Hej everyone,
I’m aware of the differences of man.&ref. files in Aperture, as well as most pros and cons. I’ve almost only referenced files so far but I think I’d like to switch to a full managed library to stop the hassle with the files. I haven’t done that before, because I was concerned about accessing the files but that’ll always kinda work out.
However, yesterday I accidentally deleted some of my photos. Luckily I have a Time Machine backup. So I went to the folder (as opposed to the library file which might have contained the photos) where the photos should’ve been and just recovered them from the backup.
That’s where I realised that I couldn’t restore photos from the Time Machine backup from one single project within Aperture. I might have been able to restore the complete old library but that’s a lot of data and trouble I guess.
My question is: Am I missing something here? Is it possible to restore one projects photos from Time Machine if all photos are managed? Might an Aperture Vault be the solution? (I haven’t used that yet, since my current backup solution seem sufficient.)
Thanks a lot in advance!
Cheers
Max
Vaults have advantages, but one disadvantage is the restore is an all or nothing. You cannot restore an individual photo, or project. Its restore the entire library for the vault or nothing. But if you Time Machine the Vault you should be able to go inside the Library package and find the individual photo inside Time Machine.
Overall I think managed files in Aperture is absolutely the way to go. And I think have at least two vaults is the way to go (that way if one vault gets corrupted during an update you still have the other vault). But I’m unsure myself how to handle your specific question.
Bill Jurasz
Austin Texas
Thanks for the help. That’s what I was thinking, managed files and vaults is the way to go. But if you can’t easily restore just one project then it’s not for me. My Library is about 200GB and if I have to restore a whole 200GB every time I accidentally delete some photos of one particular project (it’s not happening as often as it sounds :p), that solution isn’t for me.
Max
I use managed libraries, but I don’t use vaults for the very reason you state. You cannot restore subsets of your library from a vault. You either restore the entire vault or nothing at all. You also cannot simply start using one of your backups as a master if your master library disk dies. You have to restore the vault (or use Joseph’s trick of changing the name).
I close Aperture and make backup copies of managed libraries to alternate disks. You can use synchronization tools to make it go faster (e.g. ChronoSync). They only update the disk blocks that changed between your source (master library) and target (backups). The vault process compares every object in the source library and the vault at an application level. This is very time consuming and slow. And the larger your library grows, the slower it gets.
Synchronization tools like ChronoSync that compare the actual disk blocks of your master and backup work much faster and don’t get appreciably slower as your library grows. I’ve been using this method for a couple of years now and never had an issue with a corrupt backup. And I have had to use the backup when a master disk died so I feel very confident about the method.
Using backup copies of your library instead of vault allows you to open any of your backup copies of a library at any time, export any subset of that library to a new library, and then import that subset library back into your master library. It also allows you to start using one of your backup copies as your master library should your master library disk die. No waiting for a vault to restore, and no fiddling with the vault name to make Aperture think it is a library.
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