Time Machine also deals with directly connected UBS hard drives (or Firewire or SATA drives) and network shares on Time Capsule or AirPort Extreme drives differently, making the two methods incompatible. Users have to decide between using Time Machine over the network or to a local disk; the same USB drive can't be shuttled between the two to create a single set of backups.
I was thinking, is there not possibly a way to convert one to the other? Could one copy a direct Time Machine backup folder into a sparse disk image with the correct name, and then have that show up as a network Time Machine backup? Could one take a network folder, copy the contents out onto an external disk and then use it locally?
Does anyone know if it is possible to have a single iPhoto library shared on a home network among multiple computers? I couldn't find it in the Help documentation or the Apple website. I'm not talking about 'sharing' photos, but actually having read/write/modify privileges from any computer to the same set of photos. Would TC or Extreme have any difference in this capability? (wouldn't seem so)
I was thinking, is there not possibly a way to convert one to the other? Could one copy a direct Time Machine backup folder into a sparse disk image with the correct name, and then have that show up as a network Time Machine backup? Could one take a network folder, copy the contents out onto an external disk and then use it locally?
Requires further investimagation...
There is no conversion process that I know of for doing this.
You bring up the idea of power users opting for a dedicated NAS instead of relying on the TC or AEB to perform the duty and write to either its internal or connected USB drive. But you also detail how sub-par the Apple routers' gigabit ethernet switch is. So would a NAS attached to either TC or AEB via gigabit ethernet really gain much, or would it be choked much the same as the TC chokes writes to its internal SATA drive?
You bring up the idea of power users opting for a dedicated NAS instead of relying on the TC or AEB to perform the duty and write to either its internal or connected USB drive. But you also detail how sub-par the Apple routers' gigabit ethernet switch is. So would a NAS attached to either TC or AEB via gigabit ethernet really gain much, or would it be choked much the same as the TC chokes writes to its internal SATA drive?
Or how would you set it up to avoid this?
This article, while useful, was somewhat poorly written, by AppleInsider's usually higher standards. I had to re-read some parts several times, but I think when they were criticizing the gigabit performance, they were still talking about it in reference to reading and writing data to the TC's internal or USB drives. They left that very important bit of information out of most of the references to poor Gb performance, but I think if you go back again you'll see that's what they meant.
Even when they were talking about writing to a drive connected to the PowerMac G5, I assume they were still writing to the same USB drive (I assume that because they never say and because I've achieved higher performance writing to a FW drive connected to a lowly mini over the Ethernet to an Extreme). If that's the case, the USB drive was probably the bottleneck, not the Ethernet.
Unfortunately, they just didn't give enough information to come to any good conclusions about how their results would translate to other situations.
Cool! I suspected there would be some clever trick to this, Thanks!
How do you exclude stuff in TM? I don't see a file level exclude selection just a drive selection. Is there a feature like Carbon Copy Cloner to only select certain files?
Actually, there's an even easier way. Just start a Time Machine backup to the mounted network volume, and when it gets past the first stage and starts writing files, stop it, either by pushing the cancel button or by selecting "Stop Backing Up." It will leave a nearly empty disk image on the drive.
Unmount it, and connect it directly to the Mac (don't change ANY settings), and tell it to "Back Up Now." It will complete the backup to the image it already created. Then you can plug it back into the network server (Mac, Time Capsule or Airport Extreme) and it will work as you would like.
Interestingly, in this way, you can interchange network and direct backups. The same image can be used as a direct connect backup as long as it was first created over the network. Also, don't be assuming this only works with USB. You can use any drive (e.g. firewire, etc.) like this if you start by connecting it to a host Mac running personal file sharing. Just for "compatibility" sake, I'd probably make it a policy to start all backups on a network source so they're all stored in the same format.
I was thinking, is there not possibly a way to convert one to the other? Could one copy a direct Time Machine backup folder into a sparse disk image with the correct name, and then have that show up as a network Time Machine backup? Could one take a network folder, copy the contents out onto an external disk and then use it locally?
I was wondering if you could confirm something? We know that Time Machine writes normal files on a directly connected disk and a sparse disk image when backing up to Time Capsule or other non-Mac network shares (because those shares don't know about hard links). But I haven't seen anywhere how it writes files when it's to a disk shared from another Leopard Mac.
So I'm assuming your MacBook Pro writes normal files to your MyBook even when other Macs are using the disk for TM. Does your wife and kid's computers write to the MyBook as sparse disk images, or does the fact that your MBP is managing the share allow them to write normal files directly to the MyBook?
My Macbook Pro (firewire connection) writes in the normal backups.backupdb directory. The two computers that back up over the network write to sparse disk images. The disk images are outside of the backups.backupdb directory, and exist at the root of the drive. On a good note- If my wife makes a lot of changes, I can move the drive to her computer and TM uses the sparse image even though it is locally connected.
Actually, there's an even easier way. Just start a Time Machine backup to the mounted network volume, and when it gets past the first stage and starts writing files, stop it, either by pushing the cancel button or by selecting "Stop Backing Up." It will leave a nearly empty disk image on the drive.
Unmount it, and connect it directly to the Mac (don't change ANY settings), and tell it to "Back Up Now." It will complete the backup to the image it already created. Then you can plug it back into the network server (Mac, Time Capsule or Airport Extreme) and it will work as you would like.
Interestingly, in this way, you can interchange network and direct backups. The same image can be used as a direct connect backup as long as it was first created over the network. Also, don't be assuming this only works with USB. You can use any drive (e.g. firewire, etc.) like this if you start by connecting it to a host Mac running personal file sharing. Just for "compatibility" sake, I'd probably make it a policy to start all backups on a network source so they're all stored in the same format.
I had tried this once and it ended up with a damaged sparcebundle file that Time Machine kept on choking on. That is why I went with the complete but small backup first.
My Macbook Pro (firewire connection) writes in the normal backups.backupdb directory. The two computers that back up over the network write to sparse disk images. The disk images are outside of the backups.backupdb directory, and exist at the root of the drive. On a good note- If my wife makes a lot of changes, I can move the drive to her computer and TM uses the sparse image even though it is locally connected.
Steve
Thanks for the info!
It's interesting (and good!) that Time Machine can find the sparse bundle disk images, even if you've moved the drive. That was another thing I was wondering about...what if I later want to change my network around? Sounds like it would handle that fine. AirDisk would probably be fast enough for most of my incremental updates, but I was concerned about what would happen the first time I downloaded 4 GB worth of photos after my next vacation!
Actually, there's an even easier way. Just start a Time Machine backup to the mounted network volume, and when it gets past the first stage and starts writing files, stop it, either by pushing the cancel button or by selecting "Stop Backing Up." It will leave a nearly empty disk image on the drive.
Unmount it, and connect it directly to the Mac (don't change ANY settings), and tell it to "Back Up Now." It will complete the backup to the image it already created. Then you can plug it back into the network server (Mac, Time Capsule or Airport Extreme) and it will work as you would like.
Interestingly, in this way, you can interchange network and direct backups. The same image can be used as a direct connect backup as long as it was first created over the network. Also, don't be assuming this only works with USB. You can use any drive (e.g. firewire, etc.) like this if you start by connecting it to a host Mac running personal file sharing. Just for "compatibility" sake, I'd probably make it a policy to start all backups on a network source so they're all stored in the same format.
1. This is unsupported by Apple unfortunately but does have merit.
2. I had tried this earlier and ran into serious issues in TM browser not showing everything.
3. The only reason for doing this would be to facilitate an acceptable wall time for completing the first backup if it were to be 100s of GBs that HAS to be done over WiFi.
1. This is unsupported by Apple unfortunately but does have merit.
2. I had tried this earlier and ran into serious issues in TM browser not showing everything.
3. The only reason for doing this would be to facilitate an acceptable wall time for completing the first backup if it were to be 100s of GBs that HAS to be done over WiFi.
Thanks, I managed to do this yesterday after all the excellent advice and this is the best way yet. Have you found a simple way to clone a TM back up made using the sparcebundle TM file? Will Carbon Copy Cloner in block mode do the job? File level attempts using CCC and Suer Duper all fail for me.
Correct me if I'm wrong but is the article stating it's faster using Time Machine and read/write files to a NAS drive which is connected to Time Capsule via Ethernet 1000 cable instead of using a USB NAS drive? Is there any speed difference when using Ethernet NAS compared to USB NAS over a 802.11n WLAN? Does the Time Capsule firewall still protect an Ethernet NAS drive (restrict user access, password protect) as it does for a USB NAS drive?
Correct me if I'm wrong but is the article stating it's faster using Time Machine and read/write files to a NAS drive which is connected to Time Capsule via Ethernet 1000 cable instead of using a USB NAS drive? Is there any speed difference when using Ethernet NAS compared to USB NAS over a 802.11n WLAN? Does the Time Capsule firewall still protect an Ethernet NAS drive (restrict user access, password protect) as it does for a USB NAS drive?
Here are some data points from my testing that may help you decided if NAS is the right thing for you. But to answer your last question first, no, TC's disk permissions/security features will not apply to a dedicated NAS because TC wouldn't be managing that disk as it would for it's own internal or USB attached drives. Your NAS may provide similar features of it's own?
I don't have a NAS, but to simulate that I used a PowerBook with Gigabit Ethernet and an attached Firewire drive (which would be much faster than a USB drive or the PB's own internal drive). The PB was attached to a Gigabit Extreme via Ethernet. The Extreme was in N-only mode with wide channels. For an AirDisk, I used the same drive that was attached to the PB for the sake of consistency (it has FW and USB connections).
The wireless client was a new MBP. I used two sets of test data because network transfers of large files is much more efficient than for small files. One was a folder of 1400 small files totalling 163 MB (probably a typical Time Machine incremental backup). The second was a folder of 100 image files totalling 820 MB (representing updating my Aperture archive). One big caveat: I timed the tests with a stopwatch and only ran each one once (I have a real job, and this ain't it! ). Here were my results:
Folder of small files:
AirDisk: 0.91 MB/s write, 2.58 MB/s read
PB/FW: 2.62 MB/s write, 4.63 MB/s read
Folder of large files:
AirDisk: 3.38 MB/s write, 7.45 MB/s read
PB/FW: 10.34 MB/s write, 12.56 MB/s read
As you can see, my psuedo NAS has much better performance than the Extreme's USB disk. A dedicated NAS with an internal SATA drive should do even better than my 4-year old PB/FW drive combo. Also, when I connect my MBP to the Extreme via Gigabit Ethernet, the results are even more dramatic. My psudo NAS achieved between 34-38 MB/s reading and writing the folder of large files as opposed to 7.6 - 16.9 MB/s for the AirDisk.
There is a much quicker way to do the initial backup. Connect the usb drive to your airport extreme and do a time machine back up excluding just about all files on your internal hard drive. All you want is to create the initial sparcebundle file. Once this backup is complete, you can attach the usb drive directly to your computer and time machine will recognize it. Remove all the excluded files and do a back up again. Time machine will use the sparcebundle file for the back up. Once you finished, reattach your usb drive to the airport extreme.
Or the really quick way is to click on "Stop Backing Up" (Time Machine menu) after you've got the sparsebundle file established. Then continue as described above.
There is a much quicker way to do the initial backup. Connect the usb drive to your airport extreme and do a time machine back up excluding just about all files on your internal hard drive. All you want is to create the initial sparcebundle file. Once this backup is complete, you can attach the usb drive directly to your computer and time machine will recognize it. Remove all the excluded files and do a back up again. Time machine will use the sparcebundle file for the back up. Once you finished, reattach your usb drive to the airport extreme.
I had to register just so I could reply to this. Thanks so much for this information!!!
I have a drive I've been using Time Machine with for the past year for my Macbook. I recently tried to set it up as a network drive on a MacMini I got ahold of, instead of plugging in directly. It appeared to work at first but then gave me the "not enough space" error message. I noticed the sparsebundle but didn't quite grasp the entire concept. I decided to give up and plug directly in- and I got the same message! I couldn't back up at all any more!
After reading your post, I deleted the sparsebundle file, and then the backup worked fine! Phew!
So it appears to me that the sparsebundle file takes precedence over the normal hard linked filesystem (there must be a reason, but that wasn't apparent at all to me). I was afraid that I would have to segregate my backups across drives or something.
I'd love to know Apple's logic when thinking it would be a good idea to use sparsebundles on network drives, but not all of the time. If it used the same system on both network and non-network drives, then backup images would be completely movable.
I'd love to know Apple's logic when thinking it would be a good idea to use sparsebundles on network drives, but not all of the time. If it used the same system on both network and non-network drives, then backup images would be completely movable.
I'm betting two reasons:
Afterthought It wasn't initially supported
Compatibility- can't guarantee the file system over the network
So if they had come up with the sparsebundles first maybe they would have used them for both methods. Obviously this is just a guess. I'm also wondering, on a file system such as FAT32 (over the network) does is break the bundles up at the 2GB or 4GB mark? Forgive me if this is answered some place else- I just thought of this.
Given the current state though, I would really like it to be smarter. If you have 180GB of hard linked backups, and a virtually empty sparse bundle file... Or at least some logic to detect both and ask a question, maybe based upon last backup date. Instead I Googled my tail off, and crossed my fingers as I deleted the sparsebundle.
The way it just seems to see a sparsebundle and run with it is kind of odd.
Comments
Time Machine also deals with directly connected UBS hard drives (or Firewire or SATA drives) and network shares on Time Capsule or AirPort Extreme drives differently, making the two methods incompatible. Users have to decide between using Time Machine over the network or to a local disk; the same USB drive can't be shuttled between the two to create a single set of backups.
I was thinking, is there not possibly a way to convert one to the other? Could one copy a direct Time Machine backup folder into a sparse disk image with the correct name, and then have that show up as a network Time Machine backup? Could one take a network folder, copy the contents out onto an external disk and then use it locally?
Requires further investimagation...
LY
I was thinking, is there not possibly a way to convert one to the other? Could one copy a direct Time Machine backup folder into a sparse disk image with the correct name, and then have that show up as a network Time Machine backup? Could one take a network folder, copy the contents out onto an external disk and then use it locally?
Requires further investimagation...
There is no conversion process that I know of for doing this.
Or how would you set it up to avoid this?
You bring up the idea of power users opting for a dedicated NAS instead of relying on the TC or AEB to perform the duty and write to either its internal or connected USB drive. But you also detail how sub-par the Apple routers' gigabit ethernet switch is. So would a NAS attached to either TC or AEB via gigabit ethernet really gain much, or would it be choked much the same as the TC chokes writes to its internal SATA drive?
Or how would you set it up to avoid this?
This article, while useful, was somewhat poorly written, by AppleInsider's usually higher standards. I had to re-read some parts several times, but I think when they were criticizing the gigabit performance, they were still talking about it in reference to reading and writing data to the TC's internal or USB drives. They left that very important bit of information out of most of the references to poor Gb performance, but I think if you go back again you'll see that's what they meant.
Even when they were talking about writing to a drive connected to the PowerMac G5, I assume they were still writing to the same USB drive (I assume that because they never say and because I've achieved higher performance writing to a FW drive connected to a lowly mini over the Ethernet to an Extreme). If that's the case, the USB drive was probably the bottleneck, not the Ethernet.
Unfortunately, they just didn't give enough information to come to any good conclusions about how their results would translate to other situations.
Cool! I suspected there would be some clever trick to this, Thanks!
How do you exclude stuff in TM? I don't see a file level exclude selection just a drive selection. Is there a feature like Carbon Copy Cloner to only select certain files?
Actually, there's an even easier way. Just start a Time Machine backup to the mounted network volume, and when it gets past the first stage and starts writing files, stop it, either by pushing the cancel button or by selecting "Stop Backing Up." It will leave a nearly empty disk image on the drive.
Unmount it, and connect it directly to the Mac (don't change ANY settings), and tell it to "Back Up Now." It will complete the backup to the image it already created. Then you can plug it back into the network server (Mac, Time Capsule or Airport Extreme) and it will work as you would like.
Interestingly, in this way, you can interchange network and direct backups. The same image can be used as a direct connect backup as long as it was first created over the network. Also, don't be assuming this only works with USB. You can use any drive (e.g. firewire, etc.) like this if you start by connecting it to a host Mac running personal file sharing. Just for "compatibility" sake, I'd probably make it a policy to start all backups on a network source so they're all stored in the same format.
I was thinking, is there not possibly a way to convert one to the other? Could one copy a direct Time Machine backup folder into a sparse disk image with the correct name, and then have that show up as a network Time Machine backup? Could one take a network folder, copy the contents out onto an external disk and then use it locally?
Requires further investimagation...
See my post immediately before this one.
I was wondering if you could confirm something? We know that Time Machine writes normal files on a directly connected disk and a sparse disk image when backing up to Time Capsule or other non-Mac network shares (because those shares don't know about hard links). But I haven't seen anywhere how it writes files when it's to a disk shared from another Leopard Mac.
So I'm assuming your MacBook Pro writes normal files to your MyBook even when other Macs are using the disk for TM. Does your wife and kid's computers write to the MyBook as sparse disk images, or does the fact that your MBP is managing the share allow them to write normal files directly to the MyBook?
My Macbook Pro (firewire connection) writes in the normal backups.backupdb directory. The two computers that back up over the network write to sparse disk images. The disk images are outside of the backups.backupdb directory, and exist at the root of the drive. On a good note- If my wife makes a lot of changes, I can move the drive to her computer and TM uses the sparse image even though it is locally connected.
Steve
Actually, there's an even easier way. Just start a Time Machine backup to the mounted network volume, and when it gets past the first stage and starts writing files, stop it, either by pushing the cancel button or by selecting "Stop Backing Up." It will leave a nearly empty disk image on the drive.
Unmount it, and connect it directly to the Mac (don't change ANY settings), and tell it to "Back Up Now." It will complete the backup to the image it already created. Then you can plug it back into the network server (Mac, Time Capsule or Airport Extreme) and it will work as you would like.
Interestingly, in this way, you can interchange network and direct backups. The same image can be used as a direct connect backup as long as it was first created over the network. Also, don't be assuming this only works with USB. You can use any drive (e.g. firewire, etc.) like this if you start by connecting it to a host Mac running personal file sharing. Just for "compatibility" sake, I'd probably make it a policy to start all backups on a network source so they're all stored in the same format.
I had tried this once and it ended up with a damaged sparcebundle file that Time Machine kept on choking on. That is why I went with the complete but small backup first.
Glor
My Macbook Pro (firewire connection) writes in the normal backups.backupdb directory. The two computers that back up over the network write to sparse disk images. The disk images are outside of the backups.backupdb directory, and exist at the root of the drive. On a good note- If my wife makes a lot of changes, I can move the drive to her computer and TM uses the sparse image even though it is locally connected.
Steve
Thanks for the info!
It's interesting (and good!) that Time Machine can find the sparse bundle disk images, even if you've moved the drive. That was another thing I was wondering about...what if I later want to change my network around? Sounds like it would handle that fine. AirDisk would probably be fast enough for most of my incremental updates, but I was concerned about what would happen the first time I downloaded 4 GB worth of photos after my next vacation!
Actually, there's an even easier way. Just start a Time Machine backup to the mounted network volume, and when it gets past the first stage and starts writing files, stop it, either by pushing the cancel button or by selecting "Stop Backing Up." It will leave a nearly empty disk image on the drive.
Unmount it, and connect it directly to the Mac (don't change ANY settings), and tell it to "Back Up Now." It will complete the backup to the image it already created. Then you can plug it back into the network server (Mac, Time Capsule or Airport Extreme) and it will work as you would like.
Interestingly, in this way, you can interchange network and direct backups. The same image can be used as a direct connect backup as long as it was first created over the network. Also, don't be assuming this only works with USB. You can use any drive (e.g. firewire, etc.) like this if you start by connecting it to a host Mac running personal file sharing. Just for "compatibility" sake, I'd probably make it a policy to start all backups on a network source so they're all stored in the same format.
1. This is unsupported by Apple unfortunately but does have merit.
2. I had tried this earlier and ran into serious issues in TM browser not showing everything.
3. The only reason for doing this would be to facilitate an acceptable wall time for completing the first backup if it were to be 100s of GBs that HAS to be done over WiFi.
1. This is unsupported by Apple unfortunately but does have merit.
2. I had tried this earlier and ran into serious issues in TM browser not showing everything.
3. The only reason for doing this would be to facilitate an acceptable wall time for completing the first backup if it were to be 100s of GBs that HAS to be done over WiFi.
Thanks, I managed to do this yesterday after all the excellent advice and this is the best way yet. Have you found a simple way to clone a TM back up made using the sparcebundle TM file? Will Carbon Copy Cloner in block mode do the job? File level attempts using CCC and Suer Duper all fail for me.
Correct me if I'm wrong but is the article stating it's faster using Time Machine and read/write files to a NAS drive which is connected to Time Capsule via Ethernet 1000 cable instead of using a USB NAS drive? Is there any speed difference when using Ethernet NAS compared to USB NAS over a 802.11n WLAN? Does the Time Capsule firewall still protect an Ethernet NAS drive (restrict user access, password protect) as it does for a USB NAS drive?
Here are some data points from my testing that may help you decided if NAS is the right thing for you. But to answer your last question first, no, TC's disk permissions/security features will not apply to a dedicated NAS because TC wouldn't be managing that disk as it would for it's own internal or USB attached drives. Your NAS may provide similar features of it's own?
I don't have a NAS, but to simulate that I used a PowerBook with Gigabit Ethernet and an attached Firewire drive (which would be much faster than a USB drive or the PB's own internal drive). The PB was attached to a Gigabit Extreme via Ethernet. The Extreme was in N-only mode with wide channels. For an AirDisk, I used the same drive that was attached to the PB for the sake of consistency (it has FW and USB connections).
The wireless client was a new MBP. I used two sets of test data because network transfers of large files is much more efficient than for small files. One was a folder of 1400 small files totalling 163 MB (probably a typical Time Machine incremental backup). The second was a folder of 100 image files totalling 820 MB (representing updating my Aperture archive). One big caveat: I timed the tests with a stopwatch and only ran each one once (I have a real job, and this ain't it!
Folder of small files:
AirDisk: 0.91 MB/s write, 2.58 MB/s read
PB/FW: 2.62 MB/s write, 4.63 MB/s read
Folder of large files:
AirDisk: 3.38 MB/s write, 7.45 MB/s read
PB/FW: 10.34 MB/s write, 12.56 MB/s read
As you can see, my psuedo NAS has much better performance than the Extreme's USB disk. A dedicated NAS with an internal SATA drive should do even better than my 4-year old PB/FW drive combo. Also, when I connect my MBP to the Extreme via Gigabit Ethernet, the results are even more dramatic. My psudo NAS achieved between 34-38 MB/s reading and writing the folder of large files as opposed to 7.6 - 16.9 MB/s for the AirDisk.
There is a much quicker way to do the initial backup. Connect the usb drive to your airport extreme and do a time machine back up excluding just about all files on your internal hard drive. All you want is to create the initial sparcebundle file. Once this backup is complete, you can attach the usb drive directly to your computer and time machine will recognize it. Remove all the excluded files and do a back up again. Time machine will use the sparcebundle file for the back up. Once you finished, reattach your usb drive to the airport extreme.
Or the really quick way is to click on "Stop Backing Up" (Time Machine menu) after you've got the sparsebundle file established. Then continue as described above.
There is a much quicker way to do the initial backup. Connect the usb drive to your airport extreme and do a time machine back up excluding just about all files on your internal hard drive. All you want is to create the initial sparcebundle file. Once this backup is complete, you can attach the usb drive directly to your computer and time machine will recognize it. Remove all the excluded files and do a back up again. Time machine will use the sparcebundle file for the back up. Once you finished, reattach your usb drive to the airport extreme.
I had to register just so I could reply to this. Thanks so much for this information!!!
I have a drive I've been using Time Machine with for the past year for my Macbook. I recently tried to set it up as a network drive on a MacMini I got ahold of, instead of plugging in directly. It appeared to work at first but then gave me the "not enough space" error message. I noticed the sparsebundle but didn't quite grasp the entire concept. I decided to give up and plug directly in- and I got the same message! I couldn't back up at all any more!
After reading your post, I deleted the sparsebundle file, and then the backup worked fine! Phew!
So it appears to me that the sparsebundle file takes precedence over the normal hard linked filesystem (there must be a reason, but that wasn't apparent at all to me). I was afraid that I would have to segregate my backups across drives or something.
So, once again, thanks so much!!
I'd love to know Apple's logic when thinking it would be a good idea to use sparsebundles on network drives, but not all of the time. If it used the same system on both network and non-network drives, then backup images would be completely movable.
I'm betting two reasons:
- Afterthought
It wasn't initially supported
- Compatibility- can't guarantee the file system over the network
So if they had come up with the sparsebundles first maybe they would have used them for both methods. Obviously this is just a guess. I'm also wondering, on a file system such as FAT32 (over the network) does is break the bundles up at the 2GB or 4GB mark? Forgive me if this is answered some place else- I just thought of this.Given the current state though, I would really like it to be smarter. If you have 180GB of hard linked backups, and a virtually empty sparse bundle file... Or at least some logic to detect both and ask a question, maybe based upon last backup date. Instead I Googled my tail off, and crossed my fingers as I deleted the sparsebundle.
The way it just seems to see a sparsebundle and run with it is kind of odd.
~Mike