I am running an Aperture 3 referenced library on several external drives. My library has about 200,000 images in about 2000 projects. My problem is that the Aperture library folder on my desktop hard drive is now 275 gb in size, mostly consisting of previews and thumbnails. My current preview size is 1280 with an image quality of 6. The size may have been 1920 in the past, but I don’t remember when I changed it. My desktop is a 3 or 4 year old iMac 3.06 core 2 duo with 12gb ram and a 500gb hard drive so this Aperture library uses a lot of space on my computer.
I guess my questions are as follows:
Can I, and should I somehow shrink the preview sizes of all these images, or can I move the Aperture library folder onto a external drive without suffering a performance drop. This problem is only going to continue to grow if I don’t do something about it now.
And, if there is another solution, I would love to hear from someone.
Thanks
What about splitting the library up into current projects and the rest? Or by years? Archive some older stuff and thus reduce size of you your working library? This is a pain inevitably, because one cannot search across libraries and needs too know basically where stuff resides… Can see no other solution.
R.
http://rlfsoso.tumblr.com/
Hi Woody, it might be time to upgrade. The 3 TB Fusion drive in the newer iMacs is pretty awesome.
In addition you could consider an external Thunderbolt enclosure form OWC. I use this one with the LaCie eSata controller (much cheaper, super fast). You can get the 4 or 8 drive version, but there are limitations. Please call these guys and chat, they know what they are talking about.
Thanks Jeff. I’ll take a look at that.
Is your Library folder already backed up on Time Machine?
For safety sake I would have that on an EHD anyway. If your Aperture Library folder were on an EHD, performance should be about the same. Can you add more RAM to the iMAC to help speed between folders etc?
Stan
sbysshe.smugmug.com