Can I store an managed library on an external drive?

And is it recommended or not?

Yes you can.  There is little to recommend against it -- I do it all the time, with Libraries that range from small to huge.
Use FW800 or faster for the external drive connection.  FW400 works, but is pushing it.  Performance over USB 2 will not be acceptable except for very limited use.

Similar Messages

  • I have a macbook pro with only 128gb of hard drive. I have lightroom installed and all my photos on an external hard drive. Can I store my lightroom library on the external hard drive too?

    I have a macbook pro with only 128gb of hard drive. I have lightroom installed and all my photos on an external hard drive. Can I store my lightroom library on the external hard drive too?

    Yes. Find the LR catalog file by looking in Edit/Catalog Settings/General. Close LR and navigate to that spot. The catalog file is the one that ends in .lrcat - move it to wherever you want. Next to the .lrcat file is a subfolder called Previews.lrdata. You can move that over as well, but if you don't LR will generate new previews. Double-click on the .lrcat file in its new home and LR will open with that catalog. Set Preferences to When Starting Up Use Most Recent Catalog.

  • My MacBook Pro hard drive is almost full and I wish to store my Aperture Library on an external drive, how do I do this and is the use of USB2 suitable or do I need to use a Firewire external hard drive?

    My MacBook Pro hard drive is almost full and I wish to store my Aperture Library on an external drive, how do I do this and is the use of USB2 suitable or do I need to use a Firewire external hard drive?

    You'll get better performance if you use a Firewire hard drive (especially if you buy a 7200 RPM drive). Firewire's IO speed is significantly faster than USB 2.  USB 2 has a theoretical max speed of 480 Mbps except that it has extremely high over-head.   The fastest speeds you can typically get are about 300 Mbps.   Firewire, on the other hand, has very little overhead.  The fastest speeds you can get are very nearly 800 Mbps.  You will typically be constrained by the maximum read/write speed of the drive, not the speed of the I/O on the Firewire bus.  Now if you had one of those nice shiny new Macs with the Thunderbolt I/O and a Thunderbolt drive (Light Peak) ... I think they alter space and time so that your data arrives before you know you want it. 
    Also... unless you want to buy a solid state drive (very expensive), try to keep your hard drives from becoming much more than about 60% full if you want great performance.  A nearly "full" hard drive is, on average, only about half as fast as the same hard drive when nearly empty.
    USB 2 will work perfectly fine... just not as fast.
    Also... it's much safer to move the entire Aperture library than to "relocate masters".  Your images must be managed.  You can Aperture manage them, or you can manage them.  But someone has to manage them.  If you "relocate" them so that they are no longer stored inside the Aperture library then you'll need to work out a system of how you decide to organize things and it's critically important that you don't start moving files around or deleting things without Aperture's knowledge.  If you do, you'll break the links to your masters and start having problems with missing masters.  If you have Aperture manage the library then you don't need to worry about any of that stuff.... it's safer.
    Do make backups (use the Aperture Vault or use some other backup program, but make sure you back up your work if you care about it.)  There are only two kinds of hard drives in the world:  (1) those that have failed and (2) those that are going to fail.  There are no exceptions to this rule.  Hard drives are cheap.  Backup software is built into Aperture and into your Mac.

  • I have just installed Photoshop Elements for a MAC. MY photos were in iPhoto, I have 47,000 pictures and my drive on my Mac laptop is not large enough. I store my photos in iPhoto on an external drive. Can I store all my photos on an external drive when u

    I have just installed Photoshop Elements for a MAC. MY photos were in iPhoto, I have 47,000 pictures and my drive on my Mac laptop is not large enough. I store my photos in iPhoto on an external drive. Can I store all my photos on an external drive when using Photoshop Elements? If so, in what format should they be stored in? I do I move them from iPhoto to the new storage location? How do I call them up in organizer? And how do I call them up to Edit? I do not want to store any pictures on my Apple Mac laptop. I want to store pictures on several external devices.

    Yes you can store images on an external hard dive and have them referenced in Organizer. It’s best to export copies to separate folders/subfolders and that will ensure iPhoto does not get corrupted.
    Alternatively you could continue to use iPhoto with the Elements Editor set up in the iPhoto prefs as your external editing app. Then there is no need to use Organizer and no need to duplicate your images.
    You can then call up photos directly from iPhoto as normal with the additional option e.g.
    Double-click on a thumbnail to edit in iPhoto editor.
    Control (right) - click on a thumbnail to edit in the elements app.
    http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop-elements/kb/photoshop-elements-iphoto-mac-os.html

  • I store my itunes library on an external drive shared between 2 computers and itunes on computer A isn't seeing or showing the songs I added using itunes on computer B.

    I store my itunes library on an external drive shared between 2 computers and itunes on computer A isn't seeing or showing the songs I added using itunes on computer B. How to fix this?

    I don't know if this is me adding files to iTunes when the external wasn't connected
    it is.
    is it OK to just keep deleting that library on the Air?
    i wouldn't - at least not until i
    mount the external
    point iTunes media folder location back to the external via preferences > advanced
    consolidate my library via file > library > organize library
    The ntfs hasn't seem to be causing any problems, but I've always wanted to know.
    in order for your Mac to write to NTFS drives, it needs some help by installing e.g. the NTFS 3G driver. apparently that or something similar is installed on your Mac already. preferably, it would be formatted for Mac but then windows machines would need to have e.g. MacDrive installed to recognize the drive.

  • How do I store my iTunes library on an external drive and can I still access it as I would if it was still all sitting on the mini mac?

    The mini mac is full and I want to be able to use the 2 tb drive as storage and time machine. How do I get the content onto the external drive and access it it and hoe does new content get downloaded and stored to the drive not the mac? Also can I have 1 drive playing storeage and back up or do I need a second? Basic questions I suspect but not to me!

    1. Drag the library to the external drive, launch iTunes with the Option key held down, click on Choose Library, and point it there.
    2. Get a second. Having the backups on the same drive as the original data won't help when that drive fails.
    (66929)

  • Can I store my iPhoto library on an external hard drive?

    My iPhoto library has become very large and I would like to tranfer it over to my hard drive.
    Can I copy my iPhoto library over to the drive and then delete it from my system hard disk without loosing my photos? And, when I import photos, where will they be imported to?
    Thanks a lot.

    Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
    1. Quit iPhoto
    2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
    3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library. - and this is where new additions to the Library wil go.
    4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
    Regards
    TD

  • Can I store only my movies in an external drive and still sync them to iPod

    I have an 80GB ipod, and as I began ripping a few DVD sets of TV shows onto my computer I realized that I believe I can rip every single DVD I own and store it onto my iPod. I will be on the road constantly over the next year or more and would like to have them all with me. However, I don't want to take up the entire hard drive of my macbook with these files. I have an external hard drive, but also don't want to store my entire library on the hard drive so that I can still access my music on my laptop if I wish.
    Am I doomed to simply keep my ENTIRE library off my laptop, or is it possible to only move the Movie files to an external drive and not have iTunes erase them from my iPod every time I sync it without the drive connected? I know you can create multiple libraries, but if I sync my iPod with the movie library, won't it erase all my music from the iPod and vice versa?

    You can have multiple libraries with iTunes.
    1. Quit iTunes.
    2. Open iTunes and at the same time hold down the option key (if you are Windows press shift and open iTunes)
    3. Choose "Create Library"
    4. Once you have created the library go to the "Preferences > Advanced > Choose Where Your iTunes folder is stored
    5. Choose your external hard drive.
    Whenever you import/downlaod a movie use this library.
    Repeat the first 2 steps to choose a new library.

  • Can I optimize the iTunes library on my external drive?

    I have my iTunes library on my external drive, which by the way, is very full (only 40 of the 500 gb free). It takes ages for ITunes to start up, and I believe it's because of the very full harddrive. Is this really the case, though? And is there a way to seppd up opening iTunes?
    André

    I don't think a G5 is that old. Maybe running Leopard would change things, but I have to save for that...
    Still, it started to take longer after I had put all my files from the main drive on the external one so i think it's because that drive is almost full. Is there a program to optimize an external drive, I remember you have the for the pc, reformat or something like that.

  • How can I transfer my iPhoto library safely to external drive?

    How do I transfer pictures from iPhoto library to external hard drive without losing information? What hard drive would work best for this? I have no more space available on iMac hard drive.

    Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the external drive - depress the option key and launch iPhoto using the "select library" option to point to the new location on the external drive - fully test it and then trash the old library on the internal drive (test one more time prior to emptying the trash)
    And be sure that the External drive is formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) (iPhoto does not work with drives with other formats) and that it is always available prior to launching iPhoto
    And backup soon and often - having your iPhoto library on an external drive is not a backup and if you are using Time Machine you need to check and be sure that TM is backing up your external drive
    LN

  • Can I store my Aperture library on an external Hard Disk?

    I have a MacBook Pro with very few free space on its internal hard drive. My Aperture library is getting very heavy and i would like to move my Aperture library to an external HD. I know that you can keep files where they are and see them in your aperture library, but the thing i'm trying to do is to STORE AND OPEN MY APERTURE LIBRARY (.APLIBRARY FILE) FROM AN EXTERNAL HARD DISK. Is this possible?

    It is possible to put the Aperture library on an external HD as long as the HD is formatted correctly see: Format external drives to Mac OS Extended before using with Aperture
    However keep in mind that depending on the HD type and the way it is connected to your Mac performance may be an issue. For the best possible outcome the external drive should have a large cache, high RPM and be connected via firewire.
    The other option to explore is to put the masters on an external drive and keep the library on the internal. This will give you relatively good performance using a standard USB drive.

  • Can i store unused iTunes Library on an external Hard-drive?

    Hi There,
    I have 3 account on my Macbook each have an itunes library on them, the on is use all the time, but the other 2 never change and are never listed to becausethe only used of the laptop!
    is there any way I can move the library on to my hard-drive so i can free up space on my laptop, but still have accesses to them if i need to update the 2 of them to put new music on there iphone and ipods?
    Thanks and help would be greatly appreciated??
    Tom Green

    See this Apple note about moving an itunes library to an external hard drive.

  • How can I move entire ITunes library to an external drive

    How can I move the entire file to a new external drive & still add new downloads & use from the external G: drive?
    Or can't this be done - I have the 80G Ipod & the files take up so much space that I want to move it to the new G: drive.
    I thought I had it figured out but nothing would play from the G drive, so I had to restore everything back to the C: drive.
    Thanks for any advice

    This is actually the 5G iPod forum, not the iTunes folder.
    However, To move your iTunes music...
    1 Quit iTunes.
    2 Move the entire iTunes folder including music to the external drive.
    3 Restart iTunes holding the Shift key in Windows, Option key in Mac.
    4 iTunes will ask to Create new library or Choose existing library. Select Choose existing library and select the library in the folder you just moved.
    5 Move the old iTunes folder to the trash but do not empty it.
    6 Restart iTunes normally and verify the songs work. If they do, empty the trash.

  • Why can't iTunes handle a library on an external drive?

    I put all my music files on an external drive and imported them into iTunes. So far so good. The first time I ran iTunes while the drive was disconnected - all my songs suddenly got that dreaded exclamation point next to them. Yes, while the drive is connected, I can still go to any song and double-click it to play; but the vast majority of songs stays "exclamated" and greyed-out. Shuffle ignores them. Even if I use some method to re-recognize all my songs, next time I open iTunes without first attaching the drive, it'll all go down the drain again.
    Apple - this MacBook air is great but it only comes with 256 GB of built-in storage. I HAVE to use an external drive in order to have my music library. Why can't the MacBook recognize the drive, remember it, and know when it's connected and when it isn't?

    You're welcome.
    Yaniv Eidelstein1 wrote:
    I still think Apple should improve iTunes, by making it a bit smarter, and aware of connected drives without needing to relaunch.
    I agree and have made that suggestion to Apple in the past. You may submit your polite feedback using this page: <http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html>.

  • Hi, can I move my iTunes library to an external hardrive without having to consolidate it as my prehistoric computer just doesn't have the space even though I have deleted everything possible to make room? Please help :(

    Hi, can I move my iTunes library to an external drive without having to consolidate it as my prehistoric computer just doesn't have enough space even though I have deleted everything possible to make room? Please help

    Hi, do you know if this works if I then want to move my library to a new computer as that is my main intention bacause my old computer hasn't got enough space for me to add new albums so I want to ditch the computer (its got to be about 100 years old and doesn't seem to cope well with modern technology!!) and start using my laptop for my iTunes. I am at the point now where i'm ready to throw both my computer and iPod out the window!!!! I might point out as well that in trying to clear space on my computer I accidently deleted the Bonjour programme which is aparently needed to use the home share option, oops!!!!
    Thanks, Kerry

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