Joseph -
After having problems last Friday when I upgraded to Aperture 3.4, I started re-thinking my current strategy with Aperture. I read your advise from the forum in 2011 - “Workflow ideas for moving RAW files out of AP3 and keeping them backed up elsewhere.” When I got started with Aperture a number of years ago, I set up a referenced library. At that point, I occasionally had situations when Aperture could not find numerous referenced images, and I would have to reconnect them. Since then, I have had a managed library, and gotten bigger and bigger internal hard drives. My current library is now 775GB. While I still find that Aperture is still fast, the size of the library seems to create DB problems. Also, there is a problem with Vault as far as the time to backup or if I am just doing a standalone backup of the library.
There are still some things I do not understand about this aspect of file management. Since I edit most of my keepers with CS6 or with a plugin and a TIFF is created, would they reside in the Referenced folder?
Please let me know what you think of this proposed strategy.
Since I have a 2TB internal hard drive, I would continue to keep all of my images on this. I would leave my most current images as managed, but would make all the other referenced, but leave them on this drive. This would allow my vault to backup quickly, and my regular TM backup and my SuperDuper disk image would make sure all is backed up to my Drobo. I also do a once/week backup of the Aperture library that I keep off site. When I work off-site on my MacBook Pro, I would export the projects I need and keep them managed until I could re-import them and make them referenced again.
I would appreciate your advice.
Thanks -
Dudley
Dudley,
Sounds reasonable, although I don’t know that vault updating would be any faster. Initial creation, yes, but the update should only be copying the difference and should not be slower just because of a large library to start with. I haven’t run tests to compare real-world, but that’s how it should work.
Generated TIF or PSD files always get created next to the Original. So, if you work managed, they are managed too; if your Original is referenced, then so will the new file be.
-Joseph @ApertureExpert Have you signed up for the ApertureExpert mailing list?
@PhotoJoseph
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Joseph -
Thanks for your response. I will use this strategy, and try to continue to use one library because of the many advantages such as being able to use smart albums to quickly search on a given criteria and in order to sync to my iPhone and iPad. Is there an upper limit size for an Aperture library that will eventually create problems for me?
Thanks -
Dudley
Dudley Warner
WARNER Photography
Dudley,
No fixed upper limit. Some people report seeing slowdowns before others, and as with anything it depends on many factors outside of the Library itself. I maintain a library that’s probably approaching 200k images and I know that’s really not much. I also know photographers who create new ones ever year. Just go for it until it’s noticeably slower, but hopefully that’ll never happen :-)
@PhotoJoseph
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