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

Similar Messages

IPhoto 2: Saving a library across multiple volumes

I am running out of space on my hard drive for photos and would like to store some pictures on a jump drive. Is there any way in iPhoto 2 to have a library access pictures across multiple drives, or do I have to make two libraries? If so, how do I switch between the two libraries? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

spurn,
do I have to make two libraries?
iPhoto Help topic: "creating new photo libraries"
how do I switch between the two libraries?
iPhoto Help topic: "switching between photo libraries"

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

There is not enough free space on your Aperture Library Volume Question

When importing more images to Aperture I get this:
There is not enough free space on your Aperture Library Volume to import the selected items
Why is this? I am a big time newbee and I am trying to take a crash coarse in Aperture. How do I bring in more photos. I only have a few hundred in there now.
Thanks for any help
Mark

Lots more and very specific info is necessary for troubleshooting. Probably your hard drives is too full.
-Allen Wicks

Get an error message when importing from iPhoto says, "There is not enough free space on your Aperture Library volume to import the selected items. It is estimated that you need at least 44GB of free space."

I get an error message when importing from iPhoto that says, "There is not enough free space on your Aperture Library volume to import the selected items. It is estimated that you need at least 44GB of free space." the drive is empty, I just reformatted it to Mac OSX journaled.

I'm guessing this is an extrenal drive, correct? If so make sure the library you're importimng into is really located on the external drive. By default Aperture creates its library in your home pictures folder.

How do you share Aperture file across multiple users on same Mac?

How do you share Aperture file across multiple users on same Mac? Seems this should be a preferences choice.

When you share your library between users, you may run into permission and ownership problems, if both users are editing the Aperture library and not only reading it. To avoid that, it helps to put the Aperture library onto a separate disk or a separate partion of your hard drive. For s separate partition or disk you can enable the "ignore ownership on this volume" flag. Then all users can access the library as owners of this library.
You might try to put the aperture library into a shared folder on your mac, but that has caused problems recently, i.e. when the library also contains video files.
Regards
Léonie

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

Sharing an iTunes Library across multiple user account and a network.

Sharing an iTunes Music Library across multiple user accounts.
Hello Everybody!
Firstly, this was designed to be run in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. It will not work with earlier versions of Mac OS X! Sorry.
Here's a handy tip for keeping your hard drive neat and tidy, it also saves space, what in effect will be done is an iTunes music library will be shared amongst multiple users on the same machine. There are advantages and disadvantages to using this method.
• Firstly I think it might be worthwhile to state the advantages and disadvantages to using this approach.
The advantages include:
- Space will be saved, as no duplicate files will occur.
- The administrator will be able to have complete control over the content of the iTunes library, this may be useful for restricting the content of the Library; particularly for example if computer is being used at and education institution, business or any other sort of institution where things such as explicit content would be less favorable.
- The machine will not be slowed by the fact that every user has lots of files.
The disadvantages to this system include.
- The fact that the account storing the music will have to be logged in, and iTunes will have to be active in that account.
- If the account housing the music is not active then nobody can use the iTunes library.
- There is a certain degree of risk present when an administrator account must be continually active.
- Fast User Switching must be enabled.
Overview:
A central account controls all music on the machine/network, this is achieved by storing iTunes files in a public location as opposed to in the user's directory. In effect the system will give all users across the machine/network access to the same music/files without the possibility of files 'doubling up' because two different users like the same types of music. This approach saves valuable disk space in this regard and may therefore prove to be useful in some situations.
This is a hearty process to undertake, so only follow this tutorial if you're willing to go all the way to the end of it.
Process:
Step 1:
Firstly, we need to organize the host library, I tidied mine up, removing excess playlists, random files, things like that. this will make thing a bit easier in the later stages of this process.
Once the library is tidied up, move the entire "iTunes" folder from your Home directory to the "//localhost" directory (The Macintosh HD) and ensure that files are on the same level as the "Applications", "Users", "Library" and "System" directories; this will ensure that the files in the library are available to all users on the machine (this also works for networks)
Optionally you can set the ownership of the folder to the 'administrator' account (the user who will be hosting the library.), you may also like to set the permissions of 'you can' to "Read & Write" (assuming that you are doing this through the user who will host the library); secondly you should set the "Owner" to the administrator who will be hosting the library and set their "access" to "Read & Write" (this will ensure that the administrator has full access to the folder). The final part of this step involves setting access for the "Others" tab to "Read Only" this will ensure that the other users can view but not modify the contents on the folder.
Overview:
So far we have done the following steps:
1. Organized the host library.
2. Placed the iTunes directory into a 'public' directory so that other users may use it. (this step is essential if you plan on sharing the library across multiple accounts on the same machine. NOTE: this step is only necessary if you are wanting to share you library across multiple accounts on the same machine, if you simply want to share the music across a network, use the iTunes sharing facility.
3. set ownership and permissions for the iTunes music folder.
Step 2:
Currently the administrator is the only user who can use this library, however we will address this soon. In this step we will enable iTunes music sharing in the administrator's account, this will enable other users to access the files in the library.
If you are not logged in as the administrator, do so; secondly, open iTunes and select "Preferences" from the "iTunes" menu, now click the "Sharing" tab, if "share my library on my local network" is not checked, the radio buttons below this will now become active, you may choose to share the entire libraries contents, or share only selected content.
Sharing only selected content may be useful if their is explicit content in the library and minors use the network or machine that the library is connected to.
If you have selected "share entire library" go to Step 3, if you have selected share "share selected playlists" read on.
After clicking "share selected playlists" you must then select the playlists that you intend to share across your accounts and network. Once you have finished selecting the playlists, click "OK" to save the settings.
Overview:
In this step we:
1. Enabled iTunes sharing in the administrator's account, now, users on the local network may access the iTunes library, however, users on the same machine may not.
Step 3:
Now we will enable users on the same machine to access the library on the machine. This is achieved by logging in as each user, opening iTunes, opening iTunes preferences, and clicking "look for shared music". now all users on the machine may also access the library that the administrator controls.
This in effect will mean that the user will not need to use their user library, it will be provided to them via a pseudo network connection.
As a secondary measure, I have chosen to write a generic login script that will move any content from the user's "Music/iTunes/iTunes Music" directory to the trash and then empties the user's trash.
This is done through the use of an Automator Application: this application does the following actions.
1. Uses the "Finder" action "Get Specified Finder Items"
1a. The user's "~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music" folder
2. Uses the "Finder" action "Get Folder Contents"
3. Uses the "Finder" action "Move to Trash"
4. Uses the "Automator" action "Run AppleScript"
4a. with the following:
on run {input, parameters}
tell application "Finder"
empty trash
end tell
return input
end run
IMPORTANT: Once the script is adapted to the user account it must be set as a login item. in order to keep the script out of the way i have placed it in the user's "Library" directory, in "Application Support" under "iTunes".
Overview:
Here we:
1. Enabled iTunes sharing in the user accounts on the host machine, in effect allowing all users of the machine to view a single iTunes library.
2. (Optional) I have created a login application that will remove any content that has been added to user iTunes libraries, this in effect stops other users of the machine from adding music and files to iTunes.
Step 4:
If it is not already enabled, open system preferences and enable Fast User Switching in Accounts Options.
Summary:
We have shared a single iTunes library across multiple user account, while still allowing for network sharing. This method is designed to save space on machines, particularly those with smaller hard drives.
I hope that this hint proves to be helpful and I hope everybody will give me feedback on my process.
regards,
Pete.
iBook G4; 60GB Hard Drive, 512MB RAM, Airport Extreme Mac OS X (10.4.6) iWork & iLife '06, Adobe CS2, Final Cut Pro. Anything and Everything!!!

how to share music between different accounts on a single computer

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.

Sharing one iTunes library across multiple accounts on the same Mac

Hello, I've poked around at some of the posts dealing with sharing one iTunes music library across multiple accounts on the same Mac but it seems like this can only be done if the libary is moved to a shared folder. I realize this can be done but I was trying to share it the way it is described in a post on Apple support (See link below.). That post seemed to imply that you don't have to move the library from its original location (owned by account A, e.g.), rather just make a couple preference changes in the accounts, use fast user switching and voila. That doesn't seem to work. So my question is this: Is the only way to share one iTunes music library across multiple accounts on the same Mac to move it to a shared folder? I'm running 10.4.8 on an Intel iMac. Thanks in advance!
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93195

After reading this and several other related threads, I am becoming thoroughly confused about all of this. I have a situation similar to the one that pokerpal described in the post dated January 7 at 8:06 pm, except that the music files on my system are located on an external hard drive. Everything else is pretty much the same though - I am the admin user (and the main iTunes user and maintainer) and my girlfriend is a standard user who has no music in her own iTunes library. She can see and listen to and make playlists from and sync her iPod with the music in this library from her account, and I can do the same thing, independent of her, from my account. And if I make a change to information within a song, she doesn't see it, and vice versa, and I understand that. What I don't understand is why when I add a song or an album to the music files by importing a CD or downloading something from the iTunes Music Store, she has no way of knowing that unless I tell her, and then she can add it to her library by using the "Add to Library" function. Is there no way of automatically updating her library files to add the new song(s)? We have almost 15,000 songs and videos in that library, and I don't even want to think about what might have to happen if the answer to my question is "no." Interestingly enough, if I put an update to a Word document in the same exact location (on the hard drive), we can update that and pass it back and forth all day - why is that such a difficult task for iTunes to accomplish?
Sorry I went on so long, but this has been building up for some time, and none of the solutions I've read about here have really been of any help, so I'm a bit frustrated and, as I said at the beginning, confused.
iMac G5, MacBook Mac OS X (10.4.8)

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.

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.

Spreading a single form across multiple pages

I'd like to implement a single record form that spreads it's items across multiple pages for the purpose of grouping related information on each page such as "Contact Details"," Education Profile" etc. There are way too many columns for a single page.
In Oracle forms you can create a form across multiple canvases or on different tabs of a tabbed canvas. Each item has a property to position it on which canvas.
Is this possible in ApEx? I can see that transaction processing could be complex.
How do I avoid, for example, inserting the record a second time if I commit from a different page?
Any comments appreciated.
Paul P

Another way to do this without javascript and ajax that works pretty well is to setup a list that represents the logical "sections" and display it as a sidebar list.
Create a hidden item on the page called PX_ACTIVE_SECTION and set the visibility of each region on the page based on the value of this item. For example: :PX_ACTIVE_SECTION = 'Contact Details'. You can also have multiple regions associated with a single tab. Set the default value to whatever section you wish to display first.
Next, set each list item to be "current" when :PX_ACTIVE_SECTION is equal to that item ('Contact Details', 'Education Profile', etc.). Also set the URL destination of each item to: javascript:doSubmit('section name');
Finally, add a branch back to the current page that sets PX_ACTIVE_SECTION to &REQUEST.. This traps the doSubmit call so you can set the hidden item. (Add a condition, if needed, to prevent this branch from executing due to other buttons and requests).
The result is that the user can switch freely between sections and save after all data is entered. The page does refresh (since it doesn't use AJAX), but if your regions aren't too big, it should be reasonable.

Duplicate file detection and removal across multiple volumes?

hello there
i use decloner, for duplicate file removal.. it works great for removing duplicates on the same volume, unfortunately, i have a mac pro with multiple hdds and want to run a duplicate search which includes every hard drive, which decloner doesn't seem to do. (some of my hard drives have identical folders and files)
can anyone recommend me a piece of software that does duplicate removal across multiple volumes?
many thanks!

My boss sez "Whew"
My backup email admin sez "Whew"
I sez "Whew and Thank You very much"
Originally Posted by Dave Parkes
Yep, it is possible for that to happen, FIDs should only be unique within
a single post office.
As for moving a user, if their current fid already exists within the
target po, then they will get a new unused one as part of the move process.
So, there is nothing really to fix
Cheers Dave
Dave Parkes [NSCS]
Occasionally resident at http://support-forums.novell.com/

Spreading your Aperture Library across multiple volumes/drives/disks

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