Using Aperture 3 Vault storage

Started to use Aperture 3 before accessing the Vault storage function. Bought an external hard drive to store my Aperture 3 photos. How do I now use the function of the vault storage within Aperture 3, and after getting the photos transferred to the external hard drive what is the process for future imported photos. Thanks for any help.

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but RTFM! (Read the friendly manual!)
Vaults are a back up device. They may, or may not be a good idea for you. Aperture is full of words, like "project," "album," "referenced" which have a very specific meaning in the context of Aperture and may not mean what you think they mean.
For example, the number of people who go into a tailspin because they don't understand that "project" could have been called a "roll" or an "event" just as easily.
These are arbitrary, not absolute, terms.
So no, a vault will not do what you want. You are probably discussing setting up a "referenced" "library." Our own Sierra Dragon can help you do this.
If you use a "referenced" library, then you will probably be happier with Time Machine or cloning software for backup. A vault is likely to be a poor choice for backup for a referenced library.
All the best!

Similar Messages

Backup Storage - Aperture Vault versus Time Machine versus daily SuperDuper

What value does dumping the Aperture library to an Aperture Vault give in addition to running Time Machine to one drive and a daily SuperDuper copy to a second drive with irregular SuperDuper copies to an external drive that can be removed from the machine room.

SImon,
Vault and Time Machine address different needs. Probably you will want to have both.
The advantage of Time Machine: incremental backups of previous versions, very compact storage. And you can integrate it into your regular backup of the whole system and include the regular masters as well. But the disadvantage: Time Machine decides for you, what will be deleted, if the backup drives get full. You do not have control over what will be saved and what not from the previous versions.
The advantage of vaults: You can make full backups of your library for well defined moments in time - snapshots of important states. I'd create a vault, whenever I make a major upgrade of the system at least.
Is there anyway of cancelling a stuck Vault update other than the sledgehammer approach of Force Quit?
If the graphical user interface is unresponsive, like when updating a vault, you can use the Terminal to send the "termination signal" to Aperture: Sometimes this will succeed, even if the "Quit" button does not work:
Look for the Process ID of Aperture in the Activity Monitor (launch Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor" and click the CPU heading. This will bring Aperture close to the top of the list. Make a note of the PID number in the first column, in this case 66550.
Launch a Terminal window and enter the following command:
kill -TERM 66550 (insert Aperture's PID instead of 66550)
This will send the "Software Termination Signal - TERM to Aperture, the same as pressing the "Quit" button should do, but send it directly, and not from the GUI that is unresponsive. This way I always succeded in cancelling a vaul update without force quitting. Not all processes can be terminated this way, however. The Terminal.app is also in the Applications > Utilities folder.
Regards
Léonie

Using Aperture with a Network Attached Storage (NAS)

Hi,
I would like to make my Aperture library accessible from severals Macs and for different users on these Macs --- not at the same time. The idea is that only one user from one Mac can use Aperture at a given time.
The basic idea is to install the Aperture library on a Network Attached Storage (NAS) --- either will all photos included or with all photos stored in a separated folder structure --- next to the library ("externally referenced masters").
The NAS I am planning to use is a QNAP TS 239 Pro II+, which will be attached to a Gigabit Ethernet network (to which all Macs are connected too). Following the reviews, the QNAP should be capable to deliver a read/write performance in the order of 70 Mb/s ... hence performance-wise there should be no problem.
I've read through various forums and found many messages telling that using Aperture with a NAS is not possible or at least not a good idea. The posts in the forum were partially a bit confusing; people were telling contradictory things. I also had the impression that the answers depend on the actual version of Aperture. Apple itself put in the release notes of Aperture 3.1.1 about Vaults: "Fixes an issue that could sometimes cause Aperture on a computer with Mac OS X v10.5.8 Leopard to stop responding while updating a vault stored on a network volume." Hence, it seems that Aperture 3.1.1 can work with a NAS ... at least it can use vaults that are stored on a NAS. On the other hand, it's exactly the topic of vaults where many people say that this does not work with a NAS ...
To clarify things, I try to get some clear and competent answers here. The questions are:
Can one store and use the Aperture library on a NAS (whose disk is formatted using a UNIX file system, e.g. EXT4) ?
If yes, does this work in both configurations: (a) with a library containing the masters, and (b) with a library with externally referenced masters (that are also located on the NAS) ?
If a user on a given Mac on the network has opened Aperture (and thus the library on the NAS), is this library the blocked for other users ? (That should ideally be the case.)
If it is NOT possible to use an Aperture library on the NAS, is it then possible to store it on an external, HFS+ formatted drive connected to the NAS via USB ? (QNAP allows to format its external drives with HFS+).
I know that putting everything on an iSCSI target volume on the NAS is a solution, but is iSCSCI properly working under OS X (10.6). I read that one has to install an iSCSI Initiator software first ... which is not from Apple itself.
What about Vaults: According to the Aperture 3.1.1 release notes, it seems to be possible to use vaults on a NAS ... is this really the case ?
Is usage of Aperture on a NAS depending on the file protocol used to transfer the data ? I read also that if one uses the AFP protocol (supported in a QNAP NAS) then everything's fine ... Is this the case ?
Thanks a lot in advance for any clear and correct answer!
Rainer

Can one store and use the Aperture library on a NAS (whose disk is formatted using a UNIX file system, e.g. EXT4) ?
Not reliably, no. You will encounter issues. You could use Mac OS X disk images on the server, mount them on a client, and work that way. Note only one machine can mount the disk image at a time.
If yes, does this work in both configurations: (a) with a library containing the masters, and (b) with a library with externally referenced masters (that are also located on the NAS) ?
(a) no (b) no.
If a user on a given Mac on the network has opened Aperture (and thus the library on the NAS), is this library the blocked for other users ? (That should ideally be the case.)
Aperture does no locking. There is a very high likelihood you will corrupt the library if you do this.
If it is NOT possible to use an Aperture library on the NAS, is it then possible to store it on an external, HFS+ formatted drive connected to the NAS via USB ? (QNAP allows to format its external drives with HFS+).
How would you be accessing it then? If it's over a file protocol (SMB or NFS or ...) it likely won't work.
I know that putting everything on an iSCSI target volume on the NAS is a solution, but is iSCSCI properly working under OS X (10.6). I read that one has to install an iSCSI Initiator software first ... which is not from Apple itself.
Right. There is no Apple-provided iSCSI initator. I don't know how well 3rd party initators work.
What about Vaults: According to the Aperture 3.1.1 release notes, it seems to be possible to use vaults on a NAS ... is this really the case ?
I've done vaults reliably for years using a Mac OS X disk image stored on the NAS, that I mount before backing up. I wouldn't do it "naked" (i.e. stored directly on the NAS).
Is usage of Aperture on a NAS depending on the file protocol used to transfer the data ? I read also that if one uses the AFP protocol (supported in a QNAP NAS) then everything's fine ... Is this the case ?
AFP might have a better chance than other protocols but... frankly... it's a bad idea. If you MUST share a library across many machines, use something like a Promise DS4600 (direct attached) and plug it into a machine when you're using it.

I wonder how pro photographers use aperture?I shoot raw and my harddrive is alreay full.I'm not able to import new pictures.Is it ok if i create a vault and delete all my projects in the HD.Can I use an external HD use aperture through the vault??

I wonder how pro photographers use aperture?I shoot raw and my harddrive is alreay full.I'm not able to import new pictures. I don't know what to do. I created a vault. My plan was to create a vault(put all my master files into an external harddrive) and then delete all my projects in my mac pro's harddrive. Is it the correct way to do it ? What should I do if I have thousands of raw files ? How should my workflow be? Can I use an external HD and use aperture through the vault,without keeping the master files on my computer's hard drive?? Or should I shoot raw+jpeg and store raw files in an external backup harddrive and import only jpegs into my aperture library?

There's a bit to learn. It will slowly make sense.
Aperture is an empty field. You're given a tractor and a whole bunch of attachments. What you grow, how, and where, is entirely up to you.
Vaults are for back-up and only for back-up. They have nothing to do with storing your working files.
When your Library outgrows your system drive (and for good performance, you should leave c. 20% of every drive empty), it's time to convert some of your image's Masters from Managed to Referenced. ("Managed" and "Referenced" refer to Masters, not to Libraries.)
There are hundreds of posts in the forum, and several pages in the User Manual on using Masters.
Many people run Aperture with the Library on their system disk, and most (or all) of their images' Masters on external FW drives. This is a good set-up. Note that you will likely have to take steps to back-up the data on your external drives.
If you do the above, there should be no reason to delete any Projects.
The choice of RAW or RAW+JPEG or JPEG depends on the kind of work you are doing. I capture RAW only -- but I don't do any commercial shoots. Pros on deadlines report that the RAW+JPEG works well for them. Capture JPEG if it saves you time. IMHO, there is not a good reason to shoot JPEG to save space (space is cheap; time expensive).
Short-term solution: buy and use a FW800 external 1 TB drive, formatted "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)", and using Aperture relocate the Masters of all images older than 30 days to that drive. (Be sure to change your back-up strategy to include this new drive; you may need a second new drive.)
This general post of mine might help you understand more about Aperture.

Is there a need for Aperture Vaults if I'm using Time Machine and/or SuperDuper?

Hey all
What's the benefit of Aperture Vaults if I'm using Time Machine or SuperDuper for my regular backups?
John

John,
Aperture vaults are snapshots of a certain moment. So you can create a collections of vaults saved at specific intervalls, say one each year, or before you upgrade your system. If you keep your older vaults, you will be able to restore images from many years back. If your library is huge, you may only notice years later that an important image got corrupted.
Time machine backups are very convenient and you can go back in time easily, but you can never be sure, how much back in time your backup will go. You have no control over which older versions will be deleted, when TM runs out of space.
Clones are great, i.e. if you create bootable clones. This way you will be able to revert to a previous system without reinstalling. With respect to Aperture libraries cloning your library will give you the same benefits as vaults.
My experience tells me, that a mixture is good. If you can, keep three backups, and not all in the same place.
I keep one backup at my office and two at home. I have a bootable clone, a TimeMachine backup, and occasionally create a new vault. My most important images are in my dropbox and synced to all my macs.
regards
Léonie

Using HD on AiportExtreme for vault storage

Seting up another Aperture Vault and want to use an external USB drive on my extreme or TC basestation.
Is there any problems in creating a vault over the wirleless network?

Who reported the error, Aperture, Finder or something else?
One drawback to this setup is you do need to make sure the drive is awake and conected. Before I run the vault I access the drive via the Finder to make sure it is in this state. But once the connection is established I've never had the drive disconnect before the operation was complete.
As I wrote in my frst post you may want to conect via cable when you create and populate the vault for the first time. It will go faster.
good luck

Aperture Vault & Time Machine on same external drive?

I learned from an Aperture ProLab teacher that using Time Machine as a backup for my Aperture library is not always successful (something about the packaged file format?) - and it was recommended that I use the Vault in Aperture. Is it possible (and how, if so) to partition my external drive to be used with both Time Machine (to back up my entire hard drive) and Aperture's Vault?

Jessica-
I don't see why not, if the external is really large. Just partition using Disk Utility.
However personally I recommend buying additional hard drives rather than partitioning. Mass storage is now cheap. We always grow into hard drive space anyway, and there is a design elegance to having spearate physical drives. Design elegance in backup routines tends to lead to less errors.
I buy quad-interface drives from OWC
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/
for connection speed as well as flexibility in repurposing drives, but for backup-only cheaper USB (slower) drives from Newegg or Deal.com also are ok. Just look at cost per GB to find drives of best value.
HTH
-Allen Wicks

Aperture Vault Question

Okay, so I am looking to simplify my photo storage process, as I recently got Photoshop and am going to be doing more and more editing and what not.
I also have Aperture that I back up using its vault feature on my external hard drive, creating two locations for all my pictures - within Aperture and the vault on my external hard drive. Is it necessary (aka, would it be a good idea) to keep the original pictures in my home folder/pictures folder? I am hoping to free up space if not necessary.
Also, I would probably end up burning the master images to a DVD from Aperture for a third back up. I may sound paranoid about this, but I don't want to lose anything.
I'm just looking for an easy back-up process for my photos.
Thanks!
Josh

Also, I would probably end up burning the master images to a DVD from Aperture for a third back up. I may sound paranoid about this, but I don't want to lose anything. I'm just looking for an easy back-up process for my photos.
You do not sound paranoid, just prudent. The essence of competent digital photography is multiple redundant backup.
Your Managed-Masters-Library and Vault workflow is fine now but only in the short term because hard drives slow as they fill and using a Managed-Masters Library image files will sooner or later overfill the internal hard drive unless completed Projects with Masters are constantly purged from Aperture but that is inappropriate workflow for most photogs, and the benefits of using a Managed-Masters workflow are minimal.
I recommend to Manage by Reference with Master image files stored on external hard drives. Especially important for iMacs and laptops with a single internal drive. The workflow as described below uses a Referenced-Masters Library.
I feel pretty strongly that card-to-Aperture or even camera-to-Aperture handling of original images puts originals at unnecessary risk. I suggest this workflow, first using the Finder (not Aperture) to copy images from CF card to computer hard drive:
• Remove the memory card from the camera and insert it into a memory card reader. Faster readers and faster cards are preferable.
• Finder-copy images from memory card to a labeled folder on the intended permanent Masters location hard drive.
• Eject memory card.
• Burn backup hard drive or DVD copies of the original images (optional recommended backup step).
• Eject backup hard drive(s) or DVDs.
• From within Aperture, import images from the hard drive folder into Aperture selecting "Store files in their current location." This is called "referenced images." During import is the best time to also add keywords, but that is another discussion.
• Review pix for completeness (e.g. a 500-pic shoot has 500 valid images showing in Aperture).
• Reformat memory card in camera, and archive originals off site on hard drives and/or on DVDs.
Note that the "eject" steps above are important in order to avoid mistakenly working on removable media/backups.
Also note with a Referenced-Masters Library that use of the "Vault" backup routine backs up the Library only, not the Masters. Masters should be separately backed up, IMO a good thing from a workflow and data security standpoint.
External drives that are not eSATA (or at least FW800) decrease speed, so your Aperture Library should stay on the internal drive.
When using Referenced Masters the Library does not actually hold the large Master images themselves. That way even a laptop drive can hold an Aperture Library of 100,000 images by referencing Master images that live on external drives. To store Master images by "Reference," in Aperture when you go to Import on the right hand side of the import window you must select "Store files in their current location."
Note that by sizing Previews carefully (I suggest creating Previews manually and only during down time, and sizing to the pixel dimensions of the laptop display) all images can always be viewed on the laptop even when the Masters are off-line.
Good luck!
-Allen Wicks

Inefficient Aperture Vault Synchronization Behavior?

I've begun planning for a trip abroad, and as such anticipating the possibility of losing my laptop/external hard drive. After a bit of research I came across Amazon's S3 service for storing files online. Using a nice little application called JungleDisk, I can mount this online storage as a 'local' disk...and as such drop my Aperture Vault into it.
A nice little setup...except that when I go to synchronize my vault it ends up starting from scratch...so my initial 13GB upload of my vault resulted in another 13GB (@ 125KBps...a long time).
I realize it is an 'unsupported' function, but I'm curious if anyone else has experienced this inefficient synchronization method. I'm currently evaluating the possibility of using something like RsyncX to synchronize my Aperture library from an external hard drive...which isn't as streamlined as I'd like it.

Given that Vaults don't normally behave that way, I'd think this is almost certainly down to trying to do something it's not designed to do.
I'd recommend either using a Vault on an external HD as the easiest and fastest option, or use ChronoSync with all the 'go into packages' options turned on. This will be slower than the Vault as it will also be copying across all your previews and thumbnails, but it will be a regular Library rather than a Vault that you have to restore from.
Ian

I want to edit Pictures that are on my External Hard Drive Using iPhoto without having to import them every time, it was suggested to me to use Aperture. any advise is appreciated

I want to edit Pictures that are on my External Hard Drive Using iPhoto without having to import them every time, it was suggested to me to use Aperture. any advise is appreciated

Aperture is a nice program, I use it myself for it's adjustment and light editing capabiities.
You can save a vault on another drive.

Using Aperture 2 to Edit Iphoto 08 Library

I imported my Iphoto 08 library into Aperture 2 as reference images so I can still view my iphoto library on my HD Samsung through my PS3 using Medialink, after I edit the images with Aperture. My question is will there be any problems if I edit / delete / change images in my iphoto using Aperture ? Are there any tricks or things to be careful about ? I don't want to corrupt my library. I am a recent convert to mac (SR Macbook) and iphoto 08 did a great job with importing and initial organizing the mess of photo from all my windows machines. Aperture 2 seems to have better editing and file management of my resultant 25000 + library. I'd like to use both iphoto and Aperture together.

I import into Iphoto first for a couple of reasons. If I have some videos on my camera, which i usually do, Iphoto will capture them for viewing or editing later. Aperture won't. Second, Time Machine works with Iphoto, not with Aperture. So backups are automatic with Iphoto. With Aperture, you can backup with vaults. I import all my images into Aperture (as referenced images) mostly so I can manage them, IE, organize using metadata, and place into folders by year / month, etc. Also, when you do edit in Aperture, no extra copies are made, like in Iphoto, because, Aperture takes the master from the iphoto library and applies your edits on the fly. You can continually edit and change the image in Aperture and it only will render and make a new image / master when you want to export.
As far as keeping track of various version of images, after organizing and editing in Aperture, you can place a rating on images, or place them in an album of good stuff (which is just a link to the real image), to then export into a new iphoto event of good stuff, etc
Alternately, you could import the images into Aperture as masters, and Aperture will make another copy, which means you'll have two of each image taking up twice as much space. Depending how many images and how much hard drive space you have will determine if this works. You could keep either or both Aperture and / or Iphoto libraries on external hard drives. You could import directly into Aperture and only export good stuff into iphoto, if you don't have any videos to manage and you're willing to backup with Aperture vault.
I setup the external editor in Aperture to use CS3 PS. When you select edit in external editor, Aperture renders a new master which you edit in PS and end up with a new master in Aperture.
Good luck. I went through several workflows with Aperture trial and almost gave up. In the end though, after I saw what Aperture can do, Iphoto along wasn't good enough and I came up with something that works for me.

Aperture Vault and Time Machine

Does anyone know how this will operate ?
Will the Aperture Vault be TM 'unaware' ?
Roger

I guess there'll be a new 'vault' mechanism, as TM backs up your hard drive and vaults typically reside on another drive. whether or not TM can work with other drive I don't know.
Perhaps vaults will remain largely unchanged and be used for recovering entire projects or libraries, and TM will allow you to go back through previous version of the current file, or restore individual images that you may have deleted.
Regards
Steve

Aperture Vault - cannot restore Aperture 2 vault with Aperture 3

Hi
I have a vault I created last year on Aperture 2 located on an external hard drive. I tried to restore the vault using Aperture 3 and it prompted me to upgrade the restored library, which I did. Nothing shows up in the library in Aperture. There is 150M of disk space used on the external drive, so I know there is data there. Any ideas?

But Aperture 3.3 requires version 10.7 (ML) or later, thus do I need to upgrade into ML or are there other options?
To be able to upgrade to Aperture 3.3 or later you need to upgrade to Mac OS X 10.7.5 (Lion) or Mac OS X 10.8.x (Mt. Lion). Upgrades from the AppStore will give you Mt. Lion or Aperture 3.4.2 right now.
I do not know how to find free plug-ins for Aperture 3.2.x, perhaps you can achieve the effects that you want with external editors?
If you decide to upgrade the OS and Aperture take some precautions:
Check all other programs and device drivers that you rely on, if they are compatible with Mac OS X 10.7 or later, or if you can get upgrades. No Power PC program will run any longer, they are not supported on Lion or later. Most of my device drivers could no longer be used, and for some programs I had to buy new versions. You can get a complete list of the installed software and the versions from the "About this Mac" panel from the Apple menu or the System Profiler.
Make a backup and if possible a bootable clone of your system as it is now, just in case you want to revert to the older system. Otherwise it will be nearly impossible to downgrade again.
Also, in rare cases the upgrade of the Aperture library to version 3.3. caused problems. While still running Aperture 3.2.4 make sure your Aperture Library is in perfectly working condition by running all three "First Aid" options: Repairing and Rebuilding Your Aperture Library: Aperture 3 User Manual
Good Luck
Léonie

Aperture Vault with iPhoto Pics

I have just vaulted all of my photos in Aperture but I was wondering if Aperture also vaulted my iPhoto library that is in Aperture as well. I have some old pictures that were in iPhoto and when I started using Aperture it brought up my iPhoto library within the application. I never directly imported the pictures so I was wondering if Aperture knew to vault those pictures as well or if it simply vaulted pictures that were imported directly to Aperture?
Any help is appreciated!

Simple, effective answer: Yes, make copies of your Libraries as back-ups and don't use the Vault feature.
Vaults are no more than a back-up created from within Aperture. (I suspect Apple added this feature on the assumption that users of Aperture did not regularly back up their data.) They can be problematic (they can also be problem-free). If you are comfortable with Finder or with a program such as SuperDuper or CCC, use it and don't bother with Vaults. (That's what I do, and that's what other top posters here do as well.)
As far as data back-up goes, I recommend that all users maintain at all time three copies of their data. A working copy, a copy of the working copy that gets regularly updated (no less than once a day, unless the data is unchanged), and another copy of the working copy that is kept off-site. Never have all three copies in the same physical location (don't bring your off-site copy on-site. Take your on-site copy off-site, and then bring the off-site copy on-site, effectively swapping them while never having all three copies in the same location).
As for making on Library for each project ... it is generally not recommended. One of the great empowerments of Aperture is that it functions as an index of all the work it contains. I have _every photo I've ever taken_ in my personal Library. I can search my entire oevre. Your needs may be different -- and may be different enough that making one Library for each project you do is sensible -- but using separate Libraries takes the power of this global indexing away. (Fwiw, the reasons I can think of having separate Libraries: image security, image quarantine, multiple photographers, and Libraries of images where the photographer is not important.)
HTH,
--Kirby.
(Sent from my magic glass.)

Using Aperture Photos in iPhoto

In using iPhotos Cards, I learnt that I needed to import Aperture Previews into iPhoto 11 to used them. That wasn't a size / storage concern as I was only making a few cards & only used a few images. I have been using Aperture almost exclusively since 2007, have 12k+ images there for my books & slideshows and closed off iPhoto (9.8k images) except for the occasional card, reprint of a book etc.
In making several 2013 calendars in iPhoto11, I would like to utilize many photos from various trips that are now completely in Aperture 3 - Italy, Oregon and other travels and the idea of importing several thousand & having in both libraries seems much but unable to see where I can share Aperture Preview images w/o importing.
Is that a correct assumption?
Thanks....Gene

Larry - thanks as I had NOT read that article. I have Aperture 3.4.3 and iPhoto '11 9.4.2 so I'm all set there. I had opened the libraries before in each application BUT misunderstood what could or couldn't be done in each application!
So if I now understand it, I can switch & open my Aperture library in iPhoto (and vice versa also) , have access to the particular project of photos I wish to use in Calendar & Letterpress Cards, make these Calendars & Cards, buy & send off to Apple's Printed Services? Since I don't plan on doing any editing work in iPhoto for these photos, those iPhoto '11 created projects are only viewable there?
Gene

Using Aperture 3 Vault storage

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