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I use Time Machine... Whats the point of Vault?
- Thread starter sukanas
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Time machine backs up individual files - but the aperture library is one big file with contents inside of it. I doubt it would be trivial to get to each photo in the finder using time machine...
The Vault is a backup solution for Aperture only.
A sensible person never has just one backup. My vault is kept on a totally different hard drive that is kept in a totally different site.
If someone steals my iMac and timemachine HDD - I lose everything. Or if there's a fire.
There'd have to be a war going on in the UK for me to lose all my [hard] data - then there's my server backups.
The Vault is a backup solution for Aperture only.
A sensible person never has just one backup. My vault is kept on a totally different hard drive that is kept in a totally different site.
If someone steals my iMac and timemachine HDD - I lose everything. Or if there's a fire.
There'd have to be a war going on in the UK for me to lose all my [hard] data - then there's my server backups.
The Vault is a handy way for an extra backup. My Macbook and Time Capsule spend most of their time at my house. If I have a fire at home, odds are they will both be destroyed. And while virtually everything else on them can be readily replaced, my photos can not.
So I keep a Vault on a small external hard drive that spends most of its time at my office. If I'm traveling for work and taking my computer, I'll grab the drive also and back up the Aperture library. Usually works out to about once a month or so.
So I keep a Vault on a small external hard drive that spends most of its time at my office. If I'm traveling for work and taking my computer, I'll grab the drive also and back up the Aperture library. Usually works out to about once a month or so.
The general rule for backing anything that you care about is this:
- There must always exist at least three copies of the data, each copy on it's on physical media.
- data must be stored at a minimum of two geographic locations
With just one Time machine disk all have is just one copy at one location. You are still "short" two physical copies and one geographic location. If you don't follow the above rules you will loose the data, it's only a matter of when.
You can get all the way there with just TM but you'd have to have multiple TM disks and rotate them keeping at least one off site at all times. TM really is not meant to be used this way. It is best to have just one TM disk, as big as you can get and leave it connected.
A "vault" is specific to Aperture and allows you to very quickly make a complete and consistent copy of the library at a point in time you choose. If you already use TM them get a couple more external drives and make two vaults. keep one at (say) your office and rotate it back with another one you keep in a fire safe at home Periodically connect a vault, sync it them take it to the office and bring the old one home to be re-sync'd. Also let TM run. This is exactly what I do. I just bought a 1Tb disk for $150. Disks are so cheap there is no reason not have a good backup system
One other very important difference between TM and Vault. TM copies files one at a time so if Aperture were updating one file and then another. Say saving an edit then updating the database. There is a small chance that the the two files will not match because TM's backup is NOT a "point in time". Each file is backed up at a slightly different time. "Vault" is in fact a clean selft consistence snapshot of the Library. This may be a minor point because eventually you will close Aperture but TM will continue to run every hour. But I'd not trust TM backups made while I was using Aperture
Maybe a nit-pick but actually the library is not a "file" it is a "bundle" which is just the term Apple uses to describe a folder (or directory in Unix terms) that is marked in a way that prevents Finder from showing it's contents. In short a folder that Finder will not open.
Well actually Finder will open it and show you the files inside and well, yes it is kind of trivial. Right click and select "show contents".
Conceptually the about is "correct enough" and you really should treat the library as if it were one big file but Apple does give you a way inside.
I know this, but didn't want to confuse the OP. Thanks for letting others know though.
Well said. I'll add that I personally keep off-site backups my photo collection on two external hardrives in two different locations around the country in trusted places.
Photos are our creative lives. Its not paranoia that should drive you to do it, its fear of losing everything you've created.
Time Machine doesn't back up the Aperture library anyway, so you'd want to use the vault for backup.
seriously? can we get this seconded? I just got aperture 2 the other day so I haven't gotten there yet but this is surprising to me....
Well, that's not accurate. I just did a restore from a Time Machine backup and my Aperture library was recovered, intact and up-to-date. The Aperture library is just a folder inside the Home -> Pictures directory. I don't see why (unless the user told it to) Time Machine would exclude it.
Time Machine does work with Aperture and Aperture libraries are most certainly backed up. Initially 10.5's Time Machine did have a problem backing up Aperture libraries (it could damage your library), but this was fixed in 10.5.2. Time Machine keeps backups of my Aperture library, so it does work. I think the initial fix was that Time Machine skips backing up the Aperture library if Aperture is running, not sure if it still does that.
Regarding vaults, Aperture's vaults are a lot more flexible than Time Machine (or what Lightroom has to offer): it easily allows you to keep an arbitrary number of vaults up to date. I have three vaults on three harddrives, one of them is offsite.
Regarding vaults, Aperture's vaults are a lot more flexible than Time Machine (or what Lightroom has to offer): it easily allows you to keep an arbitrary number of vaults up to date. I have three vaults on three harddrives, one of them is offsite.
Ah my mistake. The most I remember of it (since I use Lightroom and not Aperture) is that the first problem was that it didn't work and they did a quick fix of automatically excluding the library from Time Machine. I guess in 10.5.2 they fixed it.