Hi,

having read a lot of posts on external storage options I am still unsure: 

My recently acquired Machine is a MBP Retina 2012 with 8GB RAM and 256SSD (bought refurbished) , moving from a broken MBP (early 2008, 3GB RAM, internal 500GB HD @7200RPM). Obviously I cannot keep my 160+ GB Aperture library on this new machine.

I am shooting 99% analog, 35mm and 120 film, my “Masters” are B&W scans around 18MB and 25MB (35mm & 120 film) per shot, color scans are JPEGS (FINDLab, USA) so a roll is like 5-600MB.

Unfortunately I will not be able to afford any external SSD or Thunderbolt-RAID (LaCie I’m looking at you). It will have to be a/several spinning drive for now.

I got me a USB 3.0 powered 7-HUB to connect some of the external HD I have.

Now what seems to be the best option for speed in access and manageability:

a) managed library on external HD?

Or

b) referenced library kept on the internal SSD and images on external HD?

c) individual projects managed library on internal SSD combined with great master library on external HD. I find that less than attractive because of the moving back and forth importing/merging etc. That Aperture cannot open more than one library at a time and peek&compare the content is a shortcoming.

How to connect:

d) Thunderbolt or USB 3.0? For Thunderbolt I am looking at either:

Buffalo HD-PA1.0TU3 MiniStation Thunderbolt / USB 3.0 - 1TB (@5600rpm, I believe) (170€)

or

G-Technology  G-Drive Mobile Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 - 1TB @7200rpm in tests slightly faster (190€)

There are different USB 3.0 powered drives around I’d prefer a faster spinning drive… not so difficult choice. I believe I will mirror/clone /SuperDuper) my drive to USB 3.0 drives for backup purposes. I have started with a WD Elements 1TB. I wonder if the HUB will influence access speed when connecting several drives at once.

So to conclude my question:

what would be faster/fastest: a managed library on an external HD or a referenced library kept on the internal SSD with images on external spinning HD connected via Thunderbolt or USB 3.0? What would be likely size of a referenced library when the managed library is 160GB and growing?

Thank You!

Oh an observation: it IS possible to back up external drives or content on external drives via TimeMachine, one just has to change the automatic choices in the respective Systemspreferences panel!

regards, Rolf