3 ms·

That's not news. I stopped using Time Machine, when it couldn't transfer my backup to a new Macbook. Rsync worked better. If you look at the actual backup, they

by m3nu 7y ago

That's not news. I stopped using Time Machine, when it couldn't transfer my backup to a new Macbook. Rsync worked better. If you look at the actual backup, they use hard links to make snapshots. Not great for many small files or small changes to large files. Since then I wrote a simple frontend for Borg Backup for macOS, called Vorta[1]. Use it for local and remote backups[2]. Fast and works on any file system. 1: https://vorta.borgbase.com https://vorta.borgbase.com

strogonoff 7y ago
Having huge numbers of tiny files in the filesystem definitely has its toll. As I routinely handle multiple JavaScript codebases with complicated node_modules trees, to reduce the overhead I started wrapping relevant directory trees into sparse bundle images—that helped quite a bit.
cpcallen 7y ago
Thanks for mentioning this. I've been looking for something that would let me do what Time Machine does, but to the cloud, for a while. I've been using BackBlaze, but it has poor metadata support and mandatory exclusions for a lot of stuff I want backed up including system configuration. I tried CloudBerry to BackBlaze B2 but the initial backup never completed, even after several weeks on a >250Mbps connection.
72deluxe 7y ago
It strikes me as odd that APFS doesn't support hard links any more despite being the "new" filesystem, yet the entire macOS backup system relies on the old deprecated HFS+ filesystem for Time Machine disk format, since it uses hard links.... Seems a backwards, muddled, confused step (as does Catalina itself!).
- oefrha 7y ago
  The issue at question is hard links for directories, not just hard links. Hard links aren’t going anywhere, whereas hard links for directories was a dangerous feature to begin with (I won’t expand on that but you can easily find explanations) and basically only there for Time Machine. APFS has native support for COW and snapshots which is way better than the directory hard links hack. They’re just slow to port Time Machine to APFS targets.
  - 72deluxe 7y ago
    Thanks for the explanation! I had glossed over the hard links "for directories" only bit. Thanks.

by m3nu 7y ago

strogonoff 7y ago

Having huge numbers of tiny files in the filesystem definitely has its toll. As I routinely handle multiple JavaScript codebases with complicated node_modules trees, to reduce the overhead I started wrapping relevant directory trees into sparse bundle images—that helped quite a bit.

cpcallen 7y ago

Thanks for mentioning this. I've been looking for something that would let me do what Time Machine does, but to the cloud, for a while. I've been using BackBlaze, but it has poor metadata support and mandatory exclusions for a lot of stuff I want backed up including system configuration. I tried CloudBerry to BackBlaze B2 but the initial backup never completed, even after several weeks on a >250Mbps connection.

72deluxe 7y ago

It strikes me as odd that APFS doesn't support hard links any more despite being the "new" filesystem, yet the entire macOS backup system relies on the old deprecated HFS+ filesystem for Time Machine disk format, since it uses hard links.... Seems a backwards, muddled, confused step (as does Catalina itself!).

oefrha 7y ago
The issue at question is hard links for directories, not just hard links. Hard links aren’t going anywhere, whereas hard links for directories was a dangerous feature to begin with (I won’t expand on that but you can easily find explanations) and basically only there for Time Machine. APFS has native support for COW and snapshots which is way better than the directory hard links hack. They’re just slow to port Time Machine to APFS targets.
- 72deluxe 7y ago
  Thanks for the explanation! I had glossed over the hard links "for directories" only bit. Thanks.