Index Time Machine Drive?

cuttime · Post by **cuttime** » Sat Nov 23, 2013 8:16 pm

Spotlight Index TM drive? Yay or nay.

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Sat Nov 23, 2013 8:32 pm

Not while the first backup is happening. Later: sure. Why not?

cuttime · Post by **cuttime** » Sat Nov 23, 2013 8:59 pm

That 'mds' process can really take a lot of time and CPU and disk grinding. I just wonder if TM will work properly without it.

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Sat Nov 23, 2013 9:27 pm

I don't think it affects the process and I don't ever recall a Time Machine disk in any Spotlight search. Maybe it's a waste of time.

mikehalloran · Post by **mikehalloran** » Mon Nov 25, 2013 10:02 pm

Yea -- though if you're in a hurry for that first backup to finish, you can turn it off during the initial backup.

Here's why Spotlight indexes Time Machine.

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11168

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Mon Nov 25, 2013 10:11 pm

It doesn't really provide any info on the "why" and again, I have yet to see Time Machine show up in a search. I do have those disks included in the indexing, so I'm not disagreeing. I just don't see their rationale except because "we say so."

If the Spotlight index is only used when a user invokes "Find" them it doesn't necessarily follow that that same index would be of any additional help in restoring a disk, especially if the index is stored on the current boot disk.

What part of that don't I get? I don't even see how the index helps in TM. if I already know where to look. I've never even thought of looking for a Find feature when entering TM.

cuttime · Post by **cuttime** » Mon Nov 25, 2013 11:05 pm

So if I access TM for an older file through the Finder, I'll find it only if TM has been indexed? Thanks for the replies, I wouldn't have brought this up here if I didn't find what I was looking for on the Google. The whole reason that I started this thread is because I am dual booting on Snow Leopard and Mavericks. For some incomprehensible reason, every time I re-boot after running my Mavericks volume (which is NOT TM enabled), my SN volume re-indexes the TM backup. I have Apple junkie friends that assure me that I can turn the indexing off, but I'm not so sure.

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Mon Nov 25, 2013 11:12 pm

There is the Find Any File app which is much faster, AFAIK, and doesn't require indexing to work. It should work with TM.

cuttime · Post by **cuttime** » Mon Nov 25, 2013 11:16 pm

I love "Find any file", but that's just it- I'm not trying to find the file, just back it up, and does Spotlight really have anything to do with it, or is it just wasted resources?

mikehalloran · Post by **mikehalloran** » Tue Nov 26, 2013 1:01 am

The link tells you how to find a file in Time Machine if you have deleted it or otherwise "lost" it on your system drives. You can go into TM and do a search. Really. I guess that was obvious only to me.

You can't search TM from Finder. If you don't allow the disk be indexed, you can't search it at all apparently.

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