David,
You can put the Aperture Library almost anywhere. I frequently attach to the Aperture Library I have on my G5 from my MBP, and vice versa. I also placed several different Libraries onto external drives. The one drawback, and Apple "may" be working on this as some have rumored, is that you cannot just switch to each Library without first resetting it as the start-up target in Aperture Preferences and then restarting the app.
The file storage part is very manageable, I think. I keep all my original files in separate external drives. I do not import the original RAW files into Aperture, but rather I import "referenced files". And I also am not importing high resolution Preview images, as may have been Maggie's first problem with both storage and time. As mentioned in some of my other notes above, one can select the Preview image quality and size, resulting in smaller files in the Aperture Library. Whenever you are actually working on a file, in Aperture, you have to be able to access those files if you stored them someplace other than the Aperture Library. For me, the Aperture Library on my MBP hard drive is merely for being able to edit IPTC data, show clients things when I am away from the office, and as the repository for the instruction files for the edits I make. Whenever I connect to the external drives that hold the RAW image files, I can edit away and save as many versions as I want. The RAW stays where it was, and all those new Versions become instruction sets in the Aperture Libraray, along with a preview of each for viewing only. That keeps the Aperture Library from growing too large.
So, there are a large variety of ways to manage files, previews, and even Libraries. Some of that is not intuitive, but all of it is explained in the rather thorough manual. For me, the key is to NOT import the RAW files into Aperture, and to keep my Preview sizes matching the screen I view them on. I am in the process of building another Aperture Library that I will keep on Time Capsule or another external drive. I will Export the Projects from the G5 and the MBP, one at a time and while connected to the sources. I will then Import those Projects to the new Library and thus have everything in one place to be accessed from whatever machine I am running/working on. I will still keep a set of Projects (copies from the main) loaded on the MBP for whatever I need to show clients, and then discard them to keep storage smaller whenever I no longer need them. All of this can be managed with a bit of planning and also knowing what the options are. Unfortunately, Apple has not made that part of the learning curve quite as intuitive as it is powerful.
LJ
You can put the Aperture Library almost anywhere. I frequently attach to the Aperture Library I have on my G5 from my MBP, and vice versa. I also placed several different Libraries onto external drives. The one drawback, and Apple "may" be working on this as some have rumored, is that you cannot just switch to each Library without first resetting it as the start-up target in Aperture Preferences and then restarting the app.
The file storage part is very manageable, I think. I keep all my original files in separate external drives. I do not import the original RAW files into Aperture, but rather I import "referenced files". And I also am not importing high resolution Preview images, as may have been Maggie's first problem with both storage and time. As mentioned in some of my other notes above, one can select the Preview image quality and size, resulting in smaller files in the Aperture Library. Whenever you are actually working on a file, in Aperture, you have to be able to access those files if you stored them someplace other than the Aperture Library. For me, the Aperture Library on my MBP hard drive is merely for being able to edit IPTC data, show clients things when I am away from the office, and as the repository for the instruction files for the edits I make. Whenever I connect to the external drives that hold the RAW image files, I can edit away and save as many versions as I want. The RAW stays where it was, and all those new Versions become instruction sets in the Aperture Libraray, along with a preview of each for viewing only. That keeps the Aperture Library from growing too large.
So, there are a large variety of ways to manage files, previews, and even Libraries. Some of that is not intuitive, but all of it is explained in the rather thorough manual. For me, the key is to NOT import the RAW files into Aperture, and to keep my Preview sizes matching the screen I view them on. I am in the process of building another Aperture Library that I will keep on Time Capsule or another external drive. I will Export the Projects from the G5 and the MBP, one at a time and while connected to the sources. I will then Import those Projects to the new Library and thus have everything in one place to be accessed from whatever machine I am running/working on. I will still keep a set of Projects (copies from the main) loaded on the MBP for whatever I need to show clients, and then discard them to keep storage smaller whenever I no longer need them. All of this can be managed with a bit of planning and also knowing what the options are. Unfortunately, Apple has not made that part of the learning curve quite as intuitive as it is powerful.
LJ