Time Machine - deleting old backups
Howard
Last night TM saved my bacon for the second time in two years so I don't
want to knowck it too much.
However today I started a backup and after a while it gave me a disc
full notice without any more info. The 500Gb disc has 46Gb left
according to the finder.
In the past I have, from within TM, deleted a number of the backups of a
year ago and today I have done the same.
However the deleting takes an AGE !! I deleted about five and it took
an hour for TM to finish. And it still only freed up an extra 20Gb.
do I just need more patience or should I look to another backup product
?
Personally I find that I don't really need this separate hourly/weekly
backup thing that TM offers. I think it would be better to have the odd
full backup along with a backup that is updated with changing files
along the way. However the TM interface and restoring is very easy and I
wonder if restoring through the Snow Leopard install disc would be
possible with an alternative ....
Howard
Andy Hewitt
TM gives you exactly the latter of those two. SuperDuper would give you
the other, or CCC if you prefer.
It may help to understand how TM works of course. Every file is visible
in every backup date that is relevant, but they do not physically exist
in all of the backups, only a link to the original (in a similar ways to
aliases). They only get stored again if they're edited, and then you get
the revised version linked to in subsequent backups. Although this saves
space, it also means that TM has to keep track of every instance of a
file, so if you do remove one file, its reference in all the following
backups also has to be removed.
It's possible that TM could be more efficient, or quicker, but I'd
rather it wasn't if it meant losing reliability. It's probably one of
the most complex backups systems currenty available for consumers on Mac
OSX, but also one that offers a very easy way to do backups and restore
from them.
--
Andy Hewitt
<http://web.me.com/andrewhewitt1/>
Howard
> It's possible that TM could be more efficient, or quicker, but I'd
> rather it wasn't if it meant losing reliability. It's probably one of
> the most complex backups systems currenty available for consumers on Mac
> OSX, but also one that offers a very easy way to do backups and restore
> from them.
I agree. I follow what you mean about the 'virtual' dated backups...
does that mean that deleting old dated backups is pointless ? If so
what is the best way to save space ?
I am thinking that when I install Snow Leopeard again in the next day or
so and have everything restored to where I want it - I may reformat the
whole backup HD (500Gb) and start TM again.......
H
Chris Ridd
> Andy Hewitt <thewil...@me.com> wrote:
>
>> It's possible that TM could be more efficient, or quicker, but I'd
>> rather it wasn't if it meant losing reliability. It's probably one of
>> the most complex backups systems currenty available for consumers on Mac
>> OSX, but also one that offers a very easy way to do backups and restore
>> from them.
>
> I agree. I follow what you mean about the 'virtual' dated backups...
> does that mean that deleting old dated backups is pointless ? If so
> what is the best way to save space ?
Basically, you need to either delete stuff that there's only one copy
of, or delete all copies of a file.
Probably the best way to start is by excluding certain directories from
the backup. But be careful you don't exclude stuff that's hard to
recover.
> I am thinking that when I install Snow Leopeard again in the next day or
> so and have everything restored to where I want it - I may reformat the
> whole backup HD (500Gb) and start TM again.......
How big is your iMac's drive?
--
Chris
Elliott Roper
<Howar...@home.com> wrote:
Google the group for "Time Machine Spit!". We had a good discussion
about this recently. I started the thread after Time Machine threw away
untold months of backups because I introduced a new disk to the system
without grovelling to it first.
Deleting will take an age and remove little because it has to rearrange
all its hard links from more recent backups to the stuff that is about
to disappear. For every file that never changes, there is but one copy,
with virtual spaghetti draped through for each of the more recent
snapshots. So if you have a 300GB year old backup, and it's mainly all
your old music say, then after you delete the 300GB backup, you still
have your music and only 20GB more space on the TM drive.
I'd say if you have no need for the hourly, weekly stuff, you have no
need for Time Machine. I meet my similar needs to yours with
SuperDuper! smart backups to sparseimages for each of my system disks
and large folders of data like music and manuals and home movie clips.
I schedule 'em to run every day or two and it gets everything done in
mere minutes. Once in a while I copy the sparse images to a disk I keep
offsite. My biggest pile of data is my Aperture Library and its backup
vaults. For that, I rely on its own mechanisms and won't let Time
Machine near it. SuperDuper! would do almost the same as Aperture's own
vaults but lacks the knowledge of when it is safe to do its work.
I do keep Time Machine backing up all my volatile data like mail, Final
Cut projects and correspondence and documents I maintain myself. That's
because I'm a fumble fingers who keeps wrecking stuff I really want to
keep that I keep coming back to and fiddling with. Music and movie clip
assets are not included, because that is stuff that grows and never
shrinks. For those whopping great folders, SuperDuper! is perfect. It
throws history away if I ever do, but I don't.
The best way to deal with Time Machine filling up its disk is to let it
worry about it all by itself. And don't forget to sacrifice a chicken
before adding another disk to your machine.
--
To de-mung my e-mail address:- fsnospam$elliott$$
PGP Fingerprint: 1A96 3CF7 637F 896B C810 E199 7E5C A9E4 8E59 E248
John Hill
Time machine claims "The oldest backups are deleted when your disk
becomes full". Did this not happen with you?
When my backup disk was full for the first time , TM asked me if it was
OK to delete the oldest backup(s). I said "OK" and it has never pestered
me since.
As it is, I have backups from july 2008, which is more than sufficient!
But of course it will depend on the relative sizes of the used space on
the disk being backed up and the backup drive.
--
Please reply to john at yclept dot wanadoo dot co dot uk.
Howard
> Probably the best way to start is by excluding certain directories from
> the backup. But be careful you don't exclude stuff that's hard to
> recover.
Hehe this is the issue. In July I excluded the system folders :) so I
don't fancy going that route again ...
>
> > I am thinking that when I install Snow Leopeard again in the next day or
> > so and have everything restored to where I want it - I may reformat the
> > whole backup HD (500Gb) and start TM again.......
>
> How big is your iMac's drive?
195Gb and using 132Gb.
H
Howard
> Time machine claims "The oldest backups are deleted when your disk
> becomes full". Did this not happen with you?
>
> When my backup disk was full for the first time , TM asked me if it was
> OK to delete the oldest backup(s). I said "OK" and it has never pestered
> me since.
>
> As it is, I have backups from july 2008, which is more than sufficient!
> But of course it will depend on the relative sizes of the used space on
> the disk being backed up and the backup drive.
It didn;t ask and from my googling today . it is common for it not to
ask.
H
Howard
> The best way to deal with Time Machine filling up its disk is to let it
> worry about it all by itself. And don't forget to sacrifice a chicken
> before adding another disk to your machine.
Tks for all of those comments Elliot... food for serious thought.
Howard
Chris Ridd
As your TM disk is more than twice the size of your working disk (my
rule of thumb) that suggests you're backing up stuff that's
changing/being deleted too quickly. Do you back up your Downloads
folder?
--
Chris
Jaimie Vandenbergh
wrote:
I wouldn't do that until you've completely finished your data
migration efforts and your iMac is happy again - the TM archive
currently has the best copy of the last data set before the screwup.
Cheers - Jaimie
--
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't
believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
Jaimie Vandenbergh
wrote:
>Howard <Howar...@home.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi guys,
>>
>> Last night TM saved my bacon for the second time in two years so I don't
>> want to knowck it too much.
>>
>> However today I started a backup and after a while it gave me a disc
>> full notice without any more info. The 500Gb disc has 46Gb left
>> according to the finder.
>>
>
>Time machine claims "The oldest backups are deleted when your disk
>becomes full". Did this not happen with you?
Since Howard has just reinstalled the system with 10.5, and the latest
version on the TM disk was 10.6, the whole lot wants to be backed up.
That's not going to fit in 46gig, so the deletion has to happen before
the backup.
Cheers - Jaimie
--
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English
is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion,
English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious
and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." -- James Nicoll, rasfw
Chris Ridd
> On Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:08:01 +0000, ne...@erewhon.invalid (John Hill)
> wrote:
>
>> Howard <Howar...@home.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi guys,
>>>
>>> Last night TM saved my bacon for the second time in two years so I don't
>>> want to knowck it too much.
>>>
>>> However today I started a backup and after a while it gave me a disc
>>> full notice without any more info. The 500Gb disc has 46Gb left
>>> according to the finder.
>>>
>>
>> Time machine claims "The oldest backups are deleted when your disk
>> becomes full". Did this not happen with you?
>
> Since Howard has just reinstalled the system with 10.5, and the latest
> version on the TM disk was 10.6, the whole lot wants to be backed up.
> That's not going to fit in 46gig, so the deletion has to happen before
> the backup.
Is there any point doing a backup until 10.6 is back on the iMac?
--
Chris
Jaimie Vandenbergh
wrote:
Maybe. If the 10.5 system is working, then it's worth spinning off a
backup before doing the 10.6 upgrade - otherwise it's potentially
another day's work getting back to where he was.
I'd not have the issue - not only do I have several spare USB drives
to lob a backup image onto, I keep a full TM backup of my whole system
instead of a partial one.
Cheers - Jaimie
--
There's no place like 127.0.0.1
Howard
> I wouldn't do that until you've completely finished your data
> migration efforts and your iMac is happy again - the TM archive
> currently has the best copy of the last data set before the screwup.
>
> Cheers - Jaimie
I agree 10%...
H
Howard
> Maybe. If the 10.5 system is working, then it's worth spinning off a
> backup before doing the 10.6 upgrade - otherwise it's potentially
> another day's work getting back to where he was.
>
> I'd not have the issue - not only do I have several spare USB drives
> to lob a backup image onto, I keep a full TM backup of my whole system
> instead of a partial one.
>
> Cheers - Jaimie
TM jumped in today and did a backup without being asked... and it isa
full one as I did not designate any exceptions.
H
Saoir
> I'd say if you have no need for the hourly, weekly stuff, you have no
> need for Time Machine. I meet my similar needs to yours with
> SuperDuper! smart backups to sparseimages for each of my system disks
> and large folders of data like music and manuals and home movie clips.
> I schedule 'em to run every day or two and it gets everything done in
> mere minutes. Once in a while I copy the sparse images to a disk I keep
> offsite.
As a matter of interest Elliot, how do you re-instate the backup made
with Superduper if the Mac will not boot up ? do you boot into the
instal disc ? and if so does this allow you to run Superduper ?
Howard
Elliott Roper
<bf967a3e-7b66-4c7f...@g26g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>,
Saoir <saoi...@gmail.com> wrote:
Yes, boot the install disk, use disk utility to mount the sparseimage
and then boot from it. SuperDuper! keeps the sparseimage bootable if
the source disk was. You don't need SuperDuper! at reinstate time, but
you do need something to boot from, and the install disk is fine.
SuperDuper!'s documentation is excellent. The process and the reasoning
is described there.
Howard
David Empson
> In article
> <bf967a3e-7b66-4c7f...@g26g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>,
> Saoir <saoi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On 14 Dec, 16:47, Elliott Roper <nos...@yrl.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > > I'd say if you have no need for the hourly, weekly stuff, you have no
> > > need for Time Machine. I meet my similar needs to yours with
> > > SuperDuper! smart backups to sparseimages for each of my system disks
> > > and large folders of data like music and manuals and home movie clips.
> > > I schedule 'em to run every day or two and it gets everything done in
> > > mere minutes. Once in a while I copy the sparse images to a disk I keep
> > > offsite.
> >
> > As a matter of interest Elliot, how do you re-instate the backup made
> > with Superduper if the Mac will not boot up ? do you boot into the
> > instal disc ? and if so does this allow you to run Superduper ?
>
> Yes, boot the install disk, use disk utility to mount the sparseimage
> and then boot from it. SuperDuper! keeps the sparseimage bootable if
> the source disk was. You don't need SuperDuper! at reinstate time, but
> you do need something to boot from, and the install disk is fine.
Except you can't boot directly from a disk image. You have to restore it
to a disk partition first. You can do that using Disk Utility when
booted from the system disk.
The only sense in which SuperDuper "keeps" a sparseimage bootable is
that another clone of the image (to a real partition) will be bootable.
> SuperDuper!'s documentation is excellent. The process and the reasoning
> is described there.
Indeed. And it explains the procedure which I've summarised above.
--
David Empson
dem...@actrix.gen.nz
Elliott Roper
<dem...@actrix.gen.nz> wrote:
Thanks for the correction. I had not tried it before posting.
<grovel>
Howard
> Except you can't boot directly from a disk image. You have to restore it
> to a disk partition first. You can do that using Disk Utility when
> booted from the system disk.
>
> The only sense in which SuperDuper "keeps" a sparseimage bootable is
> that another clone of the image (to a real partition) will be bootable.
>
> > SuperDuper!'s documentation is excellent. The process and the reasoning
> > is described there.
>
> Indeed. And it explains the procedure which I've summarised above.
I hope so :-) thanks for your comments. It seems a lot more complex
than rstoring from TM....
H