yeah. I have a 9-year-old computer on BB and I've never noticed it actually doing its thing. Every now and again I check the logs and it is actually backing up overnight. I think I have mine set to 2am-6am but it generally only spends about 15 minutes backing up.I would say reinstall and start the whole backup from scratch. If that's possible. Something must be corrupted somewhere - not what you want in a backup!Upgrading to an SSD would be a great move regardless!
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 26 April 2020 17:04 (four years ago) link
All this agita about online backups has me thinking maybe it would be easier to just plug in a drive
― calstars, Sunday, 26 April 2020 17:05 (four years ago) link
doesn't help with robbery, a flood, etc (though mark does live in the top floor so flooding probably not high on the risk register)biggest win potentially here is mark dispensing with reliance on the jackass of hackney road
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 26 April 2020 17:06 (four years ago) link
yes
― mark s, Sunday, 26 April 2020 17:10 (four years ago) link
I’m dealing with gigabytes if data. Huge audio files, image files etc. I have a 2017 iMac with a 4 drive enclosure, all backed up via backblaze and I notice no problems at all. I also have a cheap huge WD drive on my desktop for time machine. If you’re not working off an SSD that’s your first problem. Then if you system drive doesn’t have TONS of free space that’s the second. Get stuff off that drive. External hard drives are cheap. Thumb drives are cheap. If those two things don’t fix your problems something’s buggy and you should be nagging backblaze support.
― dan selzer, Sunday, 26 April 2020 17:14 (four years ago) link
ok
― mark s, Sunday, 26 April 2020 17:49 (four years ago) link
Just as a point of reference, my equivalent block of Backblaze was only 631MB, NB I have very fast internet upstream so my initially backup only took a few hours and I almost never see Backblaze at work.
― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Monday, 27 April 2020 02:38 (four years ago) link
I put a ssd in an imac a few years ago and it was great until the last update didn’t play well with the upgrade. It’s glitchy and I have to research how to fix it.
― Cow_Art, Monday, 27 April 2020 03:08 (four years ago) link
It's so messed up that the only Macs that aren't thermally limited are either (1) $7k+ (2) built-in everything, including the screen.
― lukas, Thursday, 30 April 2020 23:11 (four years ago) link
Thermally limited ?
― calstars, Friday, 1 May 2020 03:49 (four years ago) link
processor throttling afaict
most aren’t that limited and, I would argue, opting in to limiting for battery life should be an option
― mh, Friday, 1 May 2020 03:59 (four years ago) link
Yeah it throttles down CPU speed when it gets too hot. Conventional wisdom has it that this is an issue for Macbook Pros and Mac Minis but maybe the Mini at least has gotten better? Better enough to run Witcher 3 with an eGPU in Bootcamp though? eh? eh?
― lukas, Friday, 1 May 2020 04:06 (four years ago) link
update on my backblaze issues: since i switched to "backup now" as my option to decide ive had 0 problems with the return of the spinny disc -- will follow up on SSD as advised at some future point (like when i can get a bus to this guy's workplace and not a 4-hr round walk lol)
i also found some more space just via deleting attachments in mail which had built up since i last had a clear-out and will maybe try OnyX at some point also to really get into the dusty nooks and crannies
― mark s, Friday, 1 May 2020 11:32 (four years ago) link
If you mean my friend Pablo he says he does pickups.
― Alba, Friday, 1 May 2020 12:42 (four years ago) link
oh does he? i didn't see that on his site -- i need to send off the query anyway (since cost is also an issue given i have 0 work currently)
― mark s, Friday, 1 May 2020 12:51 (four years ago) link
get me work alba
I guess he doesn't promise it on his site as he doesn't want to be racing across London to trace an iPhone battery but this i world be a bigger job and his mum still lives in Hackney so I guess he's there quite a lot! Yeah I think the cost of an SSD is worth it but not inconsiderable if you're out of work :/
― Alba, Friday, 1 May 2020 12:55 (four years ago) link
Replace not trace, he's not a spy
― Alba, Friday, 1 May 2020 12:56 (four years ago) link
the spy is you doxxing his mum :D
― mark s, Friday, 1 May 2020 12:57 (four years ago) link
anyway thx yes, i will pursue this
SSD prices have dropped a lot just in the past year. you can get 1TB for about a hundred quid.
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Friday, 1 May 2020 13:07 (four years ago) link
Oh that's good. Yeah I think it was about twice that when I got mine.
― Alba, Friday, 1 May 2020 13:08 (four years ago) link
They’re also easy to install depending on your computer. Hi to OWC and buy the drive and they’ll send you the tools and a link to a video.
― dan selzer, Friday, 1 May 2020 13:32 (four years ago) link
Ah yeah - by all means give that a go. I wasn't brave enough to do it myself.
― Alba, Friday, 1 May 2020 13:44 (four years ago) link
while tidying up i happened to look a little bit more carefully at the packaging for my replacement laptop battery and i'm pleased to say the warning on the side says "Risk of fire or bum if mishandled"
― mark s, Friday, 1 May 2020 14:00 (four years ago) link
i: do backblaze fans know any ways to dial down its space hogging ii: ilxor tips on what i can clear out of ancient garbage which cleanmymac™ fails to dig out― mark s, Saturday, April 25, 2020 2:52 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink
― mark s, Saturday, April 25, 2020 2:52 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink
mark i've logged several tasks to BB about the space hogging (which I can see from my periodic GrandPerspective scans. they repeatedly send a pre-prepared blurb that doesn't quite answer the problem - so why have i got a 15gb BB block just sitting there when I'm all backed up? In the end I bought a 1TB SSD and it's all good now because I'm not close to the edge storage wise. BB is good, but it's not always that good.
― lefal junglist platton (wtev), Monday, 4 May 2020 22:19 (four years ago) link
re BB: i back up by choice now, once a day if i remember over night, which means less spinny disc while i'm working
sevdral times since i installed the new battery the whole thing has just turned itself off while sitting there -- as far as i can interpret the report it's bcz it's overheating? might a new battery cause this?
also chrome now keeps falling over (i think it maybe failed to update properly for some reason and is stuck in some flimsy in-between state -- maybe i shd reinstall?) (will i lose all my lovely bookmarks if i do?)
i still haven't contacted tracer's new guy to find out about the upgrade, if it keeps misbehaving i will
― mark s, Thursday, 14 May 2020 19:31 (three years ago) link
it's Alba's guy! which speaks even better of him :)
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 14 May 2020 20:09 (three years ago) link
check the power manager / energy saver settings mark
― j., Thursday, 14 May 2020 21:04 (three years ago) link
this isn't powering down tidily while at rest, this is blinking out abruptly mid-move* and when i restart giving me a warning message and a bunch of coding crap to send to apple
*not a move i'm directly making though, it hasn't ever done it while i'm working on it, only when i'm not looking
― mark s, Friday, 15 May 2020 09:50 (three years ago) link
If you're worried about Chrome losing your bookmarks when you reinstall it you can export them all first and then import again if needed. The place to do this is a bit hidden but I'm sure if you Google there are instructions. I make that backup every so often anyway just in case.Also, if you're logged into Chrome and have our set up to sync your bookmarks (this may be the default these days) then they all get saved in the cloud anyway so even if you log into Chrome on a completely new computer the bookmarks magically appear.
― Alba, Friday, 15 May 2020 11:08 (three years ago) link
Our = it
cheers alba and everyone, sorry i am very demotivated and self-loathingly ground under at the moment, caught between "of course this shd all be perfectly easy for me to research and grasp" and "please can i clear all this toss out of my head and have interesting stuff back in there, as a treat"
― mark s, Friday, 15 May 2020 11:32 (three years ago) link
no this sounds like some bad juju mark. i really think you should get Alba’s guy to give the whole thing a once-over, get BB working right, and quote you for an SSD. like a bike tune-up sort of.
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Friday, 15 May 2020 11:34 (three years ago) link
ok so i reinstalled chrome w/o incident
(or only dumb incident, i didn't lost any of my lovely/stupid bookmark but it subtly reordered them so that the ones i use most were hidden out beyond the double expansion arrows)
― mark s, Friday, 15 May 2020 15:19 (three years ago) link
― lefal junglist platton (wtev), Saturday, 16 May 2020 16:41 (three years ago) link
yeah mark ssds are magical
― j., Saturday, 16 May 2020 16:46 (three years ago) link
i downloaded OnyX to see if it can help me clear space until i sort out an SSD but whenever i set it to run (and whatever i ask it to do) it just gives me unresponsive
― mark s, Sunday, 17 May 2020 12:54 (three years ago) link
ok maybe it's just the bigger things i ask it to do that stall it, i'll try it overnight
― mark s, Sunday, 17 May 2020 13:46 (three years ago) link
ok ignore this OnyX complaint it just takes a long time (and apparently signals that it's doing what it is actually doing by saying it's "not responding")
― mark s, Monday, 18 May 2020 10:25 (three years ago) link
ok lol so i quizzed alba's guy on installing an SSD, here's the essence of his response: this macbook air already has an SSD, installed in such a way as to slow the processors and reduce the RAM so as to keep the price low: since RAM and processor are soldered on, it can barely be upgraded (a faster model of SSD is possible but cost greatly outweighs benefit)
which is gloomy news tho he has been very helpful in other ways so this is a good development
― mark s, Monday, 18 May 2020 11:47 (three years ago) link
not to doubt the dude but some OG Macbook Airs did come with woefully slow hard drives. If it's that old you have more problems than the drive, though
― stet, Monday, 18 May 2020 12:10 (three years ago) link
i mean this is basically what he says, i could trade up the drive but it makes much more sense to pay a bit more and trade up the whole thing -- esp.as i could also sell what i have secondhand to offset it
― mark s, Monday, 18 May 2020 12:59 (three years ago) link
How about an ilxu didn’t realize it was an air. They’ve only ever had SSDs. No question, by a new computer.
― dan selzer, Monday, 18 May 2020 13:55 (three years ago) link
Yeah, I didn't realise it was a MacBook Air. How old is yours (Apple – About this Mac)? Annoyingly, I'd be happy to sell you one for not much money if I was still living in the UK.
― Alba, Monday, 18 May 2020 14:16 (three years ago) link
If international shipping wasn't a complete bother right now, I'd be doing the same :/
― mh, Monday, 18 May 2020 14:25 (three years ago) link
it's a mid-2013 11-inch, i did carefully give this info once upon a time but it's now buried way upthread in the 8000 posts that only unfurl if you want them to (and who wants them to?) so fair enough no one remembering lol
― mark s, Monday, 18 May 2020 14:42 (three years ago) link
My wife had the same and tbh it's worked just fine, though she just replaced it with a new macbook pro 13".
― dan selzer, Monday, 18 May 2020 15:08 (three years ago) link
well the original issue here was that backblaze seemed to be using much more memory than it maybe should be
(also that i needed to replace the battery, but this has been sorted and seems to be fine; then that chrome had misinstalled in an upgrade, also now sorted)
― mark s, Monday, 18 May 2020 15:18 (three years ago) link
the randomly shutting off issue portends bad things imo particularly since you have a new battery. did Alba’s guy mention anything about that?
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Monday, 18 May 2020 15:26 (three years ago) link