Using Reference Files - Aperture Library still larger than file storage

Still new to Aperture, and so far LOVE the metadata tagging functionality, but am troubled by the huge size of the Aperture library. Here's my stats so far, after a couple of days of importing, with no image management done so far other than assigning some metadata...
# photos managed as reference files=1175
Size of folder where reference files are stored=883MB
Size of Aperture library (.aplibrary)=1.44GB
My expectation would be that the ratio of Aperture library to reference file folder would be about 1/10. But 1.6/1 seems way out of whack. I selected all photos within Aperture and then selected "Manage Reference Files..." and all 1175 file references showed up. On that basis, I'm pretty confident that the jpegs aren't being copied into the Aperture library. But I cannot explain why the library continues to be 1.5+ times as large as the reference file folder.
This seems to defeat the purpose of keeping reference files external from Aperture.
Am I missing something, or is this to be expected? If these ratios hold, then it seems if I end up managing 10GB of photos I will incur another 15-16GB of storage requirement just for Aperture to do its thing.
What is Aperture doing with all that hard drive storage space?

By default, Aperture creates previews of all of your images. A preview is little more than a JPEG copy of the original. The size of these are determined by the settings in Aperture's preferences. When you're dealing with RAW images, the size of the previews are significantly smaller than the master image, but if you're working with JPEGs, then the previews can balloon the library to as large (large when you add up the thumbnails and duplicates) as the referenced files.
You can reduce the size of the previews, or delete them and turn them off all together if you're not sharing your photos with other iLife & iWork apps from Aperture. There are some other reasons you may find them beneficial, and this article will help you determine if they are right for you:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304499

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If it is RLE it's not as efficient as LZW:
Saved ACR>PSD = 40.1MB (sample image this AM)
opened in PS and resaved as PSD = 30.8MB
resaved as TIF without LZW = 40.1MB (this adds to your thought that the ACR>PSD doesn't us any compression)
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??? I hope that the Adobe engineers are fussing over 10-20% efficiencies.
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.... so in my case, throw in an excess MB here and there and all of a sudden you are talking TB's. Plus advantages in backup times, drive life, and energy use.
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Using Reference Files - Aperture Library still larger than file storage

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