Moving Aperture library to external hard drive?

[sinar]

Hi,

I have a 24" Imac which is a couple of years old, it only has a 320GB hard drive and it is getting rather full as my Aperture Library is around 200GB.

I was considering buying a Firewire 800 2.5" hard drive and keeping my aperture library on that, but I"m not sure if i will notice any slowdown putting it on an external drive.

I was wondering if anyone had done a similar thing and could comment if there were any speed/performance problems?

Thanks for reading,

Julie

 

[416049]

Hey Julie my father did this with his iMac as well having the same problem because his aperture library grew too big. I would suggest if you don't need portability that you should use a 3.5 harddrive and at least 1 tb since space is cheap. There are no slowdowns and the only thing I suggest is because it takes time to copy to leave it on overnight. Hope this helped

 

[sinar]

Hey Julie my father did this with his iMac as well having the same problem because his aperture library grew too big. I would suggest if you don't need portability that you should use a 3.5 harddrive and at least 1 tb since space is cheap. There are no slowdowns and the only thing I suggest is because it takes time to copy to leave it on overnight. Hope this helped

Thanks for the reply, I'm leaning towards the 2.5 as I want it to be as silent as possible, and like the idea of not having to use a power cable, I"m thinking of getting a 640GB one, obviously much more expensive per GB than a 3.5, but I don't mind paying extra for a quiet drive.

Unless there are 3.5 drives that run quietly? I have three 3.5 hard drives (two USB and one Firewire 400) and they are all much noisier than the 2.5 USB drives i have.

Julie

 

[cube]

The drive is noisy or the case has a fan?

 

[sinar]

The drive is noisy or the case has a fan?

I think all my 3.5 drives have fans, (2 Maxtor and 1 Lacie) as they all make a noise even when the hard drive is not being used, and all are much noisier than my iMac, which is just about audible, but not distractingly so.

I don't keep them permanently attached as the noise is too distracting,

Julie

 

[cube]

I don't hear noise with a good fanless aluminium case + a quiet drive.

And example of quiet and pretty fast drive is the WD Caviar Green 2TB ("IntelliPower" unspecified rotational speed). IntelliSeek, too.

I had a WD Caviar Black (7200 RPM) and what I could hear was a rattle during seek, not the spin.

 

[sinar]

I don't hear noise with a good fanless aluminium case + a quiet drive.

And example of quiet and pretty fast drive is the WD Caviar Green 2TB ("IntelliPower" unspecified rotational speed). IntelliSeek, too.

I had a WD Caviar Black (7200 RPM) and what I could hear was a rattle during seek, not the spin.

Thanks, that sounds like an interesting option, can you suggest a good fanless aluminium case?

Julie

 

[cube]

I have a MacPower/inXtron Pleiades Super S-Combo that performs nice (I've only tried with FireWire). I like the EMI shield and the screws are not fiddly.

But normally I buy OWC cases. I would have got this one:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEFW924AL1K/

I don't know how it compares, but that is a safe brand.

 

[cube]

There's a new Caviar Green 2TB, WD20EARS-00MVWB0, which consists of 3 667GB platters.

The previous one, was 4x500GB.

Higher density normally means faster. Less platters normally means lower power consumption and could be more reliable.

 

[cube]

It seems the 1TB and 1.5TB EARS Green also use 500GB platters, so they should be as fast as the "old" EARS 2TB.

 

[sinar]

It seems the 1TB and 1.5TB EARS Green also use 500GB platters, so they should be as fast as the "old" EARS 2TB.

Thanks for the info, I'm struggling to find those cases here In the UK, but I'll keep looking

Julie

 

[cube]

I saw a site in the UK where that inXtron (ex-Macpower) is now discontinued, but they have what seems to be the replacement (maybe the new one is better, but I think the one I have is prettier).

 

[sinar]

I saw a site in the UK where that inXtron (ex-Macpower) is now discontinued, but they have what seems to be the replacement (maybe the new one is better, but I think the one I have is prettier).

Thanks, I'll keep looking, see if i can track it down,

Julie

 

[WeeManFoo]

I've been thinking about moving my pictures to an external drive as well, but I want to do it to increase performance. I thought I read somewhere that moving your pictures to the non-OS drive will result in better speed (my biggest complaint with Aperture 3). Will using a 5400rpm Firewire 800 drive speed up Aperture vs having my Aperture library on my Macbooks standard HD? If not, would upgrading my internal drive to a Seagate Momentus XT help any, since it is a 7200rpm drive?

 

[chiefroastbeef]

I've been thinking about moving my pictures to an external drive as well, but I want to do it to increase performance. I thought I read somewhere that moving your pictures to the non-OS drive will result in better speed (my biggest complaint with Aperture 3). Will using a 5400rpm Firewire 800 drive speed up Aperture vs having my Aperture library on my Macbooks standard HD? If not, would upgrading my internal drive to a Seagate Momentus XT help any, since it is a 7200rpm drive?

You would want the fastest drive with the faster connection possible for your scratchdisk (avoid SSD I guess since they are expensive and aren't made for heavy read and write). Right now, on my Mac Pro, my aperture library is on another separate scratchdisk. And so is my Macbook Pro, except that I took my DVD drive out, and put in an optibay clone (much cheaper than MCE's solution), and put a 7,200rpm 500gb drive in there.

I've been using the Seagate Momentus XT now for a couple of days, and so far I must tell you based on my experience that it is a waste of money. Apps open slightly faster (perhaps it may open slight faster still as it learns my habits, but whoopdeedoo), but I actually think it takes a longer time to load a picture in A3 then on my older Hitachi 500gb 7,200rpm drive. I am not disappointed by this drive, because I knew I won't be getting much of an increase. Right now I'm thinking about getting an 80gb SSD as a boot drive, and in my optibay, a 1tb drive for my home folder, files, and Aperture/FCP scratchdisk.

Please listen to me, save your money, do not get an XT, get a regular 7,200rpm drive for now, or instead think about the SSD/optibay or external drive combo if you want to hotrod your computer.

 

[flosseR]

I didn't see if it was Aperture 3, but I will assume it is, if not, ignore everything here
I know, I will sound like a broken record.. but referencing.. Aperture 3 makes significant speed boosts when you reference instead of having your masters in the Aperture library.
regarding the SSD, well I don't know why but my 64gb ssd excells at heavy read and write and my 500G momentus XT is a stellar performer in my macbook pro. Yes it is an extra step but one well worth taking.

Now in order to make your library faster and still keep it with you, relocate the masters to an external disk. My Aperture library went from 185G to 18G and it made a HUGE difference. Plus I can take it always with me and have all my photos along I don't need to have the external disk on in order to work with Aperture 3.
I did write about it as well but I will probably get flamed for spamming

 

[chiefroastbeef]

I didn't see if it was Aperture 3, but I will assume it is, if not, ignore everything here
I know, I will sound like a broken record.. but referencing.. Aperture 3 makes significant speed boosts when you reference instead of having your masters in the Aperture library.
regarding the SSD, well I don't know why but my 64gb ssd excells at heavy read and write and my 500G momentus XT is a stellar performer in my macbook pro. Yes it is an extra step but one well worth taking.

Now in order to make your library faster and still keep it with you, relocate the masters to an external disk. My Aperture library went from 185G to 18G and it made a HUGE difference. Plus I can take it always with me and have all my photos along I don't need to have the external disk on in order to work with Aperture 3.
I did write about it as well but I will probably get flamed for spamming

you may have just save my life, I will give this a try when I get back to the hotel.

So do you store your masters on the external 500gb drive too? Where is your reference Aperture library?

Would it still be a good idea to keep both the Aperture library, and the masters library on a scratchdisk in my optibay?

Thank you so much for sharing this, I definitely have the long loading problem on my MBP, where it takes 4 seconds for each photo to load and get sharp. I cannot wait to try this, if it turns out to be much faster, I won't be needing a SSD!

Thanks again.

 

[flosseR]

Hi, well this works for me. I have my masters on an external 500G USB 2 disk that i don't carry with me always. I also have a backup of those masters on another disk through TimeMachine On the same external 500G USB disk I also make Vault backups once a week.

I have the master aperture library on my main OS drive and it works perfectly fine in terms of speed.

Once you start relocating the masters you can actually SEE your library shrink in Finder. I find this also extremely useful for backing up my Master files and have them in the same folder structure as my projects in Aperture.

//F

 

[kryptonkid07]

flosseR you saved me. <3

 

[mlblacy]

On my new 27" i7 I have two Western Digital 4tb drives, one for external storage, and another is running Time Machine. The drives are pretty reasonable on Amazon, quiet running, and also have a quad interface (Firewire 400 & 800, USB & SATA). I also have another one of these running off my older 24" just for Time Machine.
michael

 

[mothermary]

Aperture library

I'm following the thoughts here but I'm new to mac's and this software. I originally have a mbpro where I places all my photos in iphote. I then purchased aperture and used the iphoto library as my base. So now I have photos in iphoto that aperture uses and new photos in the aperture library. I now have an imac and want to have these library available there. What is the best solution and how do I go about making sure I don't loose any pictures? I do have external drives available that are connected to my imac. Thanks for your help.

 

[guy curlewis]

I use G Drive Gtech drives daisy chained and then linked to my imac with firewire 800.

I use the 1tb for my library and time machine and the 320gb for my aperture vault as timemachine does not pick up external drives

Both run extremely quietly as no fans (large heatsinks)

HIghly recommended!!

 

[mulchie]

aperture/iphoto backup

This thread is a little old (April was the last...) but I have a similar set of questions.
I've been using my MacBook Pro with Aperture 3. Older files are stored on iphoto and newer on Aperture. I'm just now importing the iphoto shots to the Aperture library since I prefer its editing capabilities.
I had planned on just backing up with an external harddrive (time machine and transcend military grade 500g external hd) but in reading this thread it seems to make sense to store masters on the Transcend (which will be exclusively for image files). Would someone be patient enough to walk me through all these steps? I've got a lot of files on Aperture and the transition makes sense, but it also makes me nervous!
thanks to anyone who cares to jump in....

 

[Keleko]

It's really quite easy. I've done the same thing, myself. Unfortunately I don't remember all the steps in detail.

- Import your iPhoto library to Aperture.
- Select the photos you want to move.
- Relocate Masters and pick where you want them to go and how they should be named.
- Watch it go.

 

[mulchie]

It's really quite easy. I've done the same thing, myself. Unfortunately I don't remember all the steps in detail.

- Import your iPhoto library to Aperture. DONE
- Select the photos you want to move. ALL
- Relocate Masters and pick where you want them to go and how they should be named. HERE"S WHERE I"M STUMPED...

I don't see the Transcend Ex HD on the menu for relocating. This means I'd have to move to desktop and then move again, and my understanding (amateur as it is) is that every time a file is moved it gets a little degraded, so I'd like to avoid this multi-step process if I can.
CAN i just export the full library to the Transcend EX HD?
- Watch it go.

Many thanks here...