Currently I am using a Gtech raid as my working drive with my Aperture libraries on it. Every evening Chronosync copies the Raid drive to my Drobo. I am curious if there is any advantage to creating vaults on the drobo also? I know it would be better to get offsite but at this time thats not an option for me.
Thanks for the input.
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Copy Library vs. Vault
#1
My current backup system is only a Time Capsule, so I need to start looking at a cloud backup alternative. So am I ok with just simply backing up my always updated Aperture vault to a cloud based service, or should I included some other Aperture files?
Thank you Thomas,
I would agree but had to check, as i though perhaps there was some magic in a Vault. Chronosync runs automatically every night so it is more convenient for me.
Semper Fi
Rick,
Do you have Chronosync set to look inside packages (i.e. the Aperture library file)? The default is to treat packages as a single file. Chronosync will copy the entire library from one drive to the other. When the copy is complete, it will delete the old copy and replace it with the new one. This can take a long time since even the smallest change inside the library will cause the entire library to get copied every time rather than just the changes.
I have a 400GB Aperture library. I wondered why Chronosync was taking so long for an incremental sync. And then my drive ran out of space. I found Chronosync was copying the entire 400GB each time. I didn’t have 400GB of space left on the drive so right before the end it would run out of space and error out and cancel the entire copy. When I enabled the option to look inside packages, it only copies the changes and doesn’t need the entire 400GB of extra space. It’s also much faster.
Tom
Thomas
Thomas,
Were is this setting, i looked and could not find it. That is an awesome Tip!
Semper Fi
Rick,
Check out this tip on the Econ Technologies website. You should probably read the entire tip but step 8 covers packages.
Tom
Thomas
The advantage of copying the library versus vault is that you can open the copy, export images or projects or folders, and re-import them into you master. If you accidentally delete items from your master, you can recover them from your copy even after the master has changed. With a vault, you can only restore the entire library from the vault.
If you made changes to the master after you updated you vault, then restoring from the vault will lose those changes.
Photographer | https://www.walterrowe.com | https://instagram.com/walter.rowe.photo
Walter,
What you say about restoring the entire library from a vault is true unless you read Joseph’s Tip on Aperture Vault’s File Extension Secret. You can access individual projects from a vault.
Thomas
That is a neat trick, for sure. You never know if that will work into the future. I use a Terminal session and rsync to sync my master to multiple copies as I’ve described in many threads here. It is guaranteed to always work. I don’t have to worry about corrupting the copy. I can sync it again from the master or one of the other copies. If a vault is corrupt you are forced to delete it and recreate it. That could take a LONG time for a large managed library. I have over 40,000 images in a managed library that is over 650GB.
I’m not trying to convince anyone that copies are better than vaults. I like copies for the reasons I stated. It is my own personal preference and what I’m comfortable with.
Photographer | https://www.walterrowe.com | https://instagram.com/walter.rowe.photo
Put another way, I don’t want to remove the carburetor every time I want to change the oil in my car. (speaking of old school)
Adding to the considerations is also the hardware. I’ve been using a referenced file system with a LaCie ext HD. Since Mavericks, been experiencing crashes in Aperture3 after import, during my selection/touchup process. Thought is was the notorious GPU on my early 2009 iMac but turns out it’s my LaCie d2, USB 3 drives (mostly).
I’m becoming convinced that Walters approach of initial import to a new managed library for processing images and then merging to a master (managed) lib will help my work flow stability/sanity.
One more thing. Having been an iWeb user with several websites developed on that platform (yes I know how to code, I don’t want to code, I want to take “pitchers”) which I thought was quite elegant, the resulting code not withstanding. Of course Apple pulled the app from under us. I still use it but must find another work flow for that now www.centurionsofthehudson.com was done using it.
A little light piano please–“Thank you Apple, for making products that might last five years”
We shall not cease from exploration.
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time. --TS Elliot
If I have copied the Aperture library by making a back up of my entire harddrive, how do I go about checking to see if that back up contains missing files (several projects that I just discovered are now missing)? Those files might be in my latest Vault back up, but how would I know for certain? I have lost several Projects that were imports of two years of iphone photos (and saved Instagram pics.) Any tips on how to go about this would be apprecitaed. I think that this could have happened when I rebuilt the database a few weeks ago. (Yes, still using Aperture 2.14.) I apologize if this should be in a different thread. (These were all Managed files.)
Susan S
A vault is really only a copy of the library. The advantage of a vault is that Aperture can incrementally update it on your command vs. needing a separate sync app to update a backup of the library file. When you complete an editing session in Aperture you can just update the vault before quitting. Whereas with Chronosync you’d need to quit Aperture and open Chronosync and initiate the backup.
I don’t see any advantage to having both a Chronosync backup of your library and a vault of the same library on a single backup device. They’ll contain the same data. Having them on the same device won’t help much.
Thomas