SD v2: •*Special Spotlight handling to improve performance

[Hoosier_1701]

I saw this entry in the version history for v2.0. Can you give us some details on what this means? Using the previous version, I've been rebooting my Mac with the Shift key held down to completely disable Spotlight during my backup sessions. Once the backup finished, I would then reboot again to restore normal functionality. Is this unnecessary now with v2?

Thanks!

[dnanian]

We disable spotlight indexing while we copy, and restore it to its previous state on completion. We also preserve the spotlight "privacy" state automatically.

You definitely don't need to do what you're doing with v2.0... give it a try!

[Hoosier_1701]

Fantastic! Thanks for the reply, Dave. Having to reboot was the only hassle in the entire process. I'm looking forward to my first 2.0 backup.

[dnanian]

Great -- let us know what you think!

[picaman]

Is this a separate issue from the tip described here? I have this script installed and it runs each time I backup.

Thanks for an fantastic product and a rock-solid new version that was free to registered users. Awesome.



Jamie

[dnanian]

Yep -- you don't need to run that script any more as long as you're running 10.4.3. Instead, turn indexing back on with "sudo mdutil -i on "/Volumes/the-backup-drive-name", and then drag it into your Spotlight preference pane's Privacy list.

We'll take it from there.

[picaman]

You...you...made me use Terminal for the first time

So I typed in "sudo mdutil -i on "/Volumes/Martha My Dear" which seemed to work fine as it just took the command and returned me to ">".

But then I tried to drag the disk image into the Spotlight privacy window, and it won't add it to the list. It's my internal disk which I use as a backup, but I boot off of an external disk.

Any ideas?

[dnanian]

Try restarting, picaman, and see if it lets you add it then. If not, you'll need to remove a special folder at the top of the drive with:

sudo rm -r "/Volumes/Martha My Dear/.Spotlight-V100"

Be careful with that one, no mistakes. Then, restart and try again.

[picaman]

The first restart didn't work, but the command and a subsequent restart solved the problem.

You rock. Thanks so much.



Jamie

[dnanian]

It is you, my friend, who rock. Party on.

[dirt farmer]

Hi Dave, just want to make sure I did things correctly. I, too, have never used Terminal before.

I, too, used the old script. After reading the instructions above, this is what I did:

1) In terminal, I typed ------> sudo mdutil -i on "/Volumes/backup".

I was asked for my password. A message appeared saying "indexing enabled on /Volumes/backup" . So far, so good.

2) I dragged my backup drive icon (image?) from the desktop to the spotlight privacy pane. It took it, no problems.

3) I launched superduper. In the Advanced options, my "Run shell script after copy completes" box was checked, with the old disable_spotlight script still there. I unchecked the box.

4) I trashed the disable_spotlight script from my Application folder.

Did I do everything correctly? Were steps 3 & 4 necessary?

Thanks for your help.

[dnanian]

That's all you needed to do. 3 was necessary, 4 not, but it didn't hurt anything.

Should work fine!

[Timmy]

Originally Posted by dnanian

We disable spotlight indexing while we copy, and restore it to its previous state on completion. We also preserve the spotlight "privacy" state automatically.

In a situation where we manually connect an external firewire drive and then perform a "Backup All files"/"Erase backup then copy" won't Spotlight start creating an index on the drive as soon as we turn it on the next time we connect the drive?

Oh, one other thing...
The fields for logging into this forum don't seem to be recognized by Safari for storage in the Keychain.
I know there is a 'remember me' option, but I assume that just sets a cookie.

[dnanian]

Not if you put it in the Preferences tab, Timmy. We'll preserve the state, even across erase.

And, yes -- Remember me sets a cookie. I don't know why Safari wouldn't be working right here, as it does for me...

[Timmy]

Originally Posted by dnanian

Not if you put it in the Preferences tab, Timmy. We'll preserve the state, even across erase.

Okay, cool.
So, I should add all of my backup volumes to the Spotlight privacy tab and then we won't have to worry about the drives being needlessly indexed.

But, what will be the Spotlight condition of a volume that is restored?
Will it have SL disabled?

I assume all of this pertains to 10.4.2 and not just 10.4.3, right?

Thanks.