Yes you can, but there are performance implications to consider before you do it. Why do you want to do this?
Are you simply short on disk space? If so, you might consider a referenced library instead. Put the library on your internal drive, and the photos on the external drive.
The performance implications are limited by transfer speed.
We have 20 Tb of managed libraries on external drives that work without any problems.
We use portable drives with managed libraries when we are on assignment that can then be transferred onto large hard drives in the office or merged into other libraries.
Managed libraries work very reliably.
John
John Waugh, Photographic Images • Apple Certified Trainer• Sport Action Lifestyle Photography
Thanks to all for the responses. To answer Jim, yes, I want to use external drives to free up space on my internal drive but I to use the Aperture Library rather than a Referenced Library. Since reading all the replies I have successfully copied my Aperture Library onto an external drive and this is working ok. I am planning to buy two more external drives and daisy chain them together and make use of the Vault in Aperture. Does anyone use any cloud systems for storage? Just wondered what you all thought if this method.
Joseph (THE Aperture Expert) uses BackBlaze for cloud backups. He has written about it several times here on the site including a recent article “Let’s Talk Cloud Backups”.
well, I am using Crashplan, and my 165GB library has almost uploaded in the cloud as an insurance (took like three weeks). But it is as well on an external HD (together with all the other stuff I need to keep a backup of) I might give a friend (outside my home) to connect to his computer to be able to update to via the net/crashplan service. Since all the cloud services providers don’t offer seeding to customers outside of the US, Australia and New Zealand that possibility is of great value. Of course I have duplicates of my external HD wer my Aperture Library resides and a TimeMachine backup of it as well.
Yes
Under switch to library choose create new library and point to your external drive and name the new library.
John Waugh, Photographic Images • Apple Certified Trainer• Sport Action Lifestyle Photography
Yes you can, but there are performance implications to consider before you do it. Why do you want to do this?
Are you simply short on disk space? If so, you might consider a referenced library instead. Put the library on your internal drive, and the photos on the external drive.
The performance implications are limited by transfer speed.
We have 20 Tb of managed libraries on external drives that work without any problems.
We use portable drives with managed libraries when we are on assignment that can then be transferred onto large hard drives in the office or merged into other libraries.
Managed libraries work very reliably.
John
John Waugh, Photographic Images • Apple Certified Trainer• Sport Action Lifestyle Photography
I agree with John Waugh. All my libraries are on external HD. No problems.
Photographer | https://www.walterrowe.com | https://instagram.com/walter.rowe.photo
Thanks to all for the responses. To answer Jim, yes, I want to use external drives to free up space on my internal drive but I to use the Aperture Library rather than a Referenced Library. Since reading all the replies I have successfully copied my Aperture Library onto an external drive and this is working ok. I am planning to buy two more external drives and daisy chain them together and make use of the Vault in Aperture. Does anyone use any cloud systems for storage? Just wondered what you all thought if this method.
Jeff Sheff
Joseph (THE Aperture Expert) uses BackBlaze for cloud backups. He has written about it several times here on the site including a recent article “Let’s Talk Cloud Backups”.
Photographer | https://www.walterrowe.com | https://instagram.com/walter.rowe.photo
well, I am using Crashplan, and my 165GB library has almost uploaded in the cloud as an insurance (took like three weeks). But it is as well on an external HD (together with all the other stuff I need to keep a backup of) I might give a friend (outside my home) to connect to his computer to be able to update to via the net/crashplan service. Since all the cloud services providers don’t offer seeding to customers outside of the US, Australia and New Zealand that possibility is of great value. Of course I have duplicates of my external HD wer my Aperture Library resides and a TimeMachine backup of it as well.
R.
http://rlfsoso.tumblr.com/