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-   -   SD Smart Backup can run out of space on dense destination (https://www.shirt-pocket.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3533)

mykmelez 02-06-2008 09:46 AM

SD Smart Backup can run out of space on dense destination
 
I used SD 2.5 yesterday to back up a loaner laptop to an external drive and then restore the backup from the external drive to my normal laptop, using Smart Update for both transfers.

The normal laptop's drive was near capacity before I started the restore (~90-91GB used on a 92GB drive), and although the backup was much smaller (~72GB), since I'd compressed some large files while using the loaner, the first restore attempt failed when the normal laptop ran out of space.

I worked around this issue by manually deleting some large files from the normal laptop and then doing the restore again, and it wasn't a great deal of trouble, just a minor annoyance (might have been a bit more of an annoyance if I'd had to delete a bunch of small files).

Nevertheless, I wonder whether SD could handle this case, perhaps by truncating files on the target to their size on the source (or deleting them altogether if they no longer exist on the source) before it starts copying them over.

dnanian 02-06-2008 12:42 PM

See the Troubleshooting section of the User's Guide for an explanation of what we do and why this can happen... we're looking at potential improvements for the future.

mykmelez 02-06-2008 01:33 PM

Thanks for the pointer. I read through the Troubleshooting section, and it sounds like I ran into the "copy new files before deleting old ones" problem. I'll use the suggested one-time "Erase, then Copy" work-around next time.

aak4 04-21-2008 11:54 PM

Easy Solution
 
I think an easy solution is this:

Make a way to set SuperDuper! to default to the erase
then backup option if the smart update fails due to lack of space. At least then, we would get a successful backup instead of an error.

What do you guys think? Does this sound like a good idea?

dnanian 04-22-2008 09:30 AM

In general, I don't like taking steps like this without user intervention... after all, we don't know why the disk was full, really...

aak4 04-22-2008 11:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dnanian (Post 19020)
In general, I don't like taking steps like this without user intervention... after all, we don't know why the disk was full, really...

What if an advanced option like this was made, "If Smart Update runs out of space, then do a 'Erase, then copy'"? Then the people who would like this option can select it.

This isn't the best option for everyone, but for those of us who know why our backup disk gets full sometimes, it would make us feel much more comfortable knowing that we have a complete and successful backup.

dnanian 04-22-2008 11:35 AM

But you could get in much more trouble if this happened automatically. I don't think it's a good idea...


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