture database file (within my home-directory, as described previously), and restart aperture -
yes, it crashed! oops.
yet another try - crash. i realized, i deleted the first pic from the 'current view' aperture tries to load after relaunch. ?! =:-(
if the database is corrupted again, i would have to reinvest ~4 hours to recreate the database? but how about the preferences?
apple this is a bug! when i made the preferences file
~me/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Aperture.plist
UNAVAILABLE (delete or rename as you like), aperture starts with the import assistent, as at its first time.
Since then i can start aperture and navigate to the project i deleted the file from (very unpolitly). The corresponding thumbnail shows up with a new 'icon' to lower right corner of the thumbnail. It clearly means: this file is UNAVAILABLE.
YES =:-) i deleted it!
the rating and keywording on the 'old' database is gone -
thus making the precedence of the database against the sidecars obvious, doensn't it?
selecting the 'orphaned' thumbnail, now leaves aperture with the message 'loading', but it does not crash. Changes in ratings or keywording to the current library (the 'recreated' new one) on different files are persitent across restarts of aperture. btw, aperture restarts with the focus on the orphaned first thumbnail, now marked with the icon 'i am NOT available', but it does not crash anymore, when starting.
my conclusion:
someone in the forums pointed towards the difficulties maintaining a database of pictures and the separation of their storage, as users will delete or move files seperated from that database, breaking everything.
NO, aperture does widely tolerate such doing.
But why should we do so? =:-)f
For me: its fun, i will not complain about failure, when i do mature an application like this.

Backuping Aperture Library On W7 to FAT32 HDD

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