Aperture Users / Discuss

ianbwarner says:

Honestly - i have a PowerBook G4 1.5 Ghz, w/2GB RAM. I use aperture. But I have nothing to compare it to. Granted my workflow may be a little different than others, as i'm working w/scanned negatives and slides more than importing 300 or so digital RAW files, but the limited RAW that I do shoot works fine.
Posted 72 months ago. (permalink)

davefitch says:

Well, I have a similar setup and splurged on a really fast SATA drive and the Radeon® X1900 G5 Mac Edition graphics card to boost Aperture, given it's reliance on both HD and alleged reliance on the graphics card.

Did it work? Not really - there was some improvement, but nothing particularly significant. A G5 just doesn't seem to have the guts for working with large libraries, especially if you're dealing with 10mp+ files.

That being said, one thing I have found that will speed things up [well, stop my machine thrashing the HD and being unresponsive for minutes at a time]: don't run it with *any* browsers open at the same time - and that includes NetNewsWire or anything else that uses WebKit.
Posted 72 months ago. (permalink)

davefitch says:

Oh yeah, one other thing - do you use previews?
Posted 72 months ago. (permalink)

thouzndwords says:

Tell me about previews. I have disabled previews in an effort ot speed my app up. It bogs down terribly...but I do find that closing Safari and Mail in particular helps. I have a brand new iMac Intel core 2-duo(2.33GHz) w/ GEForce 7300 GT 128 MB SDRAM, 250GB serial ATA Drive, 2GB 667 DDR2 SDRAM (2x1GB)

Sometimes my little bouncy ball just spins and spins and spins...frustrating. I am working with large RAW files (12.8mp) and save everything to a Mac formatted external hard drive. I also almost always have Photoshop running at the same time. I don't know what else to do. Sometimes it runs great and other times, it just really bogs down. Not to hijack the thread, but I'd be interested in any suggestions as to what might speed things up as well.
Posted 72 months ago. (permalink)

Richard- says:

I have a 2.16 ghz MacBook Pro, 2 gigs of RAM and I have a love/hate thing going with Aperture because of this slowness.

I'm pretty sure it's a memory issue as many things are with OS X. If I quit everything and restart my computer, then run Aperture on its own it's much better. The minute I run any other app, worst is Safari, things get bad.

I bought a copy of Lightroom and was going to bail on Aperture but I've not opened it yet and may not. I really love Aperture but don't love this issue and it's changing the way I feel about processing images: I don't look forward to dealing with this slowness.

For what it's worth, iPhoto still chugs along, nothing phases it. I don't use it much anymore but I'm tempted!
Posted 72 months ago. (permalink)

thouzndwords says:

Richard...I hear you. I do love many things about Aperture, but have been frustrated as of late. Also, there have been some new editing products 'out there' for editing directly in ACR or Lightroom using some very efficient actions, but no one has been able to duplicate this for Aperture as of yet. This could really speed up my workflow. I am torn. After just reformatting my two externals, the thought of starting all over again and re-importing all 5000+ RAW files into yet another new app kindof sends me over the edge though! I would imagine moving everything would be a bit time consuming, don't you think?
Posted 72 months ago. (permalink)

Susan_Dennis says:

I've been using both Aperture and Lightroom for a month now. I really want to fully love, love, love Aperture, but alas, it's a love/hate relationship-mostly because of performance issues. Richard, I too have a 2.16 Ghz MacBook Pro and it's maxed with 3 gigs of RAM and I am seriously considering Ebaying it and getting the new 2.4 MacBook Pro and maxing it out to 4 GB RAM and even then, I know that I will probably still encounter some stilted performance...after all, there are folks with quad MacPro's with 4 GB of RAM that report performance issues.

Meanwhile, Lightroom perks along and I can't deny that it has some great develop tools that Aperture lacks. For Lightroom the main downside for me is the module interface. I just love the way Aperture just gets out of your way and lets you work however way you want to in whatever order-and I much prefer Aperture's organizational tools.

If I could combine the two, I'd have the perfect software. I'm really hoping that Aperture 2.0 is on the horizon and will address the speed issues once and for all-and add some of LR's develop capabilities. Otherwise, I will probably go with Lightroom-despite the fact that I have a licensed copy of Aperture and I am a devoted Apple fan and shareholder.

thouzndwords: yes, it would be a royal hassle to switch programs, but it's all about what will be best in the long run for you.
Originally posted 72 months ago. (permalink)
Susan_Dennis edited this topic 72 months ago.

davefitch says:

Although I dislike the amount of time it takes to generate previews [and the amount of space they take up] if you're going through a large folder of large images I do find they do speed things up... so I generally let Aperture run overnight after I've done a big import so it doesn't bog me down creating previews in the background.
Posted 72 months ago. (permalink)

thouzndwords says:

NOw that is a good tip. I just recently disabled the previews for all projects hoping to speed things up. Right or wrong decision?
I am going to be in an Apple store tomorrow, so hoping to find a genius there to assist me a bit with some questions.
Posted 72 months ago. (permalink)

Richard- says:

Suden: I hear you and I'm tempted by the new Macbook pros. However, there's a limit to how far I'll go to support a single application. I know folks build machines around photoshop but I use my machine for many things besides photo editing and management and I like numerous apps open at the same time so I can work with them all.

I do like having one machine for everything but Aperture has me thinking less about a new and faster MacBook Pro and more about a 24" iMac, maxed out with a big, fast HD and as much RAM as it will take. I'd do my photo editing on it and a bit of web development and use this macbook pro for everything else and occasional photo editing.

I'm not happy about this solution either and if Lightroom appealed to me more that would solve the problem completely, but, like suden said, the rigidity of Lightroom's modular process bothers me and that kind of bother is hard for me to overlook.

Again, if iPhoto had some of Aperture's capabilities I'd be happy to go back to using it: non-destructive editing and just a bit more is all I want and I'm there. Most of Aperture's features I never touch and I don't do 5000 shot weddings.

I'm also a long time Mac user, Apple shareholder and am deeply connected with the company so I want to use and generally love their products. If in the end Aperture is really built for people with 4 processor Mac Pros and 4 30" screens, I'll have to dump it as that will never be me.
Posted 72 months ago. (permalink)

thouzndwords says:

Richard...mine is an iMac so be sure it is outfitted perfectly as you have already heard the issues that I am having.
Posted 72 months ago. (permalink)

Richard- says:

Thanks thouznwords, each day I lean in a different direction. At the moment I'm learning toward a new(er) 15" MacBook Pro with 3rd party 4 gigs of memory, a 7200 rpm HD, as much video RAM as I can get and a 23" display. Of course, I'd also like a second 5D body, a Canon 500mm f/4 lens and a new car. I'm good at making lists.
Posted 72 months ago. (permalink)

Lainey1 says:

I agree with Richard. It is frustrating to build a system around this one application. I haven't decided between Aperture or Lightroom, as I don't have a system to support Aperture if I choose that as my program. I just ordered CS3, and am trying to figure out if it will even work on my older mac mini or iBook. I don't have the cash right now to invest in the needed equipment to run Aperture. I don't even know that the iMac would be as good as the newere macbook pros with 4 gigs of ram and 7200 rpm 160 gig HD.

Aperture needs to be updated and the the program needs to pick up speed!!
Posted 72 months ago. (permalink)

lightyear105 says:

I also use Aperture on a MacBook with an external Porsche. I also have the same love/hate relationship. So, I thought about a possible solution to this, but haven't tried it yet.....which is

Create various libraries for various projects, rather than setting one library file and dumping all work into that file. I strongly think this is one of the reasons for it's increasing slowness.

If any of you try this and share the outcome with me, I would be very thankful.
Originally posted 72 months ago. (permalink)
lightyear105 edited this topic 72 months ago.

Bakari Chavanu says:

I finally updated to the Dual Core Mac Pro, currently with 2gigs of RAM and an upgraded graphics card.

I'm wondering though how much of a boost do you really get with 4gigs? Does it make a significant difference, or should I wait to get up to 6 gigs?

It goes without saying that I'm experiencing a performance boost with my Mac Pro, but I still experience slower than expected processing in both Aperture and other programs.
Posted 72 months ago. (permalink)

Bakari Chavanu says:

I was just reading Richards comment, and I have to say that I sort of disagree about the building of a computer around one or two important programs.

I think it's really about purpose. If you're using Aperture or any pro program on a professional level, it makes sense to build your computer based on your professional needs. For it's really about increasing productivity and efficiency. Since updating to my Mac Pro, I have already of course experienced a productivity boost.

Having said that, I think iPhoto 7 will get some of the features of Aperture, especially if Apple can't find a way to make Aperture hardware requirements more accessible to those with slower computers.

The GUI of Aperture is not as consumer based as iPhoto, though I think anyone who seriously takes lots of digital photos should definitely be working in Aperture or other similar programs. Even Adobe Bridge 4 would be better than iPhoto at this point.
Posted 72 months ago. (permalink)

ospreydesign says:

I'd like to chime in as a Mac Pro user -- who purchased this machine to support the photography and primarily run two programs: Aperture and Photoshop.

And, yeah, with 5GB of RAM, XT1900 video card, and the library on a RAID, I still have performance issues. Usually around projects -- minute or two wait to open a new project, for instance, or at least thirty seconds to switch to any other project from the one I'm working on -- but sometimes also see the beach ball switching in/out of full screen, when doing adjustments, etc. It's frustrating.

Photoshop (in CS3 guise, at least) screams in comparison. First time I've had what amounts to real-time adjustments in Photoshop, and it's bloody nice.

I sincerely hope that Aperture 2.0 is about speed. No matter the machine, that's the area of biggest concern.

'Cause I'm not switching to Lightroom, no matter what...;)
Originally posted 72 months ago. (permalink)
ospreydesign edited this topic 72 months ago.

alidarbac says:

I've found that splitting your pics into many smaller projects helped tremendously. On an old G5 iMac with 1.5 gig of RAM, it would be as slow as molasses if the project I was working in had 400-500 pics, but would run relatively snappy if it only had about 100 pics or so.

I've since upgraded to a C2D MBP and I have no speed issues whatsoever when looking at a folder with thousand of pics.

OTOH, I'm not as enthusiastic about Aperture because of its overly rudimentary editing controls.
Posted 72 months ago. (permalink)

Bakari Chavanu says:

ospreydesign wrote

And, yeah, with 5GB of RAM, XT1900 video card, and the library on a RAID, I still have performance issues. Usually around projects -- minute or two wait to open a new project, for instance, or at least thirty seconds to switch to any other project from the one I'm working on -- but sometimes also see the beach ball switching in/out of full screen, when doing adjustments, etc. It's frustrating.

Lekke says:

i'm running aperture on a mac pro with 2gb of ram and from a two-disk striping raid. the raid really (REALLY) helped the responsiveness of aperture, but now im wondering what kind of UI performance increase am I looking at if i upgrade from the 7300GT to the X1900?

Anyone?
Posted 72 months ago. (permalink)

Susan_Dennis says:

Barefeats is a really good website for reference...they are currently testing Aperture on the new MBP's with the results to be posted when completed. But here is an older comparison:

www.barefeats.com/aper01.html

For myself, and like Richard, I keep going back and forth on either going for the Santa Rosa 15" with maxed out 4 GB RAM and a 23" screen or just keeping the MBP I've got (previous generation) and adding a new upgraded iMac (when they come out) to the mix and doing the majority of my photo/Aperture work on it.

FYI: For those who are curious about Lightroom still, you can download the new 1.1 version and the 30 day trial starts over. I'm trying the new version-some very nice additions, but I still find myself getting "lost" in this program...Aperture is a much cleaner, better laid out interface, IMHO. I just can work easier in it. Now if they'd just come out with Aperture 2.0...I have high hopes that the much needed speed improvements will be met. Apple can't afford to lose ground with LR out now.
By the by, Lightroom is faster, but does not necessarily run smooth all the time...it tends to pixel-ate here and again when loading in photos. in various modes.
Posted 72 months ago. (permalink)

Patch_Adams says:

Interesting thread. I'm currently running Aperture on a 1.67 GHz PB G4, 1 GB RAM. My wife's iMac is in need of replacement soon, and I was wondering what kind of performance gain I might see if I moved my Aperture workflow to a new iMac -- looking at the current 24" inch iMac (OR its replacement!) with 2GB RAM and 7600 GT video card.

I see the performance complaints people are having even with higher-end machines, but surely I would notice a substantial performance gain going from the PB to the new iMac, right? Anybody made a similar move, or have comparisons between the two?

A secondary issue is, how is the iMac 24-inch's LCD for photo editing?
Originally posted 72 months ago. (permalink)
Patch_Adams edited this topic 72 months ago.

puppethead says:

Hard drive speed can make a HUGE difference. I started using Aperture on my 15" PowerBook 1.5GHz G4 with a 4200rpm drive. When the drive died I replaced it with a 7200rpm drive and noticed an incredible speed improvement. I'm now on a 15" MacBook Pro Core Duo, but back down to a 5400rpm drive. It's faster than my old PowerBook, but the slower drive is definitely noticeable.

Aperture is a disk-intensive application, designed as it is to constantly update the thumbnails and read/save edits as instructions to apply to the masters. Once you give it enough RAM to work with, the drive is probably the next most important thing to upgrade. Perhaps the focus on the video cards is misplaced, but since I use a laptop I can't say.
Originally posted 72 months ago. (permalink)
puppethead edited this topic 72 months ago.

Graeme Smith says:

I use a 24" iMac and the screen is great. It has a single link DVI port so you can connect a second screen too, if you want (haven't done it, but would be nice!). So unless you're used to working on a 30" Cinema Display the iMac's monitor should work great for you.
Posted 72 months ago. (permalink)

Patch_Adams says:

Thanks for that info, Graeme. I currently use a Dell 24-inch monitor tethered to my PB, and I have to say that I've been spoiled by the extra real estate. It's not quite a Cinema Display, but it's pretty darn good, nonetheless. My wife only wanted a 20" (to replace her current 17" iLamp), but after using the Dell, it's hard to go back to a smaller screen. From what I've seen in the Apple Store, the display quality looks really good. But you know how these things, are -- you never really know until you get them home and start using them.
Posted 72 months ago. (permalink)

Morven says:

That's why it really pays to get the 7200 rpm drive in your laptop if you plan to run pro apps like Aperture on it. I'm glad I got it on my MBP17", even though it only being 100G is a bit annoying.
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

Mat Packer says:

@ Morven

I hear you there.. I almost ran out of HD space yesterday until I found that Aperture had been keeping all my rejected images on the internal HD and not the external where I move everything to!!

After going through and clearing out my rejects I manage to get 40gb back!! And that's only about 1.5 years worth of shooting, with a library of about 36,000 images + however many rejects there was..
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

Morven says:

I'm coping mostly by keeping everything I can on the external and leaving the Aperture stuff on the internal, so I have it with me.

I see they're now up to 160GB for the internal 7200rpm drive ... that'd be nice.
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

Alex Pardoe says:

I run Aperture on a 1.5Ghz 12" PowerBook G4, 1.25GB RAM, GeForce FX Go 5200, can be a little slow sometimes but in runs and does everything I need it to. It's even useable with a 1024x768 resolution.
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

Richard- says:

I'm still struggling with this and I've moved a bit further in my thinking about it.

Note: I have a 15" 2.16 ghz MacBook Pro with 2 gigs of memory (max for it) and a 120 gig 5400 rpm seagate HD inside.

I recently went to an Apple Store and booted up the new version of my machine from my own small HD, a mirror backup of my home system. The drive is a 5400 rpm seagate as well, just like my internal on this machine.

The new MBP has a faster processor and the same 2 gigs of memory but the capacity for 4 gigs.

I wanted to see if the new, faster processor would make a difference.

In a word, it does. The HD on the new MBP was also 5400 RPM although Apple now makes 7200 rpm drives available on this model.

I'm now pretty convinced of what my personal system requirements would be for running Aperture well:

4 gigs of memory
7200 rpm hard disk, either internal or external

The question is, when you build the machine to do it at the Apple store, the prices of a loaded MacBook Pro is approaching a mid-level MacPro with a 23" monitor.

Personally, I'd rather not have a tower, if I had to have a desktop machine to run Aperture I'd rather have a 24" iMac but alas, only 3 gigs of memory.

I do make money from my photography so I can devote a computer to image processing and I do like Aperture although I still dread doing big jobs with it on this computer because of speed. I'm trying as hard as I can to stick with a single computer setup as I like all of my stuff in one place and I travel quite a bit but it is quite possible that I'm going to have to break down and buy a second machine just to process images.

Lightroom is not an option for me, I'm not a big fan of Adobe nor do I like the modal processing sequence of it. I'd move back to iPhoto before lightroom and just might for some jobs as iPhoto has never let me down and works like a charm on this machine. For important stuff, the non-destructive editing in Aperture is a must for me though.

Anyway, that's a "raw" snapshot of my current thinking after going to an Apple store and messing with the new MacBook Pros and iPhones.
Originally posted 71 months ago. (permalink)
Richard- edited this topic 71 months ago.

greg.newman says:

How many of you have the option in preference checked that says "new projects automatically generate previews"? I had a tone of performance issues with aperture until I UNCHECKED this. Now, It runs faster than... cough, cough... Lightroom.

All the previews do for you is allow you to share with itunes, iwork, etc. If you don't care about this feature, turn it off.

Forgot to mention I'm on a MacBook Pro 2.16 Intel Core Duo with 2 gigs of ram, 100 gig 5400 drive.
Originally posted 71 months ago. (permalink)
greg.newman edited this topic 71 months ago.

Richard- says:

greg: I have the same machine as you and I just unchecked the previews box... hopefully that will help.

However, I still think the 2 gig limit in memory on our computers is a problem for Aperture and god forbid you want to run other apps simultaneously.

Since posting this morning i've done some more thinking about this and here's my plan:

I just ordered a fast external HD: LaCie 500GB d2 Quadra Hard Drive (B&H was cheaper the most places).

At $200 it's a cheap way to get some more performance out of my current setup. I'll buy another one to back it up if it works well.

I'm going to move my entire photo library over to this HD so that I have more room on my internal and I can get the benefit of two hard disks seeking at the same time, one for the system and Aperture, one for the image.

This drive has eSATA and we have an express card slot on our machines. My plan is to order an eSATA card for this slot with cable so I can have faster throughput on this external drive.

This is step 1.

Step 2 is to see what the new iMacs look like in the next few months. They're supposed to have the Santa Rosa chip that's in the new MBPs which will address 4 gigs of memory and of course runs more processes faster. If that machine looks good I'll consider it or a Mac Pro and move from a one machine setup to a two machine setup for the first time in years.

I think Aperture, used for professional level work is worth tossing a machine at.

If by then the two machine solution doesn't appeal to me I'll consider a new MacBook Pro 15" and max the memory out and make sure it's got a 7200 rpm drive in it.

I've been using gmail for a while now and am using it to fetch my various domain accounts and because of this a two machine solution is also more possible as I won't have to synch email back and forth.

Anyway, this is my current thinking on this. It will probably change after someone posts something else.
Originally posted 71 months ago. (permalink)
Richard- edited this topic 71 months ago.

greg.newman says:

Richard...
Let me know if that preference helps you any.

I also just ordered a faster drive, but I opted for a 100gig 7200 lacie rugged/firewire. I wanted the bus powered drive so I can take it on the road and not have to worry about chords.

I just read an article last week (can't remember where) where the guy was using a 5400 and switched to a 7200 with a huge speed increase. I'm sure that'll be the case.

Let me throw out another option. Wait until after Oct. (if you can) when Leopard comes out. It's possible we'll see performance increases and/or a new version of aperture. May be wishful thinking, but it's got to happen sometime. :)

Do you ever check the apple refurb pages? They sell the refurb machines with the same warranty as new and in alot of cases they aren't even used. Got my wife a MB intel refurbed a year ago and there hasn't been one problem with yet. Knock on wood.
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

Bakari Chavanu says:

I used this article to help me make choices:

www.oreillynet.com/digitalmedia/blog/2006/11/build_a_drea...
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

Richard- says:

greg: Yes, let's keep in touch on this stuff. I like your solution better and may go that way instead although it misses out on the possibility of eSATA which is significant.

And... I love iPhoto (still) although I process important images with Aperture. If the new iPhoto, which runs fine on my current rig, has non-destructive editing I'll move back to it without reservation. I have no problem with using a "toy" image editor if it does what I want it to.

I do most of my work in camera anyway, preferring not to do much in post. However, given that I make notecards by the thousands it's useful for me to have multiple crops and to be able to print with profiles, both of which iphoto can't handle. So, I'm liking some aspects of Aperture but also would love to not have to dump my mobile lifestyle choices...

Dang. Well, keep in touch and we'll see what happens...
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

greg.newman says:

@Bakari...
Thanks for the link. I think that must have been prior to adding it to my RSS feeds cause I missed that one. :)

@Richard...
Definitely.

As the article Bakari points out, you can always add eSata later as an external (iMac) and/or internal (MacPro).

I don't use iPhoto anymore. I cannot print from Aperture, full bleed (edge to edge) to my printer, so I use iPhoto only when printing.
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

Richard- says:

Well, in sleeping on this a bit more I've decided on a different route:

I'm going to buy a RAW 7200 rpm drive and put it in. I've already done a drive update on my computer so I know how to do it and this way I'll get a bit more space and a faster internal.

www.richardsnotes.org/archives/2006/12/26/macbook-pro-har...

I'll probably buy a Seagate 160 gig drive as I've had good luck with Seagate and it's the brand Apple uses as original equipment.
Originally posted 71 months ago. (permalink)
Richard- edited this topic 71 months ago.

Bakari Chavanu says:

Richard, thanks for this link. I've been meaning to look into third party drives, and this looks like a good place to start. I have several external drives that need to clean up and reorganize based on my workflow. And I definitely want to add at least two more internal drives to my Mac Pro.
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

greg.newman says:

Yes, thanks Richard or not!! Now you've got me thinking about upgrading my MBP. haha Great instructions by the way.

So Apple uses Seagate drives? I don't know why I thought they were Hitachi. Maybe that's the superdrive.
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

Richard- says:

Bakari and greg: It's not trivial to open up a MacBook Pro and swap out the drive. I've done a little work like this before so I didn't get too worked up about it but I'd download the video on how to do it at OtherWorld if you actually go ahead with it:

eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/installation.cfm

Apple uses Seagate drives (it seems, I have no actual proof on current machines except drive sizes) on MacBook Pros but seems to use Hitachis on MacBooks.

The important part of this stuff is finding out if the drive will respond to all of Apple's power saving and sleep controls. A call to Otherworld will answer that but I can tell you that the Seagate I put in my machine (the one in it now, not the new one) sleeps and does what it's supposed to do. I'm assuming since the 7200 rpm drive I just ordered is also a Seagate Momentus it will do same.

What I"m concerned about is that the left front of my computer is going to melt into my desk or, at the least, be a bit uncomfortable to rest my wrist on when keyboarding. We will soon see...

If you read my post, you know that the reason I got into this is because I (ugh) dropped this machine a while back and killed the original HD. I have AppleCare but a drop is a drop and they'd have (rightfully) charged me to swap out he HD. I figured I'd do it myself and if I killed the job, I'd put it all in a box and send it off to Apple. It all worked like a charm.

Tip: if you do this upgrade make sure to have a copy of the instruction and video on another computer. Kind of hard to watch a video on a computer being gutted!

I've also got a spare OtherWorld extenral drive case around somewhere which I'll attempt to put the 120 gig Seagate internal into when I get it out. It's still a good drive and will be fine as a backup.

Ah, the fun of tinkering... I hate to tinker with the center of my life though, and my computer is the very center of my life for sure.
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

Richard- says:

So, a small update: I ordered, received, and have now installed a Seagate 160 gig 7200 RPM drive in my MacBook Pro. It does make a large difference in Aperture performance, even with my measly 2 gigs of memory.

I've not done much with it yet but will know more tomorrow as I'll be spending much of the day in Aperture.
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

greg.newman says:

Excellent...
Keep us posted Richard.
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

Richard- says:

Click through on the post for details of the upgrade(s).

I'll report back here on Aperture speed issues later today.
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

Richard- says:

Okay, the jury is in and the verdict is: 7200 RPM makes a HUGE difference in Aperture performance, all other things being equal.

Wow, I can breathe again. This is a useful and not too expensive upgrade. If anyone reading this (greg) is considering it and wants hand-holding in doing the upgrade, I"m more than happy to provide it.

If your memory is maxed out at 2 gigs and you have a 5400 rpm internal and are not considering using two drives, this is a useful upgrade that will increase aperture's performance by a huge margin.
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

greg.newman says:

This is good news Richard! Thanks.
I got my LaCie rugged 100gig 7200. It's a firewire 400/800 bus powered drive. Do you think moving all of my library and vaults to it would do the same thing?
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

Richard- says:

greg: I think it would do even better as you'd have two drives seeking simultaneously which will increase speed even more.

If you're using referenced masters, just make sure to reconnect once you move the library; I almost had a heart attack when I started up with the new drive and my masters were there but "offline." Easily fixed by reconnecting to the master images.

My issue with your setup (and the reason I did what I did) was that if you want to move your running portable computer from room to room you have to pick up the external too. No big deal but just one more thing...

I'm pretty happy with what I just did as it solved my immediate problem but as I get bigger jobs where I need to more quickly organize and edit large number of images I think I see a Mac pro in my future. I've resisted this for a long time but there's a limit to what a laptop can do. I spoke with a tech support person at Apple the other day and he said that the speed and memory of the graphics card (or even adding a second one on a Mac Pro) will make an enormous difference to Aperture. Aperture will take advantage of multiple processors, extra memory, faster graphics routines, etc.
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

greg.newman says:

FYI...
External Hardware Raid for a decent price: www.newertech.com/products/gmax.php
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

Morven says:

I also wonder if it makes a difference what resolution photos you're working with - I get better performance than I hear of others getting, but my camera is 6 megapixel and thus the data files & in-memory image data are substantially smaller than those generated by the 10MP+ cameras people are buying these days.
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

greg.newman says:

That's very true Morven. My D80 is 10MP and generates around a 15meg RAW file. When I used to shoot jpeg, it was a bit faster.
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

Richard- says:

Morven makes an excellent point. I have a Canon 5D which makes 12MP RAW files although I can certainly shoot in jpg/L and do at times to speed things up.
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

Morven says:

My KM7D gives me about 9 megabyte RAWs but I think KM's RAW format had no compression at all, so they're probably no bigger in memory.
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

dminton says:

For those running a Mac Pro with 2GB or RAM, this test suggests your RAM is limiting performance:

www.barefeats.com/aper01.html

In the test they ran, the OS X/Aperture combo used over 2.3GB of RAM. That being the case, at about $100/GB, increasing to 4GB would seem to be an easy performance boost.
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

ⓖraham says:

Very true. I have a macPro with 5gigs and it still sucks it all up after using it for a while. I'm convinced it has memory leaks.
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

Richard- says:

dminton: from what I hear it's both RAM and video card speed and memory more than main processor speed. This is a reason to get a Mac Pro for serious editing. Not an iMac (even a new one with Santa Rosa board) or a mini or a high end MacBook Pro.

Sigh, I really do not want a tower but I might have to break down and get one at some point. Or, at the very least, get a new MacBook Pro with faster video card and the ability to use 4 gigs of RAM. Sigh...
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

dminton says:

Richard: Thanks for the comment--I am in the same boat in that I really don't want to get a tower, though it is really not an option for me. I will get a new MBP at some point soon from work (possibly today), and am trying to figure out if I will be disappointed with the performance. If I will be no matter what, I will get the base model, and if I won't, I will get the top 15". I am one of the company owners, so I can make the choice to which one to get, but don't want to spend the money just for better Aperture performance,a nd not get it.

On either MBP model, I figure I will upgrade to 4BG of RAM, since it is only about $230 from OWC.
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)

pabloflickrphoto says:

Hi. You can try

www.apple.com/aperture/specs/

"Compatibility Checker application"
Posted 71 months ago. (permalink)