I just made a change similar to what Steve described above in the past few weeks.
Historically, I had a quite a few libraries. One for long term storage (archival), one for in-active projects, one for active projects, one for videos (low volume, high storage requirements), and a few small ones that I'd use for specific projects and/or moving data back and forth from my MBA. Just like Steve, my biggest reason for multiple libraries centered around storage requirements and my desire to keep as much as possible on either my SSD or, at a minimum, on a local disk. I've discussed this Library layout a few times so, if you're interested in more details, just perform a search and you're very likely find it. Alternatively, check out
this blog entry on my website.
A few weeks back I made a number of changes to several of my Smart Albums and was looking for an easy way to sync these changes between my multiple libraries. Most of these were library wide Smart Albums so a simple export/import wasn't really an option. Anyway, when I was unable to find anything (yet again), I decided that doing a full Library sync using a hybrid of Managed and Referenced files was the way to go. Another perk to this solution was that I would no longer have issues with image sync to my iPad/iPhone depending on what Aperture Library I had open.
Right now, my primary work system is a Macbook Pro with a 256GB SSD and an internal 7200rpm HDD (optibay). Wanting as many photos as possible on my local system, I came up with the following arrangement;
- My main Library "file" is kept on my SSD.
- All new photos are imported as Managed files.
- Relevant active Project masters are kept as Managed files for the duration of work.
- Inactive Project masters are moved to Referenced files kept on my internal HDD.
- Old inactive masters (currently anything older than 5 years) are kept externally (disk images stored on my NAS).
- Referenced masters are all stored in a single folder (on each media obviously). Exported subfolder format is "Image Year/Month/Day" and the Master filename is used as the Name Format. This keeps my Referenced masters organized nicely with little effort on my part. Additionally, by importing everything as Managed to start with, then going through this relocation later, my Referenced files maintain the same organization structure throughout.
In addition, I have a few more Smart Albums to help me keep this all organized.
- All Managed - Used to get a quick look at any Managed files.
- All Referenced - Ditto for Referenced files.
- All Online Referenced - Ditto for online Referenced files
- All Offline Referenced - Ditto for offline Referenced files.
- All Managed over 6 months old - These are files that (very likely) should be Referenced. Doing a "Command-A, File -> Relocate Masters" on this album provides for a quick Managed -> Referenced workflow.
- All online Referenced over 5 years old - Assuming that none of my NAS volumes are mounted, these are masters that should be moved to long term storage. Like my 6 month SA, performing this work is pretty straight forward. First, select all of these images ("Command-A" like above). Then mount the NAS volume and return to Aperture. If you look closely, you'll see a bunch of new files in this SA. This isn't a problem however since you've already made your selection. At this point just do "File -> Relocate Masters" to put the selected files on your NAS. If you select a few masters that are already on this volume (or even all of them) it's not a problem. Aperture handles it just fine and leaves them in place as you'd expect. I don't generally do this however since there is no point in relocating something that is already where you want it to be (unless, of course, you want to change the organization structure and/or name).
When it comes to Vaults, I keep at least 2 at all times. My first vault is what I call my "Local Vault". Just like it sounds, it's stored local to my laptop (on my HDD, my library is stored on my SSD). This allows me to keep a backup of my Library in case of corruption or drive failure at all times. I also have keep an "Airport Vault". Like the name implies, this lives on a USB drive that is shared via disk sharing on my Airport. I also keep a vault on my NAS but this one does not get updated nearly as often.
Additionally, when migrating to Referenced masters, you need to keep these backed up separately. I do this in a multitude of ways. First, I've always got Time Machine running which is a great/easy solution for my local files (including the Library and local Vault). Second, I have an rsync script that performs a backup of all files on my laptop to my NAS every hour (obviously only when I'm connected to my local LAN, this script is also configured to skip the backup when on battery power). The files on the NAS (including the referenced files stored in my NAS volumes) are then copied, again via rsync, offsite to 2 discrete locations (both over 50 miles from my house and over 100 miles apart from one another). This backup occurs every 4 hours.
Thus far, I've really enjoyed my hybrid Library and it's worked very well.
