Managing picture library from external drives

Hi everyone.
I have just received my first Mac computer (iMac 27" 3.2) and I want to use external drives to store pictures rather than filling up the iMacs internal drive. If I use Aperature to manage photos can I, for example, set everything up to import from CF Cards to the external and manage all pictures in this manner?
With my PCs in the past I filled the internal too fast as I shoot and edit a great deal of work.
I'd rather manage all pictures through external drives.
What's the feasibility of doing all this and do you have any recommendation s for the best type if external drives to use?
This is a big learning curve coming from the mind numbing PCs that kept crashing every time Windows updated... Glad I'm here now.
Thanks,
Gordy.

Hi Gordy.
Gordypix wrote:
Hi everyone.
I have just received my first Mac computer (iMac 27" 3.2) and I want to use external drives to store pictures rather than filling up the iMacs internal drive. If I use Aperature to manage photos can I, for example, set everything up to import from CF Cards to the external and manage all pictures in this manner.
Yes. Keep it simply until you are comfortable: just put your Aperture Library on an external drive directly mounted to your system (and formatted "OS X extended (Journaled)"). Buy external drives in triplicate: one for your working copy, one for your on-site back-up, and one for your off-site backup. (Yes, this generates a big gulp in both your throat and your wallet. I have thousands of hours of labor in my Libraries. The cost of secure back-up is worth it to me.) Use the fastest drives your machine supports (cutting corners here is, IME, a false economy in the long run). For your machine that is probably USB-3.
Once you are comfortable with your Mac and with Aperture, you can look into putting your Library on your system drive, and storing your Image's "referenced Originals" on your external drive(s). Doing so now, though, strikes me as too much too soon.
HTH,
--Kirby.

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Benhermies wrote:
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Simply highlight and delete
But doing so it will also trash all playlists, data added, ratings, etc. Something the OP said about having to rename lots of files during a previous library rebuild suggests to me they may even be stored in WAV format. If the OP deletes them from the library all the labels will be lost, they will get added back with only file names as track information and they will have to be renamed again.
This will delete not only the reference to the file, but the library.itl file that Limnos refers to.
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Or, select the files on your ext drive, hold down OPTION and drag the files into iTunes. It will add them to your library, but leave the files on your external drive. Note that any new files you add directly to iTunes (like from the store) will be added to your default iTunes folder, not the external drive.
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+I was able to salvage my iTunes library from the old hard drive and put it on an external drive.+
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