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Rojo024

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 18, 2007
30
0
Hello all, I use aperture to manage and edit my photos. I have quite a large library built up and that takes up much of the space on my hard drive, 70 GB of the 80 that I have in my MBP and 100GB just floating on an external. I am curious if there is a way to manage my aperture library from an external hard drive without the photos being on my laptop? That way my entire photo library will be accessible. If not, or it is not practical what are some other recommendations? I have though about having a larger Hard Drive put in, but am not sure about cost. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.
 

OreoCookie

macrumors 68030
Apr 14, 2001
2,727
90
Sendai, Japan
Yes, it's very easy, as a matter of fact: Aperture allows two different ways to manage your photos -- which can be mixed at your own discretion, too!
(1) Managed Library: all photos get imported into the Aperture Library bundle. It creates, manages and deletes them if they are changed in the Library, etc.
(2) Referenced Photos: Aperture leaves the photos at the current location (they can be on your local drive, on an external drive or on a network drive).

As I said, you can switch on a photo-per-photo basis whether you want to have them managed (in your Library bundle) or referenced. To save yourself a few clicks, you should change the preset in the prefs, though.

Referenced photos are a little more work-intensive: if you move them in the Finder, you need to reconnect the pictures in the Library, too. If you are very much fond of managed libraries, you should get a bigger internal harddrive (which is what I did).

Edit: There is even one more solution if you prefer managed libraries: you can create libraries on both drives and then open the respective library by double-clicking it. Keep in mind that then you don't have access to the thumbnails on the external library if your external harddrive isn't connected.
 

Rojo024

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 18, 2007
30
0
Thanks for the help. It is greatly appreciated. I like the ease of use of the managed libraries. I am seriously considering getting a bigger internal drive. Did you have yours done through apple? If you don't mind my asking what did it cost you?

Thanks
 
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