Backing up Aperture library with Time Machine

bensaundersbensaunders
Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
This is a query on behalf of my dad now.



He has a pretty big collection of RAW photos that he manages through Aperture and has recently upgraded to Leopard, with the backup abilities of Time Machine being the major driver.



I don't use Aperture myself so I'm not 100% sure, but I think that I am right in saying that Aperture stores all of its picture sin a single library file. If this is the case, will Time Machine make a new copy of the entire Aperture library every time it does a backup?



If this is the case then I can see it requiring some serious capacity on the backup drive! I bought him a 250Gb external hard drive last Christmas, but I doubt this would last very long if it has multiple copies of the entire Aperture library!



Anyone advice from someone using Aperture with Time Machine would be appreciated!



thanks,



Ben

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    jbljbl Posts: 555member
    Aperture does not really save things to one big file. The Aperture library is a package which is a folder that the finder treats as a file. If you right click on it, you get an option to "Show Package Contents". If you do that you can look inside and see all your individual pictures.



    That said, I believe Apple does not recommend using Time Machine to back up Aperture libraries because the various support files will get out of sync:

    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306853
  • Reply 2 of 5
    filburtfilburt Posts: 398member
    According to the link:

    Quote:

    Running Time Machine backup or restore operations while Aperture is running may lead to inconsistencies in the Aperture database.



    If you use Time Machine in manual mode (set Time Machine to off position and backup by selecting "Backup Now" option) you can safely use Time Machine to backup Aperture (provided Aperture isn't running during backup/restore)..
  • Reply 3 of 5
    dutch peardutch pear Posts: 588member




    Hmmm, I own both aperture and leopard and received no warning about this from apple whatsoever so I have been running aperture and automatic time machine backups simultaneously multiple time before reading this post. I haven't seen any issues with my library thusfar, but still, this is pretty negligent on apple's part. They should have pro-actively informed all aperture-users about this!
  • Reply 4 of 5
    boemaneboemane Posts: 311member
    This is what the Aperture Vault is for... Backing up Aperture libraries...



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bensaunders View Post


    This is a query on behalf of my dad now.



    He has a pretty big collection of RAW photos that he manages through Aperture and has recently upgraded to Leopard, with the backup abilities of Time Machine being the major driver.



    I don't use Aperture myself so I'm not 100% sure, but I think that I am right in saying that Aperture stores all of its picture sin a single library file. If this is the case, will Time Machine make a new copy of the entire Aperture library every time it does a backup?



    If this is the case then I can see it requiring some serious capacity on the backup drive! I bought him a 250Gb external hard drive last Christmas, but I doubt this would last very long if it has multiple copies of the entire Aperture library!



    Anyone advice from someone using Aperture with Time Machine would be appreciated!



    thanks,



    Ben



  • Reply 5 of 5
    srparkersrparker Posts: 1member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by filburt View Post


    According to the link:





    If you use Time Machine in manual mode (set Time Machine to off position and backup by selecting "Backup Now" option) you can safely use Time Machine to backup Aperture (provided Aperture isn't running during backup/restore)..



    Just FYI, Apple is reporting the Time Machine/Aperture issue is fixed in 10.5.2



    See http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306853 for more info



    Steve
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