Why each backup requires so much space?

[zickzhou]

Originally Posted by dnanian

There is no such thing as an 'inactive' boot volume, really, regardless of the number of applications you're currently running. There's no 'expected' backup size, really.

K. Thanks

But then, is there a way to know what are the files being backed up in the most recent update?

As for the sandbox.. is it able to run it over the internet (network drive mapping).

[dnanian]

Not really, no: you could try tracking all I/O with fs_usage if you'd like, but it's not going to prove terribly useful.

You can't use a Sandbox over a network, no.

[zickzhou]

Originally Posted by dnanian

Not really, no: you could try tracking all I/O with fs_usage if you'd like, but it's not going to prove terribly useful.

So that means there is only one retrievable copy at all time? Even if I do multiple scheduled updates setup so i backup every 2 hours? I did not want to be mean here but I just want to know how exactly everything works. i apologize for any offense

[dnanian]

I don't understand this question. Could you rephrase?

[zickzhou]

Originally Posted by dnanian

I don't understand this question. Could you rephrase?

For some PC backup softwares, for example "PC b***up Pro", I can schedule hourly backup, and I can go back to each different backups to retrieve the version of a file I would like to restore.

For example, I have the hourly backup setup, and I've been editing a word file since 8 this morning. If i want to restore that word file, I can restore the 8 am version, 9 am version, 10 am version and 11 am version.

In superduper, I found out that I can also setup the hourly backup using combination of daily update schedules. But I am wondering since all the backup schedules are running on a same sparse image, does that mean there can be only one retrievable version of a file (the very last backup)?

[dnanian]

That's right. As you've probably read in the introduction to the User's Guide, you're making a copy of the source. You're not creating backup sets.

[zickzhou]

My Last question.
it has been 3 hours since I started running the smart update. 10.37 GB of data has been evaluated, 9.38 GB of data has been copied (to the network attached storage), but how come I did not see the sparse image being modified? (I checked the last modification date, I also checked the file size...)