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How to tell time machine to ignore transcoded media?

How to tell time machine to ignore transcoded media? Since they can be generated at any time, there's no need to back it up. But they are not located in a single folder so I can't tell time machine to ignore it.

Posted on Oct 15, 2013 9:24 AM

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16 replies

Oct 15, 2013 1:00 PM in response to aapl.crox

Oh right?

Can't really imagine why anyone would do that with video - I only use TM for backing up my system drive. I clone my Video Drives.


You could work with Proxy media and delete all the Transcoded stuff - but you must remember to change to "Optimised or Original Media" in preferences before you export - otherwise you export very low quality media.


Time machine will also have put the transcoded media on your backup drive, of course.

Andy

Oct 15, 2013 1:20 PM in response to andynick

andynick wrote:


Oh right?

Can't really imagine why anyone would do that with video - I only use TM for backing up my system drive. I clone my Video Drives.


You could work with Proxy media and delete all the Transcoded stuff - but you must remember to change to "Optimised or Original Media" in preferences before you export - otherwise you export very low quality media.


Time machine will also have put the transcoded media on your backup drive, of course.

Andy


Well backing up with Time machine is the easiest, especially over a network drive. What software do you use for cloning?

Oct 18, 2013 1:38 AM in response to aapl.crox

I also use SuperDuper (SD), but I believe that Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) is more versatile in terms of excluding folders, so it may work for you in this situation.


There are two main disadvantages regarding using Time Machine versus using a clone tool like SD or CCC.

One: TM will keep many versions of your files, and since they are so big and change a lot, this can fill up a drive pretty quickly.

Two (and most important, IMHO): if your drive fails, with a clone you can just swap in the clone and be back to work, whereas with TM you'll have to restore, which may take hours.


Personally, I use both for general documents (use TM several times a day and make a clone about once a day).

For video, I don't use Time Machine.

Just my $0.02

Oct 18, 2013 6:57 PM in response to aapl.crox

Yep, I struggle to understand how developers would organize it such that no single folder could be ignored for transcoded files. This is just plain dumb & I don't see any reasonable excuse.


However, no one has mentioned Backups for Final Cut Pro By NP Associates - which has knowledge of such things without doing anything special.


- https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/backups-for-final-cut-pro/id586594646?mt=12


PS I'm, on the bandwagon - I would never use Time Machine for this either.

Oct 19, 2013 10:00 AM in response to aapl.crox

aapl.crox wrote:

I looked into superduper just now and I'm not seeing how I can ignore transcoded folders/files. And if I can't how is cloning any different than just using time machine?

Not sure what happened yesterday, did this forum have some kind of melt-down?

Anyway, my reply got deleted - here it is again.

____________________


If you read the SuperDuper instructions, you'll see that you can exclude any folder you like:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/com.shirtpocket/SuperDuper/SuperDuper.pdf


Here's a quote: (page 20)

Excluding files or folders from a backup

Although we recommend that a backup include all of the files from the source drive, it’s sometimes necessary – or desirable – to be more selective.

SuperDuper!’s Copy Scripts allow a user to easily customize the files and folders that are copied, by simply building on the scripts we’ve provided. Don’t worry, this isn’t programming: scripts are just a way of selecting files and folders, and letting SuperDuper! know what to do with them.

____________________


SuperDuper also has a "Smart Update" facility, where it only backs up files that have actually changed since the last backup. Final Cut Pro X is non-destructive editing, so the original media files themselves are only referenced (not changed) when you edit video - therefore, SuperDuper leaves the original media files alone - only copying changed project files and effects.


My media, Events and Projects take up about 3 TB on a 4 TB HD.

If I work all day on my projects, typically, SuperDuper will take about five or ten minutes to do a complete backup to my backup drive, making both drives identical.

Andy

Dec 30, 2013 7:57 AM in response to aapl.crox

Ok, here it is. It appears to be working. Since we can not expand a package in the Time Machine preferences window, we will need to edit the com.apple.Time Machine.plist directly.


-2. Turn off Time Machine

-1. Reboot (this is required to get Time Machine to "let go" of it's plist file. If you open the Options... menu in TM you will need to reboot again in order to edit again)

0. Make a backup copy of the following file "/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Time Machine.plist"

1. Using a tool like plist Edit Pro, open /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Time Machine.plist

2. Do a Save... to your Desktop or other temp location

3. Expand the SkipPaths key

4. Duplicate the last key (RMB on key and select duplicate)

5. Modify the Value field to the full path to your transcoded media

example: /Volumes/MediaRAID/MediaRAID's projects and events.fcpbundle/ Updated Projects/Transcoded Media

Careful with the spaces " " like before " Updated Projects". Best way to do this is "cd" to this location in a terminal window and do "pwd" then copy and paste the full path

6. Repeat for each directory you want to excluded

7. Save the file in your temporary location

8. In a terminal window execute the following commands

sudo cp '<temppath>/com.apple.Time Machine.plist' '/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Time Machine.plist'

9. Now open the TM Options... menu and you should see your new paths appear


Step 9 appears to make a copy of the plist in memory and after than, edits do not seem to take. Starting at step -2 seems to allow for edits before the copy is made.

How to tell time machine to ignore transcoded media?

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