I have two computers - one imac (me) one macbook pro (assistant) each has their own copy of Aperture. The aperture library however, lives on an external hardrive, which is firewire to the imac, and accessible by the macbook thru network (via a timecapsule serving as the airport).

Question is - how can my assistant access the aperture library? It will do it, but since it is receiving the data over a network it takes hours to load the library. There must be some way to have both computers accessing the same library - it seems like a problem larger studios would have and need solved. I've had my mac guy working on the issue but we haven't been able to come up with anything that doesn't involve copying, re-importing, etc.

Ideally I would like my assistant to be able to access the Aperture library so she can add metadata (keywords) to images to keep the library useful, make guestbooks with the album feature and even pull and export images to send to vendors. Oh yeah, and I need to be in it at the same time editing. POssible?

One idea I had was to have two libraries - one of "to be edited" work, one of finished work. That way I could access one, she could access the other - but I don't even know where to begin exporting something out of one library and into another. And, that doesn't solve the access to the library over a network problem.

Ugh. If anyone has any insight, I would be most appreciative.

How is your assistant accessing the network? By wireless or wired? One would think that wired through the ethernet port would work quite fast.

I don't see why two computers couldn't access the same backup file at the same time. It's simply a folder containing pictures that loads into Aperture. Is it possible to hook two computers directly to the hard drive at the same time, and then trying to run Aperture?

She is totally wireless, so that is why proubably it is taking so long. Even if she was wired into the ethernet, it would still have to pull from the hard-drive wirelessly.

Ugh, I'll be watching this thread. We have the same issue, but with Lightroom.

The wireless (in any aspect) is what is most likely killing the speed. I would say that's most likely the toughest problem, as it not anywhere near 1gb/s (optimum) that you can get through a cord.....

What if I wired both of the computers to the hard-drives? Is that possible?
(Though that kind of makes my time capsule worthless...)

Wiring both computer into the hard drive *should* yield the same performance as if one computer was accessing the files. Just use Time Machine as a wireless backup.