How to exclude a Knox Vault from Time Machine?

difrance

Hello all, I was just reading the FAQs for Knox and came across a note saying that you should exclude Knox vaults from Time Machine backups. I went into my TimeMachine preferences but was unable to select the vault I created for exclusion. Am I missing something? Thanks in advance.

jxpx777

Hi, difrance, and welcome to the forums. In System Preferences > Time Machine, you can click Options and drag your Knox vault to the list to exclude it from backups.

difrance

HI Jamie, thanks. But I tried this approach before I posted to the forum...whenever I try to add the vault to the exlude list in time machine preferences, one of two things happens. If I try to use the selection list, I am unable to highlight and select the vault for inclusion on the exclusion list. If I drag a vault's icon into the list from a finder window or desktop, the icon is simply trashed in a puff of smoke. Neither approach adds the vault to the exclusion list.



Any ideas? Thanks again.

jxpx777

[quote name='difrance']HI Jamie, thanks. But I tried this approach before I posted to the forum...whenever I try to add the vault to the exlude list in time machine preferences, one of two things happens. If I try to use the selection list, I am unable to highlight and select the vault for inclusion on the exclusion list. If I drag a vault's icon into the list from a finder window or desktop, the icon is simply trashed in a puff of smoke. Neither approach adds the vault to the exclusion list.



Any ideas? Thanks again.[/QUOTE]



You'll want to make sure you're adding the .sparsebundle file and not the mounted disk. OS X recognizes that this is a "virtual" disk since it's a disk image so it won't back up the contents. If you locate the .sparsebundle file and drag it to the list or else locate it in the open panel that shows when you click +, you should be able to add it to the list. If not, I would first think it is related to your user account's permissions…

difrance

[quote name='Jamie']You'll want to make sure you're adding the .sparsebundle file and not the mounted disk. OS X recognizes that this is a "virtual" disk since it's a disk image so it won't back up the contents. If you locate the .sparsebundle file and drag it to the list or else locate it in the open panel that shows when you click +, you should be able to add it to the list. If not, I would first think it is related to your user account's permissions…[/QUOTE]



Hi Jamie, DUH!! Guess I am a newbie! I was not working with the file, as you say, but rather the virtual disk. Once I located the actual file, all was fine. Thank you.

jxpx777

Thanks for the update. Glad it worked for you.

OogieM

Why not allow time machine to backup up knox files?



What is the limit beyond which you should use the knox backup system?

MartyS

[quote name='OogieM']Why not allow time machine to backup up knox files?



What is the limit beyond which you should use the knox backup system?[/QUOTE]



We suggest that you not rely on Time Machine for "large" Knox vaults. I don't believe there is an absolute size in mind here... it's just that when a vault is mounted the Finder can update invisible files on the vault, making it a candidate for Time Machine to backup in its next cycle. If the vault isn't the "10.5" sparsebundle style then the entire contents of the vault would be backed up... resulting in a potentially large amount of space on your Time Machine backup device to be tied up.



The Knox backups are a super thing to use all the time: they can provide one or more copy of the vault to another machine (through an AFP-mounted destination), to Dropbox, etc.

OogieM

Well my Time Machine is currently backing up to a 2 terabyte RAID in another location :-) I don't think I'm going to run out of space soon so I'm not going to worry about it and will continue to let TM back up my stuff.



Thanks for the info.

MartyS

[quote name='OogieM']Well my Time Machine is currently backing up to a 2 terabyte RAID in another location :-) I don't think I'm going to run out of space soon so I'm not going to worry about it and will continue to let TM back up my stuff.



Thanks for the info.[/QUOTE]



We won't stop you! :) Now if you had said you had 2 petabyte available I was going to ask if you'd be willing to share. ;)

medic

[quote name='MartyS']

The Knox backups are a super thing to use all the time: they can provide one or more copy of the vault to another machine (through an AFP-mounted destination), to Dropbox, etc.[/QUOTE]



Will the Knox backups allow you to access different versions of a file like Time Machine usually can?



Is it possible to get different versions of a backup file with Knox vaults backed up using Time Machine? Is it a case of restoring the relevant Knox vault and then searching for the file? What if the disk image is already mounted on the mac? Can you just go through the folders/files in it on Time Machine?

MartyS

[quote name='medic']Will the Knox backups allow you to access different versions of a file like Time Machine usually can?



Is it possible to get different versions of a backup file with Knox vaults backed up using Time Machine? Is it a case of restoring the relevant Knox vault and then searching for the file? What if the disk image is already mounted on the mac? Can you just go through the folders/files in it on Time Machine?[/QUOTE]



The Knox Preferences allow you to specify if only a single backup will be made or multiples. This control is on a vault by vault basis. If the vault backups are stored on a drive that Time Machine backs up then you would have that additional level of multiple files to recover from.



Time Machine doesn't backup the individual files inside your vault(s)... just the vault container themselves. You'd have to use Time Machine to recover the vault from a particular point in time and then mount that copy to recover the individual information.