Hi
Have been using Aperture a little while & having issues with backing up the library. My setup is:
- Referenced library. Library file in Users/John
- Pictures stored in Users/John/Pictures
- Back up to Apple Time Capsule
I have a Netgear ReadyNAS as well & I want to back up everything to that. I use Chronosync to back up my Pictures directory to a share on the ReadyNAS. Chronosync analyses the source directory & makes any changes including deletions on the destination directory - no problems here, after first full sync it only takes a minute or two to analyse for changes during my daily back up. I want to do the same with the library file. As I keep the library file outside of the pictures directory I’ve created another share on the ReadyNAS to use for this. The library file is around 10 GB. Chronosync doesn’t seem to handle this file well & when I copy & paste using the Finder the resulting back up is only 7.5 GB (took over two hours!) so doesn’t seem to be right.
What would be the most effective way to back up the Library file as I’m worried I could lose all my edits :-(
Regards
John
I use Chronosync to back up Aperture libraries with no problem. So a couple of things to look at:
-When you say “Chronosync doesn’t seem to handle this file well” what do you see that indicates it doesn’t.
- My Chronosync setup for the .aplib packages is different than for normal files. I don’t use the archive, so on the Setup tab the ‘When deleting files:’ drop down is set to ‘Delete immediately’. Also on the Options tab, I have ‘Dissect packages’ checked.
- How big is the library before you copy it with Finder? Though that should also work, but it takes forever.
- The destination being NAS might be a source of problems. Have you looked at Chronosync support on their site to see if there’s NAS issues? Aperture itself certainly has problems with the library being stored on a NAS, so maybe other software has problems as well.
Hi Jim
Thanks for your help. Took a look on the Chronosync support to see whether there were any issues regarding the use of NAS but nothing obvious. The library on my Mac was 10GB & when backed up with Finder shrank to 7.5GB.
I’ve now setup a new Chronosync job as backup, left to right with dissect packages option, synchronise deletions & delete immediately. Initial backup took over two hours. Following that I’ve opened Aperture made a few changes, moves, deletions etc & re ran the Chronosync job - took just a minute & a half to backup the changes so more than happy with that.
Only thing it hasn’t done is preserve the Aperture package container IE the library file package contents are all visible directly in the root of the share I created. I assume this is OK?
Kind regards
John
This is the documented behavior of ChronoSync. I experienced this and decided I should actually read the documentation. If you reference a directory as your source, it only syncs the contents of that directory and not the directory name itself. To mitigate that, place all your libraries in a single folder, then use that parent folder as the source. All libraries in the folder will be synced. An Aperture “Library” is nothing more than a directory with a special suffix (ends in “.aplibrary”).
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John…
“Only thing it hasn’t done is preserve the Aperture package container IE the library file package contents are all visible directly in the root of the share I created. I assume this is OK?”
Not really. If you have to restore your Aperture library from the NAS, you’re probably needing the restore the whole package. But what you see is what Chronosync does. The only way I’ve found to get around it is to first copy the Aperture library to the backup destination using Finder (takes forever). Then use the copied library as your destination in Chronosync. There might be a better solution, but this works for me. As you indicated, once past the initial backup with Finder, the updates with Chronosync are much faster. Faster than Aperture’s vault process, which also takes a while in my experience. But I still do a vault update occasionally, just to have a second type of backup around.
Cheers Jim
I’ll give that a bash now. Once sorted I’ll do another backup to a removable drive that I can keep off site - just to be on the safe side.
Kind regards
John
Personally I have been using SuperDuper For Mac http://download.cnet.com/SuperDuper/3000-2242_4-46651.html for Aperture and Lightroom for a long time for my backups. Never have had any real issues.
Stuart
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Hi, using SuperDuper too, but for my whole external Photography Storage HD. This is fast (like 10-30 minutes tops after the initial duplication) and safe! It is not feasible if one choses to keep anything else on that particular disk and not wanting to back up this stuff too. R.
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You can check Ahsay Software for backup. It is best On-Premises, Online, Offsite, Cloud Backup Software. Currently I’m using this software for backup my library file. You can also try it.