Joseph, After this post and ensuing thread of responses (http://www.apertureexpert.com/forum-user/post/1731131#post1744268) back in February, I have finally gotten around to getting a 2TB external HD. The Canon 5dMark III got in my way!! So I created a Smart Album of images 1 year or older as you had suggested (10,000+ photos) dating back to 1996. I have all of the folders, albums and projects organized in yyyy/mm/dd format, with the major folders by year, e.g., 2002~2006 Pix or 2009 Pix, and the folders and projects within those year titled folders in yyyy-mm-dd format. So just so I get this right, I go the the Smart album of managed files older than 2 years, selected all of the photos and do a File>Relocate Masters and select the folder on my new external HD entitled “Aperture Masters” and all of the hierarchy of dated folders with folder, projects, albums within should show up as such and not just 10,000 plus photos in one file!? Sounds to easy, but I hope that's the case! Oh, do these files stay in the library when I open Aperture? Thanks again for all of the help.

Florian