So do you use iPhoto Buddy to do that? Not sure exactly how that works, but I could easily do one for each year, I suppose, to split it up into more manageable chunks of data. Would that work, ya think? I have 11000+ over the course of about 5 years...should I split them up that small? I also have tons of digital scrapbooking stuff that I've collected, 24+ GB, 13000+ files, plus another 24GB, 6000+ files of my own digital scrapbooking kits I've designed. I guess I need to split that all up into different libraries as well? If I use keywords, will it search all the libraries for that keyword or do I have to choose only one?
Thanks for the help, I know if I can just do it right the first time, it'll be great!
ETA: Sorry, just clicked on the link and saw you linked to iPhoto Library Manager, which is essentially the same is iPhoto Buddy, right?
REPLY :
Actually external drive all have some kind of chipsets. some works better some aren't. in both windows/mac using usb2.0 is really a bad choice, since 480mbps isn't really a stable speed at all, the top speed you are probably going to get from a windows xp is probably around 13mb/s (about). And sometimes a large volume of data is passing through the usb core, it really depend on how long your usb wires goes, or what chip was in the external closure. From my experiences, if you plug through usb hubs (which also has chipsets on it's own) you will even have more problems.
From my experiences, old chip buffalo chip on usb2/firewire box, there were 2 generations. first, crash often in Windows or after a large amount of traffic it will quit on you, but not in the mac. However, the newer chip works more stable in windows, but mac could be mix feeling. For example, since windows notify you every action, you probably realized your usb HD sometimes quit by itself and re-plug in by itself as well. That's when the usb wasn't too stable or overheated. (or simply you have too much usb devices accessing resource at once, windows couldn't handle it). Or you probably getting the error like "delay write back to ...." that means even your hard drive isn't un-pluged, it was overwhelmed by the traffice, so winxp will try to reconnect the device.
However, on the mac, simple enough, it won't notify you all these.. it just keeps trying to connect at top speed as it can. if it connects, it has an icon, if it has a delay, the icon still appears, but system will try to reconnect by itself asap without notify you. Not until the system can no longer accessing your hard drive, then you will have the error message. (GOOD HUH?)
as for you.. you might have several problems.
1. if you are using external closer that has chipsets, you might facing problems by mounting it on the osx but not winxp (since most of them were built and tested under windows anyway). The solution to this problem is to get a different HD box.
2. if your external HD was on the network, network traffic might cause problem too.. especially when you are using wireless, constantly you might get disconnect problem.
3. if your file system has problem (not always in windows), osx might have problems writing back on the NTFS like most of the linux box. FAT32 might also have problems for long file name or large file size.
4. most likely your problem is the wrong location for image files under iphoto (rebuild the database if that solve your problem).
From my personal experiences, fat32 often do not create problem since nothing is larger than 4G in size. However, the chipset of the external box might have a lot to do with disconnect, instability, and malfunction. Try different box if you can.
Also, like what rest of people suggested, try to move the iphoto library by the tips, not just drag over.
And yes.. even large file take a long time to process through the pipeline.. The disconnect can cause by long usb core, instable wifi connection and all that. to conclude, try to use firewire instead of usb2.0. And trust me, usb2.0 device isn't any cheaper than firewire. Firewire is more stable and cheaper to make in manufacture. USB2.0 is good because most of the motherboard in PC built in that. However, firewire might or might not require a pci interface card to activate, that's why most of people didn't want to have firewire. In reality, firewire works way better than usb2.0 in any aspects. (when I have a box with both firewire/usb, i connect usb2.0 to my windows xp, and use firewire for the mac, it works flawless. But if you try to use usb/firewire in xp, both may cause problem once a while. if you use usb on mac, it disconnect more often than firewire).
