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Re: Can Time Machine copy contents of computer to create start drive?

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In article <il917p$u8s$1@news.eternal-september.org>, Robert Montgomery
<robert-m@northern-data-tech-llc.com> wrote:

> > You'd be better off creating a partition that's about 15% larger than the
> > drive you're backing up. This will help assure that your incremental backups
> > ("Smart update...") go smoothly, without either getting bogged down, or
> > failing to complete the updated backup because of false "out of space" error
> > messages during the updating process. This could happen because SD! requires
> > some "overhead" for "scratch space" as it makes its "Smart update...," and
> > if you don't allow some overhead, it may fail to complete the update, or
> > simply take an inordinate amount of time as it shuffles files around during
> > the "Smart" updating process.
> >
> > The workaround for such situations is to do a full "Erase, then copy..."
> > backup -- which is fine, but it defeats the advantage of the "Smart Update"
> > feature, as it involves a full erasure of the SD! volume prior to making the
> > clone. Of course, you can only do "Smart update..." backups if you've
> > registered (i.e., paid for) the product. The unregistered product  is free
> > to use...but only allows you to do "Erase, then copy..." backups.
> >
> > See the Troubleshooting section of the User's Guide.
> 
> Is it important to make the destination partition 15 percent bigger than 
> the source drive when using Super Duper's Smart Update?

nope, and the solution is much easier than what's described.

the problem is that superduper makes one pass, copying or deleting
files as it goes. if free space is low, it's possible it might try to
copy a file before it deletes other files on the target drive that
would have created enough space for the first file to fit.

the solution is look at the superduper log file and see where the copy
failed. open that folder on the target drive and manually delete files
that you know will be deleted anyway. if you happen to make a mistake
and delete a file that should have stayed, superduper will just copy it
from the source drive again. sometimes it's easier to just nuke the
entire folder and have everything copied again. the key is just to free
up some space for it to continue. just be sure you're deleting on the
*target* drive, otherwise they'll be gone on both drives once your
clone is done.

you *can* do a full erase/backup but that's incredibly wasteful when
you only need to free up a little space.

most of the time, this will not be an issue at all.

> If it is important, it means I have to erase my backup drives to make 
> Super Duper's destination partition 15 percent bigger than they are.
> 
> Pages 55 and 56 of the Super Duper User Guide say that if your source 
> drive uses 10.65 gigabytes, ensure that the destination drive has at 
> least 11 gigabytes free. The difference between 10.65 gigabytes and 11 
> gigabytes is only about three percent ñ not 15 percent.

it just needs a little breathing room for it to copy stuff. 

how big are your files that typically change? if they're very big (such
as movies) then you need more space than if they're tiny.

> My source drive is almost full. It's 250 gigabytes and so are my backup 
> partitions that are assigned to Super Duper.

then an incremental clone might fail on occasion. free up some space.

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Re: Can Time Machine copy contents of computer to create start drive? Robert Montgomery <robert-m@northern-data-tech-llc.com> - 2011-03-09 15:07 -0800
  Re: Can Time Machine copy contents of computer to create start drive? nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2011-03-09 18:27 -0800
    Re: Can Time Machine copy contents of computer to create start drive? Robert Montgomery <robert-m@northern-data-tech-llc.com> - 2011-03-09 16:04 -0800
  Re: Can Time Machine copy contents of computer to create start drive? BreadWithSpam@fractious.net - 2011-03-09 19:05 -0500

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