Having Aperture library on its own drive?

I'm wondering if it would be advantageous to move the Aperture library to its own drive. I currently have 2 different internal RAID 0 volumes. One of them is comprised of two WD Raptor drives and is my boot drive and contains my applications and Aperture library. The other drive contains (some of) the referenced files and my data. Given that I am a heavy Aperture user (350,000 referenced images in a 150gb library) I'm wondering if I wouldn't be better off having the library be the only thing on the Raptors. I'm guessing that with a library this big, disk fragmentation could be a major bottleneck, plus I would also gain some speed advantages by having my volume only be 50% full (instead of 75%).
Do you think I am making this overcomplicated for a small speed advantage, or I might I see significant gains?
thanks,
Dave
Message was edited by: davidwittig

Hi both,
Firstly i typo'ed the RAID number (sorry but sounds like you realized).
Subjective / empirical results from my own tests with my needs in mind:
I've noticed small performance improvements moving from FW400 to eSATA externals but frankly with 8Mpix/24Mb files sizes for the RAW's it's not been a significant contribution to decision criteria for me. Moving from USB 2 to FW400 was significant, esp. for launching Aperture, importing and exporting. During editing/adjustments, FW400 was quite acceptable.
As for RAM, moving from 2.5Gb to 4.5Gb gained me some when I was also running PS CS3 and other apps. (Mail, Safari, MS Office 2004/Rosetta etc.). At 4.5Gb, I rarely run into much virtual memory paging. My suggestion is to launch Activity Monitor and just see how you are using RAM for your workload. More RAM will achieve nothing at all if no paging to disk is taking place.
Aperture is reasonably multi-threaded but import to some extent and export primarily are the best examples of where the extra cores add value. Once into image manipulation, my 4-cores tick along at idle for the most part and sadly I Activity Monitor doesn't show GPU performance. Maybe the X1900 G5 card is maxed out (likely) but I don't know. I did a test with 2 x graphics cards under Aperture v1.1 but it showed no improvement whatsoever. Unknown whether Aperture v2.x will multi-thread gpu calls but I think not .... possibly core image limitation in Leopard.

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Should library be on its own drive?

Quick question since I just bought a G-Tech G-Speed Q drive; I am thinking about putting all my media(video, photos, music, etc) in one place so I can stop hooking up 10 different hard drives in a mess of wires each time I have a project to do. Is it ok to put my Aperture library on an external drive(G-Speed Q) with other media or does it cause archiving issues since I do a lot of touch ups on photos, etc?
Thanks,
Brian

The Library can be anywhere connected to your computer. Apple recommends against putting it on a NAS. I've run large Libraries over FW400 with only minor performance degradation.
So that's "can".
What's recommended is to put the Library on the drive with the fastest throughput on your system. Anything else will be slower.
Also recommended -- but this requires a bit of learning -- is to convert your Images' Masters from Managed to Referenced. Referenced Masters can be stored on slower drives with much less of a performance hit than you'll suffer putting your Library on a slower drive.
Since Referenced Masters are usually on a different drive than the Library (the standard set-up is to put the Library on your system drive and your Referenced Masters on an external drive), it is possible to open your Library in Aperture with your Referenced Masters off-line. (Aperture automatically brings them on-line whenever the volume on which they reside is available.) Images with off-line Masters cannot be adjusted, printed, or exported at full-size. You will still be able to edit the Images' metadata, however, and will have access to the large thumbnails Aperture keeps (they are called "Previews").
This system works very well for many, and especially for those with portable computers and/or small system drives.
You should read this page in the User Manual. As it says:
"Aperture lets you choose how you organize your photos on disk."

What is the best way to move an aperture library from one full drive to an external drive?

Just want to make sure I move my existing Aperture library on my internal drive (which is full) correctly to an external drive that has plenty of space.
Thanks for the help!

As I use a MBP with limited internal drive space, my approach is to have the image files on an external drive, while leaving the library itself on my internal drive. The library takes up about 80GB while the images are closer to 1TB.
The library always contains 'Thumbnails' of the images which it shows in place of the disconnected image files.
This means I can still open the library even when the external drive is not attached, and I can still do keywording and rating and organising and so on.
I also maintain 'Previews' for my best images. Previews are like thumbnails but larger in size and can be shared with other apps, so I can still use and share these copies of the images, again even while the external drive is not attached.
I don't like the idea of having the actual library on an external drive connected to a laptop (although I have done so from time to time without issue). There's always a chance it can become accidentially disconnected (kids, pets, etc) and if this happens while using Aperture it can corrupt your library. A corrupted library can be repaired with Apertures first aid tools, but it's better to avoid it in the frist place when you can.

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.

Should my operating system be on its own drive?

Hi,
I've heard some people say OS needs its own drive, but people on this forum are known to have said OS and programs together are okay.
So my question is, is it better to separate OS and programs, or are the benefits very slim?
Thanks!
Mr D

Photon,
I have run multi-SSD RAID 0 arrays on various workstations and servers since 2011. No, it is certainly not "mainstream" theory, yes, you loose the ability for SSD vendor utilities to do cool SSD stuff (utilities from Samsung, Intel, etc.), and lastly are SSD RAID 0 arrays fast, yes, they are fast indeed!
My workhouse x58 build from 2011 uses a 5x 64GB Crucial C300 array on a Areca controller for the OS/boot drive (1500 MB/s reads, 500 MB/s writes). And my new 8-core 2014 build uses a 8x 128GB Crucial M550 array partitioned with 250GB for OS/programs and the rest for scratch, swap, and a bit of work area (also on an Areca controller with 28 channels, 2800 MB/s reads and 2300 MB/s writes). Is this for everybody, I would not say "no", I would say "heck no"! Do realize that when you have a 28-port SAS/SATA controller (I have lots of hard drives too), that having lots of small SSDs can provide good bang-for-the-buck vs. single or dual large SSDs (512GB or 1TB SSDs are pricey). Price wise, the 8x Crucial drives cost me just under what a single 1TB Samsung 850 Pro is selling for today - expensive, but not so crazy considering the cost for an 8-core build and 64GB of RAM.
Finally, does a RAID 0 OS/programs drive help Premiere Pro performance?(this is an Adobe Premiere forum section) No, not really. Does it help some other applications, absolutely. Do all programs open quickly, yup. Does putting Adobe bridge "scratch" files on a big SSD RAID help, yes indeed! I am not using Lightroom, but suspect that is another application that would likely benefit from a large SSD array.
The best performing SSDs to do a RAID 0 with are the Intel 730 series drives, but those drives are still pretty pricey. The higher end Crucial drives (now being re-branded to Micron) really scale well with RAIDs. I've read good and bad things about using the 850 Pro drives for a RAID.
Regards,
Jim

How to use iMovie with Aperture Library from an external drive?

Hey,
Some problems:
1. My first video, I stored the project on my own laptop and used the library from the HD. This seems to give some problems, but I now figured out I have to consolidate the media etc. so now my files don't get missing after unplugging the harddrive. I figured it would be a better idea to make all new projects on the HD, so I have everything in place all the time. BUT. look at the picture: there seems to be something wrong with the way iMovie recognizes the aperture library: i'ts not listed in the events library under the HardDisk (named Passport) but under my own drive... ??? (+ I don't understand the idea of events when I have my aperture library: Do I need to make events for all projects I make? how is this possible when the library is not in the correct position?)
2. I made a movie, but I'm unable to export a large/high quality version of this project. That's why I want to move my project to the HD and then open it on my partners Mac Book Pro to make a good export. Unfortunately, his macbook doesn't recognize the files and the files can't be opened in iMovie... (files stay gray and unclickable)
To sum it all up:
I want the best way to work with this set-up: mac book air, external drive with all my files and iMovie. And I want to be able to open the project on a different computer to make high quality exports.

First thing that comes up with videos in your 'picture' library is the videos are always under the full control of the picture library program. Which means Aperture is the keeper and master, and it decides what will be displayed in iMovie's Event Library. If Aperture is having difficulties sometimes it cannot or will not display the videos you are storing there.
Right now, I think the problem is your Aperture Library is on the internal Mac HD, not the external. You would have to move Aperture's Library to the external HD (along with all the pictures and videos). Then try to add the videos back into a project.
In extreme cases I have recommended moving the videos out of the picture library and re-importing them into iMovie Event folders to let iMovie manage it.

Can I put an aperture library on a network drive and edit from multiple computers?

I have an Imac desktop and a macbook pro. I want to be able to edit pictures from multiple computers. If I simply put the aperture library on a network server drive in my home, can I edit the same aperture library from both the Imac and the macbook? Rather than always having to sit in my office making changes to files I would love to also be able to do this with my laptop sitting ont the couch or in the kitchen. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Get yourself a small portable external drive for your Aperture library.
An Aperture library needs to be on directly connected drive formatted MacOS Extended (Journaled). network access is not supported and can lead to data loss and library corruption.
See Apple's support document: Use locally mounted Mac OS X Extended volumes for your Aperture library
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3252

I cant access my Aperture library on external hard drive

I put my Aperture library on an external hard drive and was able to access it for some time.
I have now tried to access it today after several months of not trying and I keep getting this message:-
"Aperture cannot switch to the selected library because the file system of the library’s volume is not supported."
How can I get this resolved, I have over 4000 images and they are only on that external drive.
I hope someone can help me
Thanks in advance
Jason

What is the format of the volume the library is on? Select the volume in Finder and do a File->Get Info
If the file system is really unsupported then you might be able to copy the library off that volume onto a OS Extended volume and open it then.

Error when upgrading Aperture library on an external drive

I have a MacBook Pro and am in the process of upgrading to Aperture 3. When Aperture wants to upgrade the existing Aperture library, it fails saying that there is insufficient memory. (My hard drive is very full). I have copied the Aperture library across to a WD external drive and have held down "Option" key when launching Aperture 3 so that I could select the library on the external drive as the preferred library. That went ok. Then when Aperture 3 was some way through upgrading the library on the external drive, it suddenly stopped and gave me this message.
"There was an error creating a library at the path “/Volumes/External Drive/Aperture Library.aplibrary”. The library could not be created because the file system of the destination volume is unsupported."
The library also seems to have disappeared off the external drive.
Any ideas on what I did wrong?

Hi Paul DT;
In addition to the suggestions that Allen gave you I would also suggest that once you increase the free space on your internal disk drive that you reboot with install DVD and repair the disk using Disk Utility.
When you run the free space down that can greatly increase the chances of corrupting the directory on that disk. If you have any corruption in the directory that cause all kinds of strange problems for you until you repair it.
Allan

Can't copy Aperture library back to internal drive

I've been working at getting a single unified library because I've moved to a laptop with a smaller SSD. I had slightly different libraries in iPhoto and Aperture so to merge them into a single library, I had to do it on an external drive. I now have a good Aperture library file on my external drive. It is 64.78 GB. My MacBook Air's internal SSD has 136.2 GB of free space. However, every time I try to drag my Aperture library back onto my laptop hard drive, I get the message "The item “Aperture Library” can’t be copied because there isn’t enough free space."
Can anyone help me figure out what is going on?
Thanks in advance.
Christine Kling
Aperture 3.4.3

You are welcome, Christine. I have disabled local snapshots as well.
I added a script to my start-up items, that wil be executed when I log on again after rebooting the Mac. So I cannot forget to disable them again after rebooting.
If you want to do the same, open Script Editor and add this lines to an new apple Script:
-- turn local snapshots off
tell application "Terminal"
activate
do script "sudo tmutil disablelocal" in 0 -- no local Timemachine backups
end tell
Then save the script and export it as an application. Now open the Users&Groups panel in the system Preferences and add your Apple Script to your Startup items.
Regards
Léonie

Best way to manage Aperture library size for hard drive space?

For a couple years, I have been using Aperture 2 and then migrated to Aperture 3. All this time I have worked completely on my laptops internal hard drive and with one library. My library is now 80gb and hard drive space is becoming an issue. Now I am trying to decide the best direction to take for reducing my internal hard drive space. My biggest storage culprit are my kids sports team pictures. I have taken thousands and thousands of pictures of kids that I don't need to keep in my internal library. I would like to pull my kids out of those pics, keep them in my main library and archive the rest out. I'm looking for advice for the best process.
I put an external drive on my Airport USB drive and put my library in a new vault last night. I know it is much slower than going direct to USB on computer. With wireless N it took about 12 hours to backup the 80gb library to a new vault on this Airport drive. Are there any issues with using the Airport USB other than speed? I know apple has issues with using time machine on this kind of setup but I don't know if Aperture has any of the same issues. My thought is that I might use this drive for additional libraries as well.
Thanks
-Erik

Once I move files to external storage as a "referenced master", is there a way to move some of them back to main library on the internal drive? I'm going to move all my team sports pictures to external but would like to keep the pictures with my kids on the internal drive where they are at. But if I unintentionally move some of my kids to the external drive, how do I "un-reference" them and move them back?
Thanks for the help!

How do I stop the cursor from having a mind of its own?

I just received this computer T400. A mac user wswitching over to pc - not famliar with the land. I am using a notebook and the cursor clicks on its own when I let it rest and then transports me to whatever information/page that it happens to rest upon. needles to say this is very tiring. I have tried to go to the help section and there is not informaiton about how to stop this from happening. There is informaiton for mouse control. The information I found on the cursor only spoke to the rate of blinking.
also, I would like to incluse word in my start up programs and can't figure out how to do that.
the cursor information would be most useful to me at the moment. Thank you.

onlinebabe, welcome to the forum,
you probably need to turn off or adjust the sensitivity of tapping in the UltraNav Touchpad properties. Go to Control Panel > Mouse and select the UltraNav tab and adjust the settings.
Do you mean that you want word to start automatically when windows starts? Right click in an empty area of the task bar and choose properties > Start Menu > Customise and add Word to your Autostarts folder.
Hope this helps
Message Edited by andyP on 10-11-2008 08:38 PM
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Spreading your Aperture Library across multiple volumes/drives/disks

I recall reading posts elsewhere by others (on an Adobe Lightroom forum) on how one's Aperture Library had to sit on one volume, meaning that it could not span multiple disks. At the time I figured I would be fine for a while since I had about 150 GB of free space on my main disk, yet kept the topic at the back of my mind.
Today, as I do regularly, I was backing up my (Aperture) library to my iPod, (not through the "vault" mechanism but simply using Finder,) when I noticed it was copying (many) individual files, rather than one large file! Being familiar with Unix, including how certain items in Mac OSX are treated, such as "Applications" that appear to be one object in the GUI, yet are merely a folder structure behind the scene, it occurred to me that the Aperture Library, rather than being some sort of single-file database format, just might be a folder instead.
I checked, and it is. Mind you, that doesn't prevent Aperture from keeping proprietary files within those folders, however, it would seem to me that one could easily use symbolic links to throw some of the files, perhaps at the project level, onto other disks, and thus span your library across multiple volumes even if Aperture does not yet offer or manage this ability.
iMac G5 2.1 HGz, 1.5 GB RAM, 20" Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Perhaps this article will help shed light on Aperture's library organization:
http://homepage.mac.com/bagelturf/aparticles/library/libinside/libinside.html
Enjoy!
-- Jim

Does Time machine need its own drive exclusively?

Hello,
I want to buy a thunderbolt duo drive from Western digital or use in my MBA. Is it possible to use this drive for time machine purpose as well as normal external drive for itunes and jpegs?
Does this work or does time machine an external drive exclusively?
Thanx in advance

Time Machine will eventually take up all the free space on the partition it's backing up to. In addition, having your backups on the same drive as the original data won't help when that drive fails.
(70080)

Having a library on multiple hard drives

So in the past year I became a mac convert and I use my mac mini for just about everything I can. I’m thinking of buying a new ibook when they come out in march/april and have a question about itunes for anyone who can answer.
I currently have about 80 gb of music on an external hard drive that I plug into my mac mini. Obviously I wouldn’t be copying all this music to an ibook hard drive because then I would have verry little space left for applications… But I wouldn’t mind being able to copy some music onto it for when I’m on the road, and having the rest on my external for when I’m home. However when exploring itunes there doesn’t seem to be away to have multiple libraries on different drives.
Does anybody know a way to do this, or if there’s third party software that will assist with it?
ibook Mac OS X (10.4.4)

I believe if you just uncheck: "Copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to Library" under the advaced settings, that should work fine. I used to do this in the past before I moved everything to a file server. It worked for me, just be aware that if you try to play or synch something to your iPod that is not attached, it will complain.

Having Aperture library on its own drive?

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