Backup file suddenly smaller

[Judy M. 0]

I just noticed that my backup files (.sqz) suddenly became smaller in mid-January. I hadn't changed anything. I don't include exhibits, and back up just the Project Data Files, Accents, and Filters. The drop was from 12,000+ Kb to 3,000+ Kb. When I backed up my customizations just now, the file was 600+ Kb. I don't know how the customization file and .sqz file should compare in size, but considering the fact that my Simple Picklist shows almost 8,500 names, in addition to all the data I've added, shouldn't the comparison show a great difference? Any thoughts as to what I should do to ensure that nothing bad has happened...or whether somehow my backups are incomplete in some way? I tested a backup the other day, and it seemed to work fine (as far as I can tell!).

Thanks in advance....

[Jim Byram 0]

My estimate is that 3000 Kb should be about right for project files, accents and filters unless you had many internal exhibits. 8500 names is meaningless. The number of people in the project summary is more useful for making an estimate.

[Judy M. 0]

Thanks, Jim. There are no internal exhibits. I never knew where to find the number of people in the project summary, but since you mentioned it, I looked my project summary and saw that there are 5562. I knew that the 8500 names included all the variations and wasn't too helpful, and now I know where to find the "real" number.

I wonder why the backup file was so much larger earlier since I don't recall making any changes that would have affected that total.

Thank you for making me feel better. :-)

[Jim Byram 0]

I had estimated that your project included 5667 people. Most projects have about 1.5x as many names as people. That probably depends on the names including Name-Married tags.

Check to see the size of a project backup that includes exhibits.

[Judy M. 0]

With almost 800 exhibits the total is 261,630. Is there ever any reason to do a backup that includes exhibits?

[Jim Byram 0]

I advocate managing your exhibits outside of TMG. If you do frequent system backups (as you should be doing), your exhibits are being backed up.

[Judy M. 0]

Sorry for the delay. I wasn't notified of a new posting -- sometimes that feature works and sometimes it doesn't!

I do manage my exhibits outside of TMG. The only reason I did a backup that included exhibits is because you suggested that I "Check to see the size of a project backup that includes exhibits," which I did, and then asked if there's any reason to do such a backup.

Thanks very much for your help. I guess I'll never know why my backups were larger for what seems like forever and suddenly became smaller with no changes that I'm aware of having made!

 

[Jim Byram 0]

The backups are ZIP files so that it's easy to compare the contents of the 9Kb and 3Kb backups. You can see exactly what is contained in each backup and see what accounts for the size difference.

The message board was down for a couple of days and that might be why you didn't get the new message notification.

[Judy M. 0]

Ah, good idea about checking the ZIP files. Thanks for the suggestion...and the possible explanation for why I wasn't receiving notifications.

[Judy M. 0]

The ZIP files appear to be identical. Since I haven't changed the compression, how is this possible with such different-size backups?

[Michael Hannah 0]

Hi Judy,

It is not clear what you mean by the ZIP files appearing to be identical.  I don't know what utility you are using to view the ZIP files, but I use Microsoft's WinZIP program.  There are some things to compare other than simply the names and numbers of the files within the ZIP.  WinZIP has two columns to compare between the two ZIP files which it labels "Size" and "Packed".  "Size" is the original size of that individual file before it was compressed to be included in the ZIP file.  "Packed" is the now reduced size of the file within the ZIP after compression.  There is also a column labeled "Ratio" which indicates how much the size of that particular file was able to be compressed.  Perhaps the amount of compression is different between the two ZIP files?  One of the very last Steps in the TMG Backup Wizard is to choose the type of Compression to use.  Could you have changed that?

Hope this gives you ideas,

Michael

[Judy M. 0]

I'm using the "unzip" program that comes with Windows 10.  I have always used "normal" compression. Both the larger and smaller unzipped files have the similar (actually the same for the "bunch" I compared) compression ratios. This makes no sense to me!

[Judy M. 0]

Hmmm...apparently Windows 10 "zip" has had some problems. Perhaps one of those issues was related to the discrepancy I'm seeing. Jim Byram seems to think that the smaller .sqz file is more appropriate for my database than the larger one, and the smaller one is newer. But would that affect my TMG backups?

Edited February 10, 2019 by Judy M.

[Jim Byram 0]

If you send me the two backups, I'll take a look at them.

You can contact me by email by clicking on the link below...

Jim Byram

[Judy M. 0]

Will do. Thanks!

[Judy M. 0]

Thanks, Jim, for checking the backups. You found that "The project in the larger backup has not been optimized." I obviously have to optimize more often. WHEW!