Time Machine backup - copy only new files?

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Level 1

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Time Machine backup - copy only new files?

Is there a way to set Time Machine to only copy new files rather than everything? I have a 9 TB drive with our video library on it and a second drive that acts as a duplicate. I want to be able to periodically turn on the second drive, run Time Machine and have it only copy the new stuff over to the duplicate drive rather than the entire drive all over again.

How do I do this? It's currently copying one drive to the other and takes two days... :/

Thanks in advance.

Mac Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2), FCP 10.2, Compressor, Motion, Toast

Posted on Jul 27, 2015 7:53 AM

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Answer 1

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Jul 27, 2015 8:08 AM in response to PGCvideo

Why do you think it is copying everything? It does not.

Maybe though - and it happens - TimeMachine has failed and does need to do one full copy (buy a new set of drives).

TM wants to have a volume that is 3.5x the capacity of all the drives to be maintained in its backup archives. You may though need to exclude or insure it Is excluded your mirror copy/clone/duplicate drive from TM.

There are no 9-10TB drives so you must have some type of RAID (stripe, RAID5 or 6 or JBOD) made up of multiple 6TB or smaller drives, yes?

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Answer 2

PGCvideo Author

Level 1

5 points

Jul 27, 2015 8:15 AM in response to The hatter

Yes, the drive is a RAID 0. 9 TB.

Right now it says: backing up 145 GB of 9.13 TB...so...I'm assuming it's copying everything because its' going really slow. It did a full copy last week and at the end it said it was successful so I assume it was. And it looked like everything was copied fine.

I did exclude the Mac HD. I hardly keep anything there and most of it is temporary files anyhow.

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Answer 3

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Jul 27, 2015 8:32 AM in response to PGCvideo

Where and how are the DRIVES connected? Internal? how many? 4TB each?

Drives are not 9TB, volumes are.

TimeMachine would come after using other backups, CCC, using SoftRAID (which supports RAID5 now) and any stripe volume should have multiple backup sets and methods.

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Answer 4

PGCvideo Author

Level 1

5 points

Jul 27, 2015 9:45 AM in response to The hatter

they are external. They have the capability of eSATA, FW800, or FW600. One is 9TB the other is 12TB. Both are RAID 0. They are currently connected via FW800.

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Answer 5

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Jul 27, 2015 10:21 AM in response to PGCvideo

You have a drive Case then with a switch on it to combine drives in RAID or not and what RAID type. There are no 9TB drives. You have a RAID volume of that capacity.

FW800 might be okay but is 1/2 the speed or less of a SATA drive.

I would be using a CalDigit SATA III controller and not FW800...

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Answer 6

PGCvideo Author

Level 1

5 points

Jul 27, 2015 12:00 PM in response to The hatter

Well, I'm making due with what I have. And I didn't come on here to split hairs with someone over a "drive" or a "volume". Get a life.

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Answer 7

Jul 27, 2015 5:30 PM in response to PGCvideo

.. and what is not stated is that if something is unchanged from what is already backed up, it is NOT copied again, only the pointers to the already backed up version are saved.

The late James Pond wrote a series of articles explaining how Time Machine works its magic. It starts with this link, but clicking next at the bottom of the page continues the explanations for another five pages:

http://pondini.org/TM/Works.html

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