Hi Neil, You are correct. The Time Capsule - Time Machine sparsebundle is not a huge single file. I did realize after I sent my quick reply last night that I had not worded my reply accurately and was going to explain further today... but my work time today has not allowed me to as yet.
Peter had a lot going on at the same time - with Data being uploaded to Dropbox, Dropbox probably syncing, Time Machine backing up... All this was happening wirelessly. I will try to clarify later today (when I finish work or find a break in the day) that there can be problems working wirelessly with an iPhoto Library. You can backup iPhoto wirelessly, that's not a problem. It's using it wirelessly that has potential risks. Cheers, Ronni Sent from Ronni's iPad4 > On 15 Sep 2014, at 10:17 am, Neil Houghton <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Peter, Hi Ronni, > > Ronni, I thought that the difference between the old sparse disk image and > the newer sparse bundle was that the sparse bundle is NOT a single huge file > but a bundle of small (around 8MB) files which look to the user like one file > but allows time machine to just back up whichever files have changed (rather > than the whole bundle). > > Obviously a video is generally much bigger than a few photos so would involve > more of the (8mb) files and the backup would be bigger – but should not > involve the whole iphoto library – or am I missing something? > > I don’t use iphoto myself – does it do things differently? > > > Apologies if I have missed the point ;o) > > > Cheers > > > > Neil > -- > Neil R. Houghton > Albany, Western Australia > Tel: +61 8 9841 6063 > Email: [email protected] > > > > on 14/9/14 21:44, Ronda Brown at [email protected] wrote: > > Hi Peter, > > Short answer to why Time Machine has done a larger backup of iPhoto. > You had made changes in iPhoto by importing video. Then you were uploading > that video file to Dropbox. > You are storing your iPhoto library inside of a disk image file > (sparsebundle), which obviously is a single (huge) file. So any time the disk > image changes, Time Machine will back up the entire file, which in your case > is many gigabytes. > > Cheers, > Ronni > Sent from Ronni's iPad4 > > > On 14 Sep 2014, at 8:31 pm, Peter Crisp <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Ronni, been a bit busy and off caravanning for the weekend. > > But this evening I finally got the Time Tracker downloaded and within a > minute or so I could see the “enormous backup”. Whilst Time Machine was > saying it’s 175GB in size, the Actual file from Time Tracker is 148.4GB. So > by zooming into the BIG stuff, the culprit is iPhoto. It’s the folder called > “Masters” responsible for 136GB of the 148.4GB which i presume holds the > image Master files and the Thumbnails folder responsible for 9.6GB of the > 148GB. > > This iPhoto library has been backed up before and for months has been > routinely doing all the backups normally. > > Why would it trigger a Full backup of the iPhoto library all over again. I’ve > effectively lost 175GB of space on the backup drive for seemingly no good > reason. > > The Master folder contains beneath it a number of folders one for each year > and each of these reports in this backup for their respective sizes I presume. > > Is there anything I should do? > > If I do nothing it will proceed ok but I am puzzled why this “Enormous > Backup” had to exist. > > Thanks for the tip on Time Tracker, it is a beauty. > > If I blow away the old sparesebundle and rebuild a backup from scratch, I > would recover the space but the do nothing option is easier at the moment. > > Regards > > Pete. > > > On 8 Sep 2014, at 9:46 pm, Ronni Brown <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Peter, > > Why did you download Pacifist? I didn't mention Pacifist, you don't want > Pacifist! > I said to download 'Time Tracker' > TimeTracker > TimeTracker is a quick-and-dirty application that displays the contents of > your Time Machine backups, and shows what's changed since the previous > backup. TimeTracker is in an extremely early state, and is as such very > unpolished. > Download <http://www.charlessoft.com/TimeTracker.zip> TimeTracker > (prerelease), which works with 64-bit Intel Macs running OS X 10.6.x (Snow > Leopard) or greater. > <http://www.charlessoft.com/TimeTracker.zip> > > Cheers, > Ronni > > On 8 Sep 2014, at 9:29 pm, Peter Crisp <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Ronni, I have downloaded the Pacifist software and in the process of > "Loading Pete's Macbook" (ie Macbook Sparsebundle file). I don't have a > Thunderbolt to Ethernet connection so I've gotta do it wirelessly (but I just > ordered one) so I expect it will take ages to 'Load'. Oh well, hopefully it > will present the culprit taking up huge data volume from my TC backup disc. I > have stopped routine TC backups for now - nothing to loose. > > Whatever is the cause for this I can do one of two things. Either I > understand from this exercise what is the cause of this huge data consumption > and just leave the sparesebundle alone OR I blow away the sparesebundle and > do a complete backup from scratch again and manage the cause of why this all > happened so that I can keep the freeboard I had prior to this. > > Regards > > > Pete > > On 7 Sep 2014, at 7:20 pm, Ronni Brown <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Peter, > > Time Tracker <http://www.charlessoft.com/> is free; it is pretty basic but > usually works well. It only shows backups on the current backup destination, > though, so if you've got more than one, you have to select the one you want > (if you're using "rotating backups," it's the set most recently backed-up to). > Time Tracker works by comparing a completed backup you select to the one > before it. > > So if you select a large backup, it’s going to take a while to determine, > calculate, and display the items. > If your backups are on a network, connect via Ethernet if possible. > It will still take a while, but be 2-3 times faster than WI-FI. > > That also means that, after 24 hours, you're not really looking at what was > backed-up on a particular backup, but all the backups since the previous one. > > And you can’t select the oldest backup, since there’s nothing to compare it > to, or one that’s running, failed, or was cancelled. > > The Time Tracker display is similar to a Finder window in "List View" > The dated backups will show 0 bytes until you select one, then the app will > calculate the size, so may take a while. > You can click the disclosure triangles to see the items in that folder that > were backed-up. > > Time Tracker will only show backups on the volume currently selected for > backups (or most recently backed-up to) in Time Machine preferences. > > The recent version of Time Tracker may give you a permissions error on > network backups; if it does, try double-clicking the sparse bundle via the > Finder to mount the disk image. > > Cheers, > Ronni > > On 7 Sep 2014, at 5:36 pm, Peter Crisp <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi, I have a MacBook Pro Retina 13" 256GB with a 2TB attached external drive > (currently with around 550GB on the external drive). I have the external > drive INCLUDED in my TC backups and the backup size (according to the TM > Options panel) is 659GB. It has been backed up for many months now and > routinely has been doing the updates hourly per the normal schedule. The > backup drive is 1TB attached via the USB with a powered hub to the 3TB TC. > > I know some might think having only 1TB is small for a machine capable of > being around 2.25TB (on board Mac Pro drive + the 2TB external) but for the > moment the held memory is well inside the 1TB limit. > > Last night i took a video with my iPhone and then imported it to the MacBook > Pro to iPhoto. The video file was ~330MB only 2 minutes worth. > > Last night I also tried to push the video file up to my Dropbox and it said > around 1 hour to complete which was fine so I just let it go. This morning > when I woke up the Macbook, it still hadn't completed and it said it had 10 > minutes remaining. Then I noticed it commencing a routine backup and I often > check the size of the backups just to keep a mental track of data backup > size. The Backup is 174.92GB (yes GB)!! > > I was very surprised to see this as normal backups are in the order of ~50MB > or maybe 1 or 2GB if I have imported some photos but I have never had a > routine backup this size. > > Is there a way that I can interrogate what files are being backed up so I can > see what has caused this? It will significantly reduce the freeboard I had to > the 1TB for what appears to be for a meaningless reason. Maybe it was the > Dropbox activity that's caused this. > > Regards > > > Pete >
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