Copying large iPhoto library to NAS drive - why is it so difficult?

Question

I have a 2009 iMac, and a large iPhoto library (about 15000 images, circa 90 GB in size). I am trying to transfer the library from the iMac's hard drive to a 3TB Western Digital NAS drive (connected via Gigabit Ethernet) that I've just bought, and it's a nightmare.
I've tried a variety of different approaches - dragging and dropping the iPhoto Library package file onto the pictures directory of the new drive, just exporting the images contained in the 'Masters' subdirectory of the package file, and now using iPhoto Library Manager to attempt to pull the images from my current library into a new iPhoto library that I've created on the new drive. Each way seems to be incredibly lengthy - not just several hours, or even overnight (which I'm prepared for), but days and days - with the iPhoto Library Manager approach the import had been running for about 24 hours and was less than a third of the way through before iPhoto crashed and it stalled.
What is more, I also seem to be unable to delete any of the incomplete package files from the directory on the new drive - again, the progress bar just sits there reading 'Deleting 1 file' and doesn't really do anything. The new drive is formatted as Mac Share, and I can otherwise connect to it and browse through the various directories on there, save small files to it etc, without a problem.
What am I doing wrong? Many thanks for any suggestions.
S

Answer 1

Hi Terence, have read a few of your posts in similar threads this morning and am v relieved I did as I was definitely going to do this all wrong!
Having read your advice on referenced libraries, multiplie libraries, and NAS (ie all being bad) I have come up with the following planned approach for my situation but I would like to run it by you if thats ok?
I don't think I am particularly unusual in my scenario - I am an amateur user who has a personal photo lirbary from the last 10 years and expects it to grow pretty darn big in the future given we now seem to take 100 photos a month since having  baby last year!
It already takes up 60GB (50%) of my SSD and so it has to go somewhere...the question is where...
However, where I think i may be less usual is that I don't really use events and additional tagging, I just like iPhoto as a viewer, organiser and slideshow.
From your advice to date I now understand that:
- I can't have my library on my NAS (had been plan 1!)
- Referenced libraries are strongly discouraged (plan 2)
- Using multiple lirbaries to split it down is also discouraged (plan 3, although less beneficial given none of them can go on NAS).
- I should use an ext local HD connected to my laptop when I need to access my photos. (should therefore be plan A but....)
The problem I have though is that using a local ext HD is the least appreciated option by my wife as she hates things being plugged into the laptop in the evening when she kidnaps the laptop for reading her forums, and will likely annoy me if I need to keep getting it from a cupboard, and can't stay in the living room with the little one roaming around and grabing everything gadget I own!
Plus, the most likely value in old photos is going to be that one unexepcted moment in the future when I want to bring one up to show a friend and I am away from the house....
SO, what I am thinking of doing is splitting the situation in 2:
- most of my organising, deleting, managing etc as well as obviously my importing, will happen within the first 6 months of taking a photo. Therefore I will have an iPhoto managed library for that. It will live on my local SSD and all will be good.
- and I will export all older photos to my NAS where they will the live from then on (and continue to move the 6 month expiry photos to this each month or two depending on size constraints). I will try and use events in iPhoto to organise everything before I do this, so that the folders will be useful and useable outside of iphoto on the NAS if I ever need to find anything to view.
- I will then re-import these photos into a second library in iPhoto so I keep the slideshow and viewing capabilities (not sure whether this needs to be a separate library, but probably makes things easier for me to see and manage).
If the links in this ever do get broken with iPhoto I am not sure this matters for me? - I could just re-import each folder and select the event name as the folder name. As mentioned, I don't tend to go into minute detail with events, so there won't be that many (ok, in 30 years time this may be more painful...but I imaging by then we will all be machines and there wil be a new way!)
And if I find I also want access to my <6month photos on NAS as well then I will keep a duplicate export of that on NAS (not managed as a libary within iPhoto) and continue to overwrite it with an export each 1-4 weeks depending on how I much I use things.
What do you think? Have you seen anyone take this approach, and can you see any obvious pitfalls from your experience that I am still missing?
Your advice is much appreciated,
cheers
Jon
A final point is that I have lots of photos from my pre-Mac days and these need to be brought together and consolidated into iPhoto and organised before I do my split. I was going to buy iphoto library manager as apprently it is good at finding the duplicates (I will have 1000's due to lazy copying discipline when i was younger) and I was going to use it for managing libraries anyway, but it is $30 and now I don't need all its functions I think I will just use a bespoke programme for finding any duplicates. I don't want to hijack the thread for this, but any recommendations would obviously be appreciated!