How does Get-Info manage ext disk access & permission

Question

I was having a terrible time today trying to back up my HD to an external drive. I was using SuperDuper. The SD dialog box allowed me to choose 2 of my ext drives as targets. But the drive I preferred was 'greyed out'. I couldn't select.
So, I thought that perhaps I didn't have read-write permission for it. I pulled up a Get Info dialog box, and this is how it is configured (see below).
My user name doesn't even appear in the Sharing and Permissions box.  Nor do I see the little check box which asks IGNORE OWNERSHIP.
I clicked on the little padlock icon and entered my password. But I still couldn't change the configuration. I just wanted to back up to that one disk named 2tb Boot-backup. Nothing more. The drive is a boot drive, incidentally. But I was running the OS on my main HD (iMac).
Frustrated at this (the Missing Manual didn't help), I gave up and reinstalled Mavericks on that ext drive. It fixed the problem, at the cost of 2 1/2 hours.
And I'm not any wiser about how Mavericks controls access. Screen shots below tell the story. My User Name does not appear in the Sharing list. Please teach me.  Where is David Pogue when you really need him?

Answer 1

For a very long time before making my purchase choice, I neurosed about the processing power demands if Aperture. Few folks at MacRumors knew what specs would suffice. I must have exchanged 15 posts over there and learned little.
At the time I had a 2007 iMac with 6Gb or RAM. I borrowed Aperture from a friend and played with it. Knowing that would I made a computer purchase from the Apple Store, free softeware would come with it. I prefer to be play straight. Not because of fears of the 'software pirate police.' I want the support and documentation.
By having the actual program loaded in my box, I began paying watching the Aperture Tutorials on the Apple Support website. In the case of Aperture, there is a whole lot to learn. A huge amount. Maybe because it was my first PP and DSLR experience. It took a lot of time to get comfortable.
Eventually, I discovered more AP tutorials on YouTube. And then, I found the so-called Silver Bullet. The Aperture forumlll. The answer I wanted was neither simple nor straightforward. But I was able to decide on the right Apple machine, with an adequate CPU, GPU and RAM.
Aperture processes some function in the CPU. It processes others in the GPU. And RAM undergoes heavy pressure only at certain times.  While 'Importing' RAW files from an SD card, the CPU works hard. It is best to have clock speeds of at least 3.2Ghz. Along with the image, Aperture will import the embedded camera preview in Jpeg format. Things go faster if you select to import the file and preview. Regardless, camera previews are small and low resolution. Aperture then favors generating its own hi-res JPEG for use will browsing your library of photos.
Editing an image, which is called an 'Adjustment' in the program doesn't take nearly as much processing power as one would expect. Aperture is a non-destructive program. The original RAW file is never touched. All the changes are merely tacked on and are reflected on the screen or when saved as 'Versions' only. The version is tiny compared to the master file.  A good metaphor would be baking. You might start out with a Lemon Cake in the oven. But then you put Chocolate frosting on top. The result looks and tastes different. But it is always a Lemon Cake.
The GPU then takes over. Late generation GPU with at least 1000Mb of video ram, 32-bit color depth would be minimum. The NIVIDEA Geoforce GT 755 satisfies those demands. Though if I ever start playing with Video instead of Sill, I might wish for 64-bit color space.
I probably have some of the details mixed up. But the fundamentals given are what I heard. At least one of the responders on the Aperture forum was on Apple team that wrote the software. That's all I know, and I'm not trying to get anyone to 'change religions'. SSD ain't going to make my image editing improve. Incidentally, on my iMac, Aperture loads in about 4 seconds.