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Posts by WiseOwl

Posts by WiseOwl

1) Questions and Answers : Macintosh : GB added to my Time Machine backup (Message 48979)
Posted 30 Apr 2014 by WiseOwl
Post:
After actually examining how the climate model files change over time, I have concluded that it is best to just let time machine manage the backup of everything normally.

Using my machine's free time, the expected run time for the ANZ and EU models is about a week and the Molly is about a month.

The ANZ and EU models use about 600 MB of disk space at a time for each WU and the Molly uses about 1.5 GB.

I was surprised to see that most of model data memory is static. About 70 MB of the ANZ and EU models change each day and about 270 MB of the Molly changes each day. But only a small number of the files are changed more than once per day, so by letting the time machine back up hourly is not much different than option 5) except that time machine will keep a copy of all of the daily changes on the backup disk for a month. (roughly speaking: 70 MB x 30 days = 2.1 GB / month; 270 x 30 = 8.1 GB / month) After a month, time machine will age out the old files normally.
2) Questions and Answers : Macintosh : GB added to my Time Machine backup (Message 48955)
Posted 29 Apr 2014 by WiseOwl
Post:
Time machine must back up to an external disk. It makes hourly backups for 24 hours (copying only the changed files made each hour). It keeps daily backups for the last month. It keeps weekly backups for all previous months until the backup disk is full, then it starts deleting old stuff to make room for new. Apple modified *nix to be able to create links to directories as well as to files. So there is never more than one copy of an unchanged directory/file on the backup disk. But since the climate models are constantly changing their data files, new versions of these files are constantly being managed on the backup disk.

I have always been nervous about Time Machine making backups simultaneous to the files changing, but it works. I *think* that with the Mac journaled file system, time machine is able to get a copy of all files and machine state at a single point in time so that a single instant can be recreated after a file system restore.

Looking at your link, it appears that all boinc files and state info are stored in a single directory tree ( on the mac: /Library/Application Support/BOINC Data/ ) and if boinc is suspended and shut down properly, this directory tree encapsulates everything necessary to restart boinc without a problem. So it appears that I have four choices:

1) Let time machine do its thing, (writing file changes to the backup disk every hour). Then every so often, stop the time machine backups, enter the time machine and selectively delete all backups to this directory tree ( 3 or 4 mouse clicks), restart the time machine backups, and say "backup now". This will start the backups of boinc anew. This has the disadvantage of extra disk traffic to keep the backup current to the hour. It has the advantage of mostly being automatic.

2) Normally exclude the boinc directory tree from time capsule backups. Once a week, remove this exclusion, select "backup now" and after the backup is done, re-exclude the boinc directory tree for another week.

3) Same as 2) except suspend/shutdown boinc while the backup is taking place. (To satisfy my paranoia about doing a backup while boinc is running. )

4) Once a week suspend/shutdown boinc, copy the directory tree to a backup disk, restart boinc. The only problem of this option, is remembering to do it, and waiting around while 14 GB is being copied to the (relatively slow) backup disk so boinc activity can be resumed.

I tend to lean toward 4).
3) Questions and Answers : Macintosh : GB added to my Time Machine backup (Message 48929)
Posted 28 Apr 2014 by WiseOwl
Post:
I would like to expand on this question a bit. I have disabled the time machine backup for the climate data models as suggested in this thread. If I have a disk failure, will all work on those models be lost? My disk is starting to make noises. What would be a prudent ongoing procedure to save & later restore progress without maintaining an incremental time machine history?
4) Questions and Answers : Macintosh : Not accepting Requests from this host (Message 48913)
Posted 26 Apr 2014 by WiseOwl
Post:
All is well, thanks for your help.
I have been chugging away on 7 WU for 20 hours so far.
5) Questions and Answers : Macintosh : Not accepting Requests from this host (Message 48872)
Posted 23 Apr 2014 by WiseOwl
Post:
Thanks. I updated to BOINC 7.2.42 about a week ago and "About BOINC Manager" confirms version is 7.2.42. Maximum of -1 WU per day! That would explain it.
6) Questions and Answers : Macintosh : Not accepting Requests from this host (Message 48869)
Posted 23 Apr 2014 by WiseOwl
Post:
I see on the server page that there are 60,000 tasks (hadam3pm2) waiting for Macs. I have OSX 10.8.5, 12 GB ram and lots of disk space. Prefs say run all applications. I don't look at graphics output. I get connection deferred 24 hours and the event log says "Not accepting connections from this host". What's wrong?




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