Okay guys and gals, I am going to make the leap this weekend from Aperture to Lightroom (I think)! I am selling my 2011 27” i5 iMac for a brand new 2015 27” Retina iMac. I figured that this is as good as time as any to switch from Aperture to Lightroom, but I still a little confused as to what to do to my Aperture library in preparation for Lightroom. My Aperture library is managed and not terribly big 270 GB. I still haven’t decided if I’m going with a 512 GB SSD or the 2 TB fusion drive yet on the iMac, If I was to go to the 512GB SSD, then I would keep my library on a external drive.
Okay, how about some ideas, I want to get this done today, I have a buyer for my iMac already. Thank you!
Mark (Happy Black Friday)
Mark, When I made the move to Lr at the beginning of the year, I already decided that I was going to keep my photos on an external HD and I had already had some of my Aperture library as referenced files, so I made all of them referenced before the move. My personal philosophy when upgrading to a new computer is always, whenever possible (budget driven), to get the most RAM and GB. I would think that if you don’t think your library of photos is going to out grow your new HD space then I would leave them managed. From all of my pre-move research, I heard over and over again that with Lr it is best to keep ALL of your photos in one folder, in one place. So since I was not getting a new computer, I got a larger, newer external HD and moved all of my photos there and any managed photos changed to referenced before I made the move. Remember, that with each app program on your HD that gets an upgrade, more disc space is taken up so I factored that in a long time ago which led to my moving from managed to referenced in Aperture a long time ago.
Also, when you make the move, depending upon which transfer vehicle you will be using, some of your ratings and adjustments may be lost in the transfer. So I would go through your pictures and clean up as much as possible and make sure you fully delete any left in your Trash & Rejected folders. That will make for a cleaner transition.
Good luck and have fun this weekend. Getting a new computer is always fun but also a lot of work setting it up just the way you want it.
Florian
Florian Cortese
www.fotosbyflorian.com
Thanks Florian! I’m still trying to decide if the 512 SSD will b better than the 2TB Fusion, faster over all, but is it really going to be “better”. I know that it is different for everyone. Any opinions on that?
Mark, I’m not sure I can help you on this issue. I have a MBP laptop as my main and only computer with a 27 inch attached display screen. My HD is i TB. So I don’t have an SSD. With all of the apps and movies/tutorials that I have, I already have 2/3’s of the HD occupied and will soon start removing some of the duplicate stuff that I have to free up space. So IF is was buying an iMac, I’d probably be going for the 2TB fusion. But that’s me.
Florian
Florian Cortese
www.fotosbyflorian.com
I have the 2014 5K iMac. I maxed it out for everything except I got the 3TB Fusion drive instead of the SSD. If I could do it over again, I think I’d instead get the SSD and keep all my big data (video and photos) on external drives.
Right now I’m using the OWC external Thunderbolt 4 drive bay with SoftRAID set to RAID 5. While both the iMac and RAID are seemingly more than fast enough, I’m still not satisfied with Lightroom’s performance. Importing is glacially slow. And skimming through images after import and preview generation is complete is too slow for me. It’s been a while since I’ve used Aperture but to me LR feels much slower than Aperture was.
I’ve gotten used to the image adjustments in LR and have come to like them, but the overall performance and import process still makes me wish for Aperture X.
Thomas
I’ve been contemplating the move from Aperture to Lightroom for the last year. That’s about how far I’ve gotten on this journey. I have a managed library and feel like I need to grapple with my set up issue for Lightroom and backup strategy before going forward. I’m an enthusiast, not a professional. I have an iMac
I keep reading about RAID but I’m not sure about the cost of it. (I’d rather be buying lenses for my new mirrorless) Is it sufficient to have two external HD for photos? One for LR folder of photos and one for backup? I also have Time Machine set up on another external HD.
Any comments on status of Aperture Exporter appreciated too.
Thanks,
Susan
ps never know if I’m posting in the correct location
Susan
Susan, Yes you can easily have two external HD and manually backup your photos on each. RAID set up does that automatically with two equal sized external HDs linked togather so that one mirrors the other. One HD crashes, the other has your data and all you need to do is replace the crashed HD.. Depending upon the volume of pictures, 2 500GB or 1TB external HDs would suffice. They are relatively inexpensive. Time Machine will only back up your computer’s HD where your managed photos are housed but you could easily copy the Aperture Library to an external HD as an extra backup. It is a good practice to keep one of your backup external HDs “off site,” i.e., at your work office or parent’s home, in case you have a catastrophic event like a house fire or break in.
Florian Cortese
www.fotosbyflorian.com
Florian, Would you detail what your set up for Lightroom and backup consists of?
I did find WD My Book Duo is an option at 6TB for $300 and can be set up for RAID 0 or RAID 1. Would you have that host your Lightroom Catalog? I’ve also looked at Seagate 5TB Backup Plus which is desktop (2yr warranty) and WD My Passport Ultra 3TB which is portable (3yr warranty). I do have a portable hard drive that I take to my Safe Deposit which I have been using for my Aperture Vault.
I’m still not clear on exactly what I need to go forward. I have a 1TB portable hard drive that I have used for my LR Catalog that I have been testing with but I don’t think it is big enough for the future.
Really appreciate your help.
Susan
Susan
Susan, OK I have (as you can see from my reply to your question in another thread) my Lr catalog is on my macbook pro’s HD and I have a LaCie 2Big external HD which consists of 2 mirrored 3TB HDs set up in RAID 1 mode which automatically mirrors the HDs. Here is a link to the product page. Scroll down and there is a brief and simple explanation of RAID. I am not pushing LaCie on you but I think if you are looking into a RAID system this will help your understanding. Remember, Time Machine does NOT back up any external HDs. I also have two 1TB WD portable HDs that I use when I travel. I create a travel Lr catalog and load my pictures onto the WD HD and post process them when on the road. I will copy them (and my travel Lr catalogue) to the second WB HD and place one in my backpack which I carry with me and one in my checked in luggage just in case i lose on of them. I’ll merge that travel catalogue with my main catalog transferring the photos from the WD HD to my LaCie photos folder when I return home. My prior back up was an older 2TB G Tech external HD which now serves as my off site back up. I bring it home once a month and physically transfer my newer picture folder files and Lr catalog backup files to it. I also use Backblaze as a cloud-based off line back up service. I have Joseph to thank for this photo backup paranoia!! Backblaze backups ALL of my external HDs daily while they are hooked up to my laptop including my laptop files.
I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions. Good luck!
Florian
Florian Cortese
www.fotosbyflorian.com
Florian, So much good info! Thank you
Susan
Florian,
In response to a few of your statements:
This is not necessarily true. You can configure Time Machine to back up external drives… but you must remove the exclusion in the “options” page in Time Machine preferences
I will give the strongest caution possible to NEVER think of RAID as any type of backup. There are too many issues with RAID that can cause failure of both (or all) of the drives to fail together. I know that you have other back-up strategies in place… so my comment is really only to prevent others from reading your post and making the assumption that RAID is sufficient as backup. In my personal experience.. I have found RAID systems to actually be more fragile than single spindle drives.
May I recommend that you use two drives (ex: A & B) so that your off-site backup is always off-site. I update one off-site drive, mark it with the date, then exchange it with the now outdated off-site drive. I never want my offsite copy in the house with my main computer… even for one night.
I also applaud your use of cloud backup. Backblaze is good. I am also a strong supporter of Crashplan which for me works great. I have mine essentially set for continuous backups (actually set to 15 minutes backup intervals). One reason that I chose crashplan is that it never deletes backups that have been deleted from your drive. I do not want to be in a situation where inadvertent deletion (too easy to do) deletes my cloud backup as well. Before Crashplan, I was using Mozy… which only kept backups of deleted files for 30 days. That was my primary reason to switch to Crashplan. I am not positive how Backblaze handles file deletions… but from memory, I think it is OK.
I think I am even more paranoid about backup than Joseph. ;)
/Jim
/Jim Pappas
Jim, It’s nice to know there is another fellow backup paranoid out there! Thanks for the info and your comments. I was kind of aware that you could set up a Time machine backup but I don’t think most people know that and then you would need an awfully large Time Machine HD to carry your photos and regular HD backups. However, I know you could set up a large external HD as a Time Machine and not necessarily an Apple model. I had an Apple model to start with so I just kept it for my computer HD. I am also aware that RAID drives could BOTH fail together, but it is less likely and there is no guarantee on just about any system you use should a catastrophic event occur. Hence, it’s always wise, as you point out, to use off line services such as Backblaze or Crashplan. My off site external drive is in my office which is all of 6 blocks from my home and since I am one of the partners in our group I have keys for access 24/7/365 but your swap of two off site externals is an interesting concept I am going to have to give some consideration to. Thanks again for your input. Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays!
Florian
Florian Cortese
www.fotosbyflorian.com
So, let’s say that you have settled on the base 27” iMac, the one with the 2TB fusion drive. But suddenly you have about $300 more that you are willing to spend. Do you buy the i7 processors, the 4GB video upgrade, the 3TB fusion, or the 512GB SSD? And let’s say that you would be doing photo editing and hopefully some video editing? Thanks!
Tough question Mark. I would probably go in this order:
1. 512GB SSD
2. i7
3. 4GB VRAM
Based only on a feeling. I couldn’t prove which is the best bang for the buck.
Thomas
Thanks Thomas, it is really hard to tell. I was real happy with my iMac with the i5 2.7ghz, the 512mb video card, and a standard 1TB drive. I think that I will go for the base model and spend the extra for a external thunderbolt drive. Thanks.
SSD!!!!!! Instant startup and you’ll see speed difference using all software.
Milo
www.milosmetal.com
When I replace my iMac, I am going for the largest SSD that is available at the time. I’ll actually be handing down my 2012 iMac with 776 GB SSD to my wife who is currently using a 2009 iMac with a 2TB HDD. Her machine is slow as death. My machine is actually quite snappy with Aperture, and hopefully it will be OK with LR once I figure out how to configure LR optimally.
I am a bit peeved that Apple currently only offers a 1TB SSD (at an outrageous price)… but a lot of my frustration is in knowing how much larger SSDs will be within the next few years. Hence, I’ve been delaying upgrading my iMac.
In any case… If I was you, I would get the SSD option. That way you can guarantee that your LR catalog, and your previews are all on the SSD (and will stay there). I THINK (but I am not positive), that having your originals on an external HDD will be fine.
/Jim
/Jim Pappas
Hey gang, I thought I would follow up from my original post.
So after much thought, I decided to get the 27” iMac with the upper level standard configuration: 2TB fusion, i5 quad 3.3ghz, Radeon 395 with 2gb.
Well, for any of you that are wondering about the speed with the fusion drive, it is fabulous! That 128gb SSD really does help. My programs load fast and everything seems to work fast. I’m very pleased with my purchase, and of course the screen is great. I decide that I will get a Drobo with thunderbolt connections to store my photos.
If anybody has any questions, I’d be more than happy to answer them. Thanks.