Probably A Stupid Question about Time Machine, But...

[btrav13]

I have searched all over and cannot find an answer to this question:

It seems like whenever my MBP is plugged up to my USB hub (which also houses my Time Machine drive), Time Machine is CONSTANTLY backing up. It's almost like it runs for like 50-80GB then stops for a few minutes, and then re-starts again.

Is this normal? Should Time Machine be almost consistently backing up like this or am I missing some setting somewhere that would prevent this? I looked in Time Machine preferences and did not see anything relating to consistency of the backup.

Thanks!

 

[Tumbleweed666]

Are you editing very large files, like videos or similar, or do you use an encrypted disk partition or run VM's ?
The way TM works is that it copies all changed files every hour, so in the case say of an encrypted HD where its effectively one huge file as far as TM is concerned, or same for a large VM, it may take so long to backup those, that that the hour has elapsed by the time its finished, so its going to end up backing up continuously. The same could apply to very large video files (well obviously any large files but you probably dont have 10Gb text files

There isn't really a way round this except not to use TM for those cases , eg encrypted HD - dont use TM, its not really suitable, exclude VM's, exclude extremely large files that might take more than an hour to backup. Back up manually instead for these.

 

[btrav13]

Are you editing very large files, like videos or similar, or do you use an encrypted disk partition or run VM's ?
The way TM works is that it copies all changed files every hour, so in the case say of an encrypted HD where its effectively one huge file as far as TM is concerned, or same for a large VM, it may take so long to backup those, that that the hour has elapsed by the time its finished, so its going to end up backing up continuously. The same could apply to very large video files (well obviously any large files but you probably dont have 10Gb text files

There isn't really a way round this except not to use TM for those cases , eg encrypted HD - dont use TM, its not really suitable, exclude VM's, exclude extremely large files that might take more than an hour to backup. Back up manually instead for these.

That sheds an entire new light on this...I download movies...like constantly. Whenever my laptop is on, I've got downloads going on. I guess the downloads are completing further by the minute so TM is going to see that as a change. I already exclude my VM from TM, but I'm going to include my downloads folder as well. Thank you so much!