As suggested, I looked at the console logs (searching on "backupd"). No wonder it seems like TimeMachine is always running. It took 41 minutes to backup about 40 MB. It does this every hour, so it's running for 41 minutes and resting for 19 minutes. It sure seems to backup a lot of files, considering I wasn't doing much of anything. It backed up almost 20,000 files in the first pass and almost 15,000 in the second pass. Why does it make 2 passes?
Here is the latest log file: 3/8/12 9:53:07 PM com.apple.backupd[2840] Starting standard backup 3/8/12 9:53:08 PM com.apple.backupd[2840] Backing up to: /Volumes/TMbackup/Backups.backupdb 3/8/12 9:55:39 PM com.apple.backupd[2840] No pre-backup thinning needed: 976.7 MB requested (including padding), 2.57 TB available 3/8/12 10:09:43 PM com.apple.backupd[2840] Copied 19882 files (37.9 MB) from volume MacOSX. 3/8/12 10:12:09 PM com.apple.backupd[2840] No pre-backup thinning needed: 933.8 MB requested (including padding), 2.57 TB available 3/8/12 10:24:42 PM com.apple.backupd[2840] Copied 14557 files (2.8 MB) from volume MacOSX. 3/8/12 10:27:56 PM com.apple.backupd[2840] Starting post-backup thinning 3/8/12 10:29:56 PM com.apple.backupd[2840] Deleted backup /Volumes/TMbackup/Backups.backupdb/catatac/2012-02-07-002955: 2.57 TB now available 3/8/12 10:32:23 PM com.apple.backupd[2840] Deleted backup /Volumes/TMbackup/Backups.backupdb/catatac/2012-03-06-232137: 2.57 TB now available 3/8/12 10:34:48 PM com.apple.backupd[2840] Deleted backup /Volumes/TMbackup/Backups.backupdb/catatac/2012-03-06-222200: 2.57 TB now available 3/8/12 10:34:48 PM com.apple.backupd[2840] Post-back up thinning complete: 3 expired backups removed 3/8/12 10:34:49 PM com.apple.backupd[2840] Backup completed successfully. On Mar 8, 2012, at 3:13 AM, LuKreme wrote: > On 07 Mar 2012, at 21:08 , Dinse, Gregg (NIH/NIEHS) [E] wrote: >> I am not knowingly running any databases. Is there an easy way to tell? > > I think you need to open up console and in the search field type 'backupd' > > You should see blocks like this about every hour: > > 07-Mar-12 11:06:23.090 PM com.apple.backupd: Starting standard backup > 07-Mar-12 11:06:23.248 PM com.apple.backupd: Backing up to: > /Volumes/Tardis/Backups.backupdb > 07-Mar-12 11:07:20.868 PM com.apple.backupd: 10.17 GB required (including > padding), 240.40 GB available > 07-Mar-12 11:08:16.084 PM com.apple.backupd: Copied 4497 files (291.4 MB) > from volume Usain. > 07-Mar-12 11:08:17.869 PM com.apple.backupd: Copied 4531 files (291.4 MB) > from volume Mufasa. > 07-Mar-12 11:08:19.000 PM com.apple.backupd: 9.83 GB required (including > padding), 240.10 GB available > 07-Mar-12 11:08:27.830 PM com.apple.backupd: Copied 2178 files (423 KB) from > volume Usain. > 07-Mar-12 11:08:29.272 PM com.apple.backupd: Copied 2212 files (423 KB) from > volume Mufasa. > 07-Mar-12 11:08:33.488 PM com.apple.backupd: Starting post-backup thinning > 07-Mar-12 11:08:45.430 PM com.apple.backupd: Deleted > /Volumes/Tardis/Backups.backupdb/cerebus (3)/2012-03-06-220932 (203.4 MB) > 07-Mar-12 11:08:45.430 PM com.apple.backupd: Post-back up thinning complete: > 1 expired backups removed > 07-Mar-12 11:08:45.658 PM com.apple.backupd: Backup completed successfully. > > You will, if you look at this, notice two things. One, the backup took 2m21s; > two, despite requiring 10.17GB the backup actually only backed up 291.4MB > from two drives. (I forgot to exclude my old boot drive). 291.4MB is probably > just the spotlight index. > >> How much of my system drive should I exclude from TimeMachine? I certainly >> want to backup my home directory, but should I exclude /Applications, >> /Developer, /Library, or /System? > > /Developer? Probably. It's pretty straightforward to just reinstall it if you > have to restore your computer. Depends on if you store anything in there or > not. I don't, so I don't back it up. > > As for /System and /Library it depends. If your machine dies and you have to > replace it, are you going to want to restore your system just the way it was, > or do you want to leave the new system as it is and just restore 'your > stuff'? If the latter, then exclude /System and /Library. > > However, be aware that files in there change rarely, so once it is backed up, > it's pretty much done with them. > > As for /Applications… I think it's easier to back it up and restore it, but > some apps (like anything from Adobe) will not work, so it may or may not be > useful to you. _______________________________________________ MacOSX-talk mailing list [email protected] http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
