Best storage set-ups for large Libraries?

Question

Let's say "large Library" means 500 GB and/or 500,000 Images, and above.
What set-ups for storage, on a Mac maximized with RAM, will provide the best Aperture performance?  The best bang-for-the-buck?  Assume Thunderbolt is available.  I don't know much about hardware: RAID, hybrid drives, etc.
What sensible considerations should one make for backup and data-redundancy?
How can I determine if the storage media is a bottleneck in the performance of Aperture on my system?
I run most libraries off of external USB-3 drives mounted (sometimes directly, often via powered USB-3 hubs) to my
MacBook Pro
Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013
Processor  2.7 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory  16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics  NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1024 MB
System Drive  APPLE SSD SD512E
This works well for small and medium-size Libraries, but for large Libraries, I'm spending costly time waiting for the system to catch up.
Some of that, demonstrably, comes when I run a three-monitor set-up.  (But this provides some welcome advantages to me.)
Additionally, some back-ups and database repairs now take 12 hr. or longer.
Thanks.

Answer 1

Thanks William,
I kept my c. 2011 MPB and use it for making back-ups, which is done automatically after I leave for the day.  My early-2013 MPB is so much faster (and has such a higher-resolution screen) that I don't use the older computer at all.
William Lloyd wrote:
Probably the fastest storage you can get is the La Cie "little big disk" which is a pair of 512 GB SSDs with a Thunderbolt 2 connection. The issue is, only the newest Mac Pro, and the newest retina MacBook Pros, have Thunderbolt 2 right now.
OWC tech explained to me that TBolt2 allows 2x the throughput, but that the drives have to be able to provide it.  TBolt1 should provide 1,000 MB/s (do I have the units correct?), which is faster than most drives can provide.  So the bottleneck, for me, isn't likely to be the port, but rather the drives.  USB-3 can move 500 MB/s, which is still faster than -- afaict -- what my WD Passport drives can provide.
As I currently see it, I need faster throughput, and I need to either trim my large Libraries or find a way to manage them so that the regularly used files are more speedily available.
Regarding faster throughput, an external SSD comes to mind.
The problem, for me, is that the large Libraries are close to 1TB (with Previews).  While I don't expect them to grow (the data acquisition phase is, for now, done), it would be short-sighted to assume they won't.  That brings up the second consideration, which is how to best use spanned drives that contain an Aperture Library.
As I see it (with my limited understanding of hardware), what I really want is _a lot more RAM_, or, barring that, a huge SSD scratch disk.  I have 200 GB free on my system drive, which is an Apple-supplied SSD, but it doesn't seen to be used as effectively as I'd like.
WD is now selling a new portable TBolt SSD, the "My Passport Pro", available with 4 GB of storage, and with a throughput of 230 MB/s.  My current largest Library is on WB Passport drives, whose throughput is not faster than 480 Mb/s (Max) (I assume BITS, not BYTES, so 40 MB/s).  That's a huge difference, while still only 1/4 of the speed possible with TBolt1, and 1/8 the throughput possible with TBolt2 (which my early-2013 MBP does not have, afaict).
These are the questions I am trying to answer:
- How can I measure my current throughput?
- Can I determine the bottleneck in my use of large Libraries in Aperture?
- Will new storage give me faster performance?
- Which storage will give me the best "bang-for-my-bucks"?  (The La Cie "little big disk" seems to have it's bang limited by my computer, which greatly lowers its quotient value.)
In short: how can I get 900-1000 MB/s throughput on my machine, and is there any way to set up my Library so that, even though it is close to 1 TB, I can use a smaller very fast drive for the most read/written files?
--Kirby.