Photo library on external network drive

I am quickly filling up my hard drive and would like to move my iPhoto library to an external drive. I understand that it must be on an HFS+ formatted drive to properly work. I would prefer to attach an HFS+ formatted drive to my TimeCapsule and use that drive via WiFi to store my iPhone library. But I see that there are issues with network dropouts. I would prefer to not have to schlep a drive out of the closet or upstairs every time I want to import photos.

So, my question what, if any, other options do I have if I want to get my photo library off my local storage and onto some sort of network option? I am open to switching away from iPhoto to Aperture or Lightroom if needed.

Solution 1:

There are two main options which I would go for:

• Put your library and contents on a network volume

  This is the option that I went for on my setup, mainly because I did not consider the second option at that point in time. This option works fine for me — even when the network drops (which is pretty rare): the data transfer pauses and continues when the network reconnects.

  This works fine for my relatively large Aperture library, but I see no reason for this not to work in iPhoto.

  ✓ Easy to set up, just copy your entire library to a network drive and ⌥-launch iPhoto
  ✓ Uses no space on your local machine
  ✗ Possibly susceptible to network dropouts causing problems

• Put your library on your local machine and the contents on a network volume

  This alternative is probably better, but requires that you switch to Aperture. This way, you keep the library on your local machine but the media is stored on a network drive. This means that it uses very little space on your local machine but even if the network drops there is no chance of corruption/etc.

  ✓ Much less likely to have problems due to network dropouts
  ✓ Uses very little space on your local machine
  ✗ Does use some space on your local machine
  ✗ Harder to set up — not as simple as just copying your entire library