What's Time Machine backing up in the middle of the night?

[Eminemdrdre00]

I left Time Machine on to run last night while I was sleeping. I woke up to 12 new "2009-10-31" backup folders. It seems to be backing up a small 105kb file every hour. Obviously there is nothing else to backup because the system is idle, I'm not making any changes to files. Is this normal? I'm not sure I noticed this happen in Leopard. Any idea on what that small file is that it keeps backing up? Thanks!

 

[tofagerl]

Logs maybe?
The computer works even though no apps are working, it has tasks to do in the background.
You can use third party apps to disable TM at night.

 

[Eminemdrdre00]

Logs maybe?
The computer works even though no apps are working, it has tasks to do in the background.
You can use third party apps to disable TM at night.

No I'd rather run it at night while I'm asleep so it backs up my days work (my external HD is kind of loud, dont like it running while I'm at my iMac). Any idea where these logs might be saving to, so I can exclude that folder from being backed up?

 

[mac2x]

Have a peek at the Logs folders, both the one in your home directory under Library and the one under Macintosh HD (or whatever your HD's name is), also under Library

 

[Eminemdrdre00]

Have a peek at the Logs folders, both the one in your home directory under Library and the one under Macintosh HD (or whatever your HD's name is), also under Library

I already have the whole Library folder under Macintost HD excluded, but I didnt have the Logs folder in my home directory excluded. I'll give that a try, thanks!

 

[mac2x]

No problem!

 

[J the Ninja]

There's a third one in /var/log

 

[mac2x]

Oh, yeah, that one too. Isn't it hidden in Finder? If it is, blocking it from Time Machine might not be simple.

[edit] I think there's a way to make Finder show hidden files from Terminal, but it's one of those esoteric com.apple preference commands that are too long to remember.

 

[J the Ninja]

Oh, yeah, that one too. Isn't it hidden in Finder? If it is, blocking it from Time Machine might not be simple.

Actually, hidden files can be shown in the "Exclude" window, probably for this very reason.

 

[mac2x]

Oh, that's cool. Didn't know that!