I see that quite a number of people have the same issue. They copy camera card on to computer then do backup then later rename the files and move them to other directories. Smartware then ends up with several copies of these very large files, the only difference is the filename and/or path. This wastes a huge amount of space and you are never really sure which is the most up to date version of the file.
I have just tried deleting the whole original directory in the .swstor where I moved some of these files from even though there are still lots of files that should be there. Hoping that smartware would rebuild the directory just leaving out the files that had been moved out. Unfortunately it did not.
The only way I could get it to include that directory back into the backup was to switch computer off and on, start up smartware again, unselect all other folders, then select just the folder i wanted and get it to back this up on its own.
Then finally switch back to backing everything up. I think this has worked, the space seems to have been recovered.
But I don’t understand why it did not recognise that the folder was missing when I deleted it and automatically back it up again, is this a bug or feature?
You could set SmartWare to schedule mode. This is will grant you enough time to organize/move files as needed before SmartWare proceeds to update the backup.
mikewd wrote:
But I don’t understand why it did not recognise that the folder was missing when I deleted it and automatically back it up again, is this a bug or feature?
This is a feature since SmartWare is a backup software, not a synchronization software.
Not sure you quite understand. Images may be renamed and moved around within a day or two or, if things are very busy, it may be months later when organising the library and tidying up files that got missed. The files need to be backed up where they are downloaded from camera but also need to recognise that they have been moved later and not end up with multiple copies of large files.
I accept that the software can’t do synchronisation but why did it not back up the specific folder when I deleted it from the backup? As far as I understand this is nothing to do with synchronisation, it is simply checking that all the ticked folders are present on the disk that is being backed up AND in the backup. Clearly once I had deleted it there was one of the ticked folders missing from the backup so why did it not go ahead and back up this missing data? Are you saying it has an internal database and if it thinks it has backed something up then it will never try to copy it again even if the folder has been deleted from the backup?
That’s exactly right. You broke the backup when you deleted the file from the backup folder. Now, it’s not going to backup correctly. You will need to redo the backup.
What, Trancer was trying to tell you is that the software is a backup software, so it does NOT track what you change in your original directories, nor does it sync them up. When you move things around, alot, you will end up with many copies. However, you should still be able to see which is the most recent, based on the current location of the file.
If you’re going to be always moving files around and rearrange them, you will need to consider a sync program to help you out with that.
What does "You will need to redo the backup. " mean? Delete the entire 5tb contents of the disk and start again hoping that the main drives do not fail in the meantime?
It appears to be working ok after the work around I suggested.
Shame there is no documentation on any of this especially as it is just the kind of thing that possibly the majority of people getting the large disks will want to do.
Deleting files or moving files in the backup folder has been known to break a backup to the point that you would have to start all over with a new backup. However, if it’s working for you, and you can see that it’s backing up the new files, then you should be okay.
