Excluding Index from Time Machine

Mike Binks
Mike Binks MVP Posts: 7,436
edited November 20 in English Forum

Hi Folks

Somewhere it was suggested that it was a good idea to exclude Logos index from time machine backups.

It this true?

Does it make much difference?

How do you do it?

Would this instructions make a useful addition to the 'New to Logos' post at the top of this forum?

Thanks in anticipation

tootle pip

Mike

tootle pip

Mike

How to get logs and post them.(now tagging post-apocalyptic fiction as current affairs) Latest Logos, MacOS, iOS and iPadOS

Comments

  • Hi Folks

    Somewhere it was suggested that it was a good idea to exclude Logos index from time machine backups.

    It this true?

    Does it make much difference?

    How do you do it?

    Would this instructions make a useful addition to the 'New to Logos' post at the top of this forum?

    Thanks in anticipation

    tootle pip

    Mike

    Excluding Logos index from Time Machine backups allows other files to be kept longer - how much longer depends on size of indexes (and frequency of change).

    System Preferences has Time Machine:

    image

    Clicking "Options..." shows excluded items (used "+" to add exclusions):

    image

    First 4 exclusions are external USB hard drive partitions (old preference - explanation below)

    Next 4 exclusions begin with ~/Library; "qofvuuiv.015" is random folder name - different for every Logos user.  Personally choosing to exclude BibleIndex, HomePage, LibraryIndex, and folder with resource mstidx files (suspect master index - believe can rebuild with resource scan command).

    When alpha testing case-sensitive file system issue - lots of resource copying, identifying, and crashing - used Disk Utility to create Logos4.dmg file and hdiutil to mount - did not initially exclude from Time Machine backup - lost older backups since ran out of space (hourly backups of few GB that changed often).

    Last 2 exclusions are virtual machine hard drive images - changed from VMWare Fusion to VirtualBox during computer upgrade this year.

    Personal preference - like partitioning Macintosh hard drives - internal disk has 3 partitions:

    image

    External USB drive  (upgrade last month) has 4 partitions:

    image

    Note: virtual machine disk images can be manually copied from Valet volume to z-Valet when virtual machine shut down or asleep (not yet done) - have doubts about usability of incremental virtual disk image backups - also can rebuild virtual machine.

    Personally like idea of bootable partition that can be upgraded without changing/copying lots of other files.  After Mac OS X 10.7 ships (hopefully), plan to copy internal bootable partitions before upgrading them - have option to boot Mac OS X 10.6 (just in case).

    Some currently shipping commercial programs do not work on Case-Sensitive file system - hence xMacOS partition since some development teams choose to disagree on use of shift and/or caps lock when typing file names. Kudos to Apple and Logos development for Case consistency.

    Keep Smiling [:)]

  • Mike Binks
    Mike Binks MVP Posts: 7,436

    tootle pip

    Mike

    How to get logs and post them.(now tagging post-apocalyptic fiction as current affairs) Latest Logos, MacOS, iOS and iPadOS

  • Alan Macgregor
    Alan Macgregor Member Posts: 2,438 ✭✭✭

    Mike

    I've been blithely using Time Machine with an external 200GB HDD since 27th November. I've just left it to backup everything. So far it has used almost exactly half of its available disk space, so I guess that it will run for about a year before it needs to start deleting older backups. I can live with that.

    Actually, I cannot imagine a recovery scenario where I would want to regress more than a day or two, so I'm just going to go on blithely using Time Machine.

    Every blessing

    Alan

    iMac Retina 5K, 27": 3.6GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9; 16GB RAM;MacOS 10.15.5; 1TB SSD; Logos 8

    MacBook Air 13.3": 1.8GHz; 4GB RAM; MacOS 10.13.6; 256GB SSD; Logos 8

    iPad Pro 32GB WiFi iOS 13.5.1

    iPhone 8+ 64GB iOS 13.5.1

  • bryan jay
    bryan jay Member Posts: 113 ✭✭

    Somewhere it was suggested that it was a good idea to exclude Logos index from time machine backups.

    It this true?

    Does it make much difference?

    How do you do it?

     

    Isn't it much simpler just to exclude from Time Machine the entire Logos 4 folder?  ~/Library/Application Support/Logos4

    Since everything is backed up in the cloud anyway, this makes sense to me.  Any thoughts?

    Theological Reflection with Practical Application

    SubmittedToTheWord.com

  • Wes Saad
    Wes Saad Member Posts: 1,601 ✭✭✭

    bryan jay said:

    Since everything is backed up in the cloud anyway, this makes sense to me.  Any thoughts?

    It's just a question of whether or not you want to download everything again.

  • Mike Binks
    Mike Binks MVP Posts: 7,436

     

    bryan jay said:

    Since everything is backed up in the cloud anyway, this makes sense to me.  Any thoughts?

     It's just a question of whether or not you want to download everything again. 

    And, Bryan, with your experience I would think it is the last thing you would want to do!     [;)]

     

    tootle pip

    Mike

    How to get logs and post them.(now tagging post-apocalyptic fiction as current affairs) Latest Logos, MacOS, iOS and iPadOS

  • Jack Caviness
    Jack Caviness MVP Posts: 13,514

    I've been blithely using Time Machine with an external 200GB HDD since 27th November. I've just left it to backup everything. So far it has used almost exactly half of its available disk space, so I guess that it will run for about a year before it needs to start deleting older backups

    I allow all L4 Mac files to back up with Time Machine on a 500GB drive. My oldest backup is November 09, 2009. It would be longer, but I let it back up a Parallels VM for 2 days.

    I cannot imagine a recovery scenario where I would want to regress more than a day or two

    I found it useful to retrieve a 9-month old file during an IRS Audit of our corporate tax return (IRS = Internal Revenue Service), but we would still have be alright without it.

  • bryan jay
    bryan jay Member Posts: 113 ✭✭

    And, Bryan, with your experience I would think it is the last thing you would want to do!

     

    You know, Mike, you're right!  I thought of that after I posted!  I'm hoping that updates to L4 will fix the downloader, though.  I could probably safely ditch the Libronix engine though.

    Theological Reflection with Practical Application

    SubmittedToTheWord.com

  • Mike Binks
    Mike Binks MVP Posts: 7,436

    How's this for reviving an old thread folks?

    Just lately I have been having some problems with my MacBook.

    On an update the TimeMachine Disc seems to operate pretty constantly - which causes the MacBook to overheat and shut down.

    Disconnecting the TimeMachine Disc seems to allow the fans in the MacBook to cope with indexing.

    I have the Logos4 folder excluded from backups so am bemused as to what is being done on the external drive.

    Is there something I have missed?

    tootle pip

    Mike

    How to get logs and post them.(now tagging post-apocalyptic fiction as current affairs) Latest Logos, MacOS, iOS and iPadOS