(Archived) time-machine backup behavior

[agh77 0]

I'm wondering how Evernote and Time Machine inter operate. Is OS X's time machine smart enough to recognize individual changes/update only those, or does it backup the entire notes database upon the slightest change in Evernote? I ask because my Time Machine backup seems to repeatedly backup the same 3 GB file. I'm suspecting that it is the Evernote database. If that's the case, I'm tempted to exclude the database from my local backups (as it's all in the cloud, with no local-only notebooks), but it would be nice to have an extra redundant local copy on my backup disk.

I know this used to be a problem in the early days with Apple's Aperture database (pro photo program), but am curious if it affects Evernote as well.

Thanks!

Adam

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

But, assuming that a user were trusting enough to rely exclusively on your servers for backup of current note content, are there any compelling reasons for a Premium account holder (ie. with access to note histories) to add a separate local backup?

As well as the fact that you would have to sync back to the servers x amount of notes that you have to restore. It would be quite possible that you would go over the 500MB monthly limit and be stuck with a half working account because you cannot make new changes to your account due to the hard limit imposed.

That would only be a consideration if someone hacked into your account & changed/deleted your notes & were using a free account (which doesn't allow the user access to previous versions of the notes.) I think OP was thinking in terms of if a user's local database got destroyed (b/c you can restore from the EN servers) and had access to note histories b/c of having a premium account. However, I'm with you in this respect, just in case someone trashed a bunch of my notes - I'd rather be able to start from a database that I knew was good. Since, AFAIK, no one has hacked into anyone's EN account (scorned exes with your login/password aren't considered hackers), I'm not sure how this would be resolved. But I'm sure EN staff would work with the user in order to get things corrected.

However, jbenson's reason (IMO) is very compelling, if you have a very large database.

OTOH, I get rather freaked (it's a technical term ) at the thought of any cloud service having the only copy of my data. (No disrespect to EN.) So I like having my own backup copies of my database.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Addng a little spice to our holiday festivities, is what I'm thinking.

***rimshot***

Awesome!

(No wonder it only took 83 days to get the last million users! When something works, run with it.)

[jefito 5,589]

Full of cumin, no doubt.

I've been trying to figure a way to tie .esex, Dave's holiday card list & now cumin into a single post. But I've got nothing.

Addng a little spice to our holiday festivities, is what I'm thinking.

***rimshot***

~Jeff

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Full of cumin, no doubt.

I've been trying to figure a way to tie .esex, Dave's holiday card list & now cumin into a single post. But I've got nothing.

[mdave 1]

...on the Mac, the resources and attachments are stored on the file system, with just the "metadata" in the database.

I.e. you need to back up the whole directory.

And that's good news, Dave, because Time Machine is not an issue under this scheme—small database to backup, and any other individual resources.

[jefito 5,589]

Full of cumin, no doubt.

~Jeff

[mdave 1]

I asked our lead engineer, and he said that I was incorrect. (Actually he said that I was full of something inappropriate for a community forum.)

Perhaps not for this community forum... :shock:

Thanks, Dave.

[engberg 89]

I asked our lead engineer, and he said that I was incorrect. (Actually he said that I was full of something inappropriate for a community forum.)

On Windows, we actually store everything in the SQL database, but on the Mac, the resources and attachments are stored on the file system, with just the "metadata" in the database.

I.e. you need to back up the whole directory.

[mdave 1]

Actually, all of your data (including file attachments) are stored within the SQL database. This provides more reliability than a "flat" file system.

My SQL database is about 15MB. My Content folder is over 800MB and includes lots of multimedia. How is it possible that it is all included in the 15MB SQL database?

[philippe99 4]

Even if I rely on EN's server, I also time-backup my EN SQL database.

The main problem -as far as Time machine is concerned- about monolithic files, like the EN's SQL database or the VMWare virtual machine images for instance, is that each time this file is "touched" by the system, TM will copy it as a different instance onto your backup disk: TM cannot detect difference between two of these files to only store the differences instead of the whole new instance of it.

But in TM you can excluded files/folders from the TM action: that's what I do with my Fusion Windows virtual machine. And that's what I will probably do with the EN's database if it becomes huge.

An in this case, a manual copy of such files to an external drive will be sufficient to have a secure backup

Regards

Phil

[crispinb 8]

Thanks guys. I asked out of curiosity because I do backup (time machine + a regular CCCloner image update), but feel mildly neurotic doing it. I don't see a very compelling reason to do so still. With my <2000 notes (albeit the number is growing), populating afresh from EN's servers is pretty quick. But I can't quite bring myself to not back up my own stuff.

[engberg 89]

Evernote's servers definitely provide a good backup of your data. I tend to like to have a local backup of all of my data just for sanity's purposes, and Time Machine makes this incredibly easy. I.e. there's not really much of a reason NOT to buy a $100 USB drive and run Time Machine on it.

[jfwarrior 6]

If you have thousands of notes, Speed of restoration is a big issue

As well as the fact that you would have to sync back to the servers x amount of notes that you have to restore. It would be quite possible that you would go over the 500MB monthly limit and be stuck with a half working account because you cannot make new changes to your account due to the hard limit imposed.

[jbenson2 2,147]

If you have thousands of notes, Speed of restoration is a big issue

[crispinb 8]

All of our data is stored within your home directory, under:

Library / Application Support / Evernote

Time Machine does a good job backing up the database using the default settings. You can then restore the database later if you want to recover something from an old copy of your database. (I'd recommend disconnecting networking before starting the client to prevent it from synchronizing.)

I understand that for good defensive reasons you're bound to say that users ought to do their own backups.

But, assuming that a user were trusting enough to rely exclusively on your servers for backup of current note content, are there any compelling reasons for a Premium account holder (ie. with access to note histories) to add a separate local backup?

[engberg 89]

When I navigate to ~/Library/Application Support/Evernote/data/.../content/p159 for instance, there is a folder with with what seems to be a note's given source files.

Those are caches of data formatted for faster display in the client's embedded HTML viewer (WebKit). That's not the canonical location for the data itself, which is in the database. The distinction probably isn't too relevant, since I think that deleting either of them might cause the client to malfunction. I.e. I'd always backup and restore the whole directory.

[agh77 0]

Too bad that Apple abandoned the ZFS project, which probably would have sped up adoption of this change.

Separately, of course I'm an Evernote premium user! How could anyone not be ;-).

[crispinb 8]

I'm wondering how Evernote and Time Machine inter operate. Is OS X's time machine smart enough to recognize individual changes/update only those, or does it backup the entire notes database upon the slightest change in Evernote? I ask because my Time Machine backup seems to repeatedly backup the same 3 GB file. I'm suspecting that it is the Evernote database. If that's the case, I'm tempted to exclude the database from my local backups (as it's all in the cloud, with no local-only notebooks), but it would be nice to have an extra redundant local copy on my backup disk.

I know this used to be a problem in the early days with Apple's Aperture database (pro photo program), but am curious if it affects Evernote as well.

Thanks!

Adam

According to this, which I think is correct from my experience, TM doesn't do file deltas, so the whole db will be backed up every time there is a change. There's a chance Apple will change this at some point in the future, but no guarantee, and not soon. I'd just put up with the slowness, but another option would be to go Premium with EN (for note history) and rely on ENs backups.

[agh77 0]

Actually, all of your data (including file attachments) are stored within the SQL database. This provides more reliability than a "flat" file system.

Okay - I'll take your word for it!

When I navigate to ~/Library/Application Support/Evernote/data/.../content/p159 for instance, there is a folder with with what seems to be a note's given source files.

(?)

[engberg 89]

Actually, all of your data (including file attachments) are stored within the SQL database. This provides more reliability than a "flat" file system.

[agh77 0]

All of our data is stored within your home directory, under:

Library / Application Support / Evernote

Time Machine does a good job backing up the database using the default settings. You can then restore the database later if you want to recover something from an old copy of your database. (I'd recommend disconnecting networking before starting the client to prevent it from synchronizing.)

Thank you....it's very reassuring to see that the "native" files (PDF, DOC, etc.) are maintained in the source form in the individual item folders. I suspected (incorrectly) that the notes were stored all in one file, a SQL database/sparse image or the like. I feel better knowing that the source files are maintained so that one bad disk write operation won't "take the whole thing down."

I'll take your advise and continue the Time Machine backups!

Adam

[engberg 89]

All of our data is stored within your home directory, under:

Library / Application Support / Evernote

Time Machine does a good job backing up the database using the default settings. You can then restore the database later if you want to recover something from an old copy of your database. (I'd recommend disconnecting networking before starting the client to prevent it from synchronizing.)