Aperture - How to "mirror" my Library

[Twitko]

I'd like to ask you for help, advice or tip ... I have Aperture installed on my MBA. As I don't want to waste limited space of main HDD, it contains only library and ALL files are stored on extra HD (TimeCapsule). No problem with this solution... when I am at home

But, sometimes I'd like to take my photo collection (or part of it) with me, while travelling. I have another extra HD - My Passport to travel with me. Of course, I can copy photos to it, but how to make Aperture to use files from it instead from Time Capsule ?

I am not going to seriously work with photograps while travelling, just look, maybe send via email. No serious adjustment etc ...

Thank you in advance for any idea

H.

 

[emorydunn]

It sounds like you use a referenced library, with the library file stored locally and the master files stored on your external drive.

What you've described is a bad idea. You don't want to copy some photos to your internal drive and then tell Aperture to use those. Generally you want to do as little messing around with your master photos as possible.

What I would recommend doing is, if you know exactly what photos you want to take, is to export them as a new "travel" library. You can use this library and make some changes to photos and when you get home you can merge it back with your main library, Aperture will see the duplicate files and ask you if you want to "merge" or "copy". Merging will update any files you have changed to the new versions and if you added any photos to the travel library it will copy those over.

There is only one thing, I'm not sure how this works with a referenced library. It should work the same, but I'm not sure. I would test it out and make sure that it does what you want.

 

[Twitko]

Thank you for reply. Yes, you are right - I use referenced library. Library is at my MBA and all master files are stored at external HDD. I don't want to copy any master file into internal HDD. My idea is - to have copy/ies of some master files stored at another external HD - and referenced again so they are viewable via Aperture, too.

The Export sounds reasonable for me. I have never used this function till now (I am quite new in Mac world and in Aperture), but I'll check.

H.
(sorry if my descriptions are not clear enough, but I am quite limited by my English )

 

[glocke12]

If I understand correctly you are using your TC for your master images? This is probably not such a great idea. I did something similar (used TC as a media hub for my iTunes library) and lost everything. Something happened to the TC to cause my macs to not recognize it any longer, and the guys at the genius bar had the same issue when I brought it in for them to diagnose.

Your better off using a regular external HD or a RAID system.