Which is better: One or multiple iPhoto libraries?

I recently had a huge scare with my HD crashing and losing about 3500 photos since I had last backed up in Sept 2010 (yes, I take 3000+ photos in 2 months
Long story short, my huge iPhoto library was close to 400GBs, and with my iMac HD having only 500GB, it only made sense to move the iPhoto library to an external HD. On my external HD, I currently have a copy of my iPhoto library through Sept. 8 , 2010 (last time I backed up.. lesson learned: back up everyday!!) When my iMac's HD finally failed, I took my iMac into the Apple Store and they replaced my old HD with a new one. Apple did give me back my old HD and I successfully retrieved the 2010 folder out of the Originals folder (of the iPhoto Library) and I created a new iPhoto library with just those 2010 photos (includes all current photos up through the day my HD died: Nov. 3, 2010). My intention is to keep the current year's photos on my iMac's HD, and leave the older pix (Jan 2006-Sept 8, 2010) in the orig iPhoto Library that is currently on the external HD.
(Sorry, my long story short, didnt end up being so short after all .... ok, so here's is my question: Do you recommend that I keep a separate library on my iMac and older pix on another library on the EHD -OR- keep the old iPhoto Library where it is now on the EHD but then import those 2010 photos into that library as well?
I've read on other forums that it would be messy to have multiple libraries... is this true? My intentions is the keep the Libraries smaller, as a 400+ GB sometimes takes too long to access, and takes a very very long time to back up (my excuse for not backing up as often as I should've in the first place!) Would it be too cumbersome (and limit myself from using iPhoto to it's fullest potential of using keywords, ratings, Faces/Places on as many photos as possible) by having separate library for each year (2010, 2011, 2012, and so on), for the sake of keeping the iphoto library files smaller?
I have been stressin' & messin' with this for a good 2 weeks now so any tips, suggestions before I proceed further (and possibly go down the wrong path) would be MUCH appreciated
Thanks!

Welcome to the Apple Discussions.
Size doesn't matter - no it's true. The "weight" in gigs is of no consequence to iPhoto. What you need to know is the number of items. iPhoto is good for 250,000 in each Library. After that, the gigs are just storage space.
Multiple libraries are possible but they have a couple of significant downsides: You can only have one ope at a time, and therefore only one is searchable at a time - and you know the shot you want will always be in another Library...
Each Library is independent of all the others, so any keywording, Faces, Places etc (in later versions than 08) are entirely separate.
Other than that, there is little downside.
As for backing up: use a back up app that does +incremental back up+ - it makes a copy of your entire library first time, thereafter it only updates the back up with your changes - additions/deletions etc. Takes no time that way. Chronosync or DejaVu are two such apps. But there are many others - search on MacUpdate
Regards
TD

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On a MacBook 2.16 GHzIntel Core Duo, 2GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, version 10.6.8.

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Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one. .
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I have multiple iPhoto Libraries (unintentional) due to an old iMac which had died. There are three libraries:
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THANKS!!
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Mac OS X - 10.7.5
iPhoto '11 - 9.2.3 (629.52)

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iPhoto Buddy is fully compatible with every version of Apple's iLife suite, from iLife '04 through iLife '09.
Regards
TD

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HT201340 How do I merge multiple iphoto libraries

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Sorry if this has been posted a million times, but I can't figure it out and don't want to lose any photos.
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I just want to organize them into seperate years, i.e., photos 2009, 2010, 2011, etc.
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Regards
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