Don't buy Aperture if your backup software can't manage selective Package backup

Since Aperture conceals its images within the OS Package framework, it is a huge problem for backup software:

Macintouch - Aperture (Part 4)

Vince Heuring

One tip about backing up the Aperture database. Since it's a single package be sure you have a backup/sync program that can drill down into the package to backup only those files that have changed. Otherwise your program will back up the entire multi GB package every time even if only a few files have changed.

For example, in the ChronoSync synchronization app you need to check the 'Dissect Packages' checkbox, and then check the 'Pkgs' display option to see the package contents. I just verified that ChronoSync will synch just the items that have changed in the package. BTW, to examine the contents of package control-click the package and select 'Show Package Contents' from the drop-down menu. My only relationship with the ChronoSync folks is as an owner of the application.

Wow. This is a bad one. Any database will present similar issues, but most databases are reasonably compact (Outlook PST files being the famous exception). An Aperture package, however, will be routinely enormous. One should probably not adopt Aperture unless one has a supportive backup solution. Kudos to Macintouch and Vince Heuring for raising this issue. I'm evaluating ChronoSync now ...

Update 12/13: I may have spoken too soon here. Aperture has its own backup and archival system. I prefer my backup systems to handle this sort of thing, but I can see advantages to doing it the Aperture way too.