Hi Michael, Thanks for your input.
I realize that most people probably think 970 MB is nothing, but my entire system is only 279 GB and only 86 GB is being considered for backup. I hate to admit it, but my Time Machine drive is only 320 GB. This has not been a problem in the past, since the original backup only took about 86 GB and subsequent backups were fairly small (before Outlook). If I backup a GB each hour, that's about 25 GB per day, which would exhaust my 320 GB drive before too long. I realize that I could simply buy a larger drive, but it just seems inefficient to backup the entire Outlook database every time a single new email is added. Gregg -----Original Message----- From: Michael <[email protected]> Date: Wednesday, April 19, 2017 at 11:37 AM To: "Dinse, Gregg (NIH/NIEHS) [C]" <[email protected]> Cc: MacOSX-Talk Talk <[email protected]>, "@lbutlr" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: why are Time Machine backups so large lately? On 2017-04-19, at 7:58 AM, Dinse, Gregg (NIH/NIEHS) [C] <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > > Thanks for responding. > > It seems that you agree that there is some file that Outlook keeps updating, > which then repeatedly gets backed up by Time Machine. This file is not as > large as the Parallels file, but it's large enough to be a nuisance. I just > got to work and Time Machine is trying to backup 970 MB of something (also, > it says it will take 7 hours -- I don't know why it's so slow). I was not > even at work doing anything and it still found nearly a GB to backup. Maybe > that sounds small, but if it does this every hour, it won't take long to fill > my backup drive. 970 MB is nothing. For me, Firefox routinely triggers several hundred GB, and at least once a day Backblaze triggers a 1.2 GB backup. Time Machine stores at most 24 + 1/day of those backups. So even if it is backing up a GB every time, you wind up with 24 GB + 1 GB/day up to a month, then that's about 55 GB, and then it's 1 GB per week. Even if your backup drive is only 1 TB, we're talking about 5% after a month. Now, 7 hours? ... That's a problem. Is that all the time, or once that one long backup ran, did future backups go at a normal time? > I looked in ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/ and in ~/Library/Application > Support/, but neither was anywhere near 970 MB. The first folder was 289 MB > and the second folder was 198 MB (for all apps, not just Outlook or > Microsoft). So, neither seems to explain the 970 MB. > > Any other suggestions? Is there an easy way to get a list of files, ordered > by file size, so that I can see which files are largest? Back in the NeXT > days, I think there was a program called Dark Forest, or something like that. You want "Grand Perspective". In particular, try to find an older version that was made specifically for Time Machine ("Time Machine Perspective", I think it was called), that stopped looking at duplicated files/directories. This let it look at a TM backup and only show you what had changed. >> Currently I only backup part of my main system drive. I exclude >> /Applications, /Library, and System Files and Applications. Essentially I >> just backup my user files. GAD, NO. If you must exclude system files, then click the button that excludes what Apple ships. I would give 75% odds that you have important stuff in /Library that was put there by programs you installed, and you probably have something in /Applications that you would have a problem replacing. And frankly, being able to boot from a TM drive in an emergency is a good thing. > > Thanks, > > Gregg > > -----Original Message----- > From: "@lbutlr" <[email protected]> > Date: Wednesday, April 19, 2017 at 7:23 AM > To: MacOSX-Talk Talk <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: why are Time Machine backups so large lately? > > On 2017-04-18 (09:00 MDT), "Dinse, Gregg (NIH/NIEHS) [C]" > <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Hi, >> >> I have been using Time Machine for many years, but lately the backups seem >> to be much larger than usual (i.e., hundreds of MB rather than just a few >> MB), even when I have not done anything. >> >> This problem > > I wouldn’t say it’s a problem. > >> 1. We were forced to switch to Outlook (I had always used Apple Mail before). > > That would explain it right there. > >> 2. Citrix was installed, so that I could access my work email in Outlook >> from home. >> >> Is there some large file > > Large? No. Large if you are thinking floppies? Yes. > >> (e.g., a database) associated with Outlook that keeps getting updated and >> thus backed up again and again? > > Yes. > >> If so, what is it called and where is it located? > > It used to be in ~/Documents/Outlook but that was years ago. It *SHOULD* be > in ~/Library/Application Support/ > >> This reminds me of the time when I used Parallels, which kept the virtual >> Windows machine in a large file and every time something changed in Windows, >> even something small, the entire large Parallels file would get backed up >> again in Time Machine. Eventually I excluded that file from my backups. > > By difference between a tens-of-gigabytes file and a db that is a couple > hundred megs. > >> Currently I only backup part of my main system drive. I exclude >> /Applications, /Library, and System Files and Applications. Essentially I >> just backup my user files. > > Backing up Library and System is pretty much a one-time event and makes it > much easier to restore your computer. > _______________________________________________ MacOSX-talk mailing list [email protected] http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
