enormous snapshot

[froggiechef]

hello geeks

I think i may have an issue with my snapshot
they are enormous up to 17gb for some.

i did installed RB a month and half ago and take about 20 snapshot per days (only one per day his locked).
i have setup RB to delete unlocked snapshot older than 3 days.
my Rb console show now around 80 snapshots in history :
(if i do addition of those snapshot ,i get nearly 100 GB ) on a 300 Gb drive

i try to keep only one snapshot per week locked for anything older than 2 weeks times and have one per day for last week locked and one hourly taken for the last 3 days
the first 15 snapshots in my history can get to ridiculous size 17gb but i have notice than they getting bigger and bigger.

I know i could reset a base line when it gets to be a serious issue of size but i don't to loose the ability rollback at list few days behind me in case of hidden problem in my configuration
I also understand i could take an image of my drive to back up few last days
but at the end

I don't really understand what is the size issue with those snapshots.
What am i doing wrong ?

Many thanks in advance

[ErikThorne]

Seems weird ...

Mine are 97 to 300 meg
bigest I have had is : 11532 meg

But that because it includes Ms Office Install I think ..

Are you Installing Big programs ?

[Baldrick]

Yup...very strange.

Mine are anything between 65 - 398 Mb whilst the post installation snapshot that everything get ac***ulated into when you delete older snapshots is only 8.9 Gb, and it dates from 17th May.

I am scratching my head on this one

[froggiechef]

i agree

it's weird
today, i had a look, one snapshot shows 30004 MB

and free space is getting shorter and shorter by the day and to answer erik
i do not install big program .
but i do video editing and put big files on my computer but always get rid of them few days after when I'm finished with my work.
So could it be the reason ?

Can somebody get the attention of Nick10 or HDSjames on this mystery.?

Many thanks

[carfal]

Originally Posted by froggiechef

i agree

it's weird
today, i had a look, one snapshot shows 30004 MB

and free space is getting shorter and shorter by the day and to answer erik
i do not install big program .
but i do video editing and put big files on my computer but always get rid of them few days after when I'm finished with my work.
So could it be the reason ?

Can somebody get the attention of Nick10 or HDSjames on this mystery.?

Many thanks

Hi froggiechef

I think your video editing of large files is the problem your having with enormous snapshots. You also say that you delete them after a few days and so the hard drive space should be reclaimed. This is where alot of confusion arises in the use and implementation of rollback.

The purpose of Rollback is to protect files that exist in any given snapshot. In your example you delete the large video file a few days later. In the meantime you've taken 20 snapshots per day, each snapshot "holding" this large video file. When you "delete" this large video file in the current snapshot your in, it still exists in 20 snapshots or more that you took while the file existed. So, Rollback cannot reclaim the space used by this file until all snapshots that contain the said file are deleted (or the file is manaully deleted in each and every snapshot). Your problem increases exponentially if your editing more than one video file at a time. You can now see that taking 20 snapshots a day will indeed prove to be an impossible task to track which snapshots are holding which files and the large use of disk space becomes apparent.

Thankfully, there is an easy fix to this delema. My suggestion would be the following
1. Uninstall rollback

2. Create a second partition on your 300gb drive ( Say 50Gb....it only needs to be big enough to hold your video files)

3. Reinstall Rollback using the custom option

4. Only protect drive C: Leaving Drive D: (your second partition) unprotected


Note: ALWAYS uninstall Rollback when creating or changing partitions


Now you can create, edit and delete your video files or any other "large" file on drive D: (the unprotected drive) without it affecting the size or disk usage on drive C:. Of course there is no Rollback protection for files on drive D: but you could always create the partition alittle larger and also have a backup folder on drive D: for files your are working on.

Hope this helps!

PS I think its important to explain the disk usage alittle further. If you create a 4Gb file and take 20 snapshots, the file is not then created again in each new snapshot. Each new snapshot simply refers to the original location of the file and therefore the original 4Gb of space is all that its used. However if you take say 4 snapshots then move the file to a new location then another 4Gb of space is used. So now you have the original 4Gb plus the newly created 4Gb for the new location. Rollback does this because it must protect the original location of the file for the first 4 snapshots that were taken. This is what makes Rollback so powerful but at the same time will use enormous amounts of disk space if the user is unaware of how Rollback manages space!

[froggiechef]

Dear Carfal

Thank you very much for your explanation
It is now clear that video editing those big file is the explanation.
However. the enormous files are the oldest one (not the last few days). so i only keep one snapshot per/W for anything older than 2 weeks.
so i do not really get the logic on that.

Anyway, thank you for your help and I will certainly follow your advice.

froggiechef

[FyrmnJ]

Originally Posted by carfal

PS I think its important to explain the disk usage alittle further.

Carfal:
That was the CLEAREST and BEST explanation of how Rollback works that I've seen.

FyrmnJ in Philly

"Some people are like Slinkies... Not really good for anything but they bring a smile to your face when pushed down the stairs."

[carfal]

Glad to be of assistance!

[nexstar]

Originally Posted by froggiechef

Dear Carfal

Thank you very much for your explanation
It is now clear that video editing those big file is the explanation.
However. the enormous files are the oldest one (not the last few days). so i only keep one snapshot per/W for anything older than 2 weeks.
so i do not really get the logic on that.

Anyway, thank you for your help and I will certainly follow your advice.

froggiechef

Hi froggiechef ,

Also look out for temporary files which may have been created but not deleted before you made a snapshot. Your downloading or editing software could create these but their location can often be configured within the software so you could redirect them to an unprotected partition.

It can also be useful to use a piece of software to get an idea of where big files are lurking. I quite like Treesize Pro but they also do a free version which would do the job.

Graham