Automatic backup in  DEVONthink

I’ve got a big (300Mb) DEVONthink datatase and had to disable the “Full backup on startup” option because it was taking several minutes to open. I switched to “Always compress on quit”. Does this also backup the database?

No (the only difference would be a faster startup and slower quitting). But: Even slow harddiscs should be able to copy 300 MB within 30 seconds. And opening a 300 MB database shouldn’t last longer than 10-15 seconds too.

Did you try "Backup & Compress" after installing v1.7.1? This might decrease the database size and improve the overall performance.

I’ve tried that - but it still took 2 minutes 45 seconds to initialise and verify, then the open the browser.

How fast is your Mac (harddisc, CPU, memory)? Cause I wonder why it’s that slow as we’ve been able to open databases up to 2.2 GB in less time (and we’re not using the latest and greatest hardware :slight_smile:)

I’ve got a 500MHz G3 iBook with 256MB of Ram. Not the fastest machine in the world, it’s true, but it’s not that bad. I’m running OS 10.2.6, and DEVONthink and its files are on the boot partition.

Not enough memory probably causes the slowdown. Even worse, the virtual memory and DEVONthink use the disk at the same time and sequential reading of data is around 10-100 times faster than accessing random data. But the concurrent access of VM and DT force the harddisc to move its heads around a lot.

The only solution is to add more memory (at least 128 MB) as DEVONthink 2.0 (using ca. 25% less memory) won’t appear within the next months (next releases will be 1.7.x and 1.8 afterwards).

And I remember when 256MB was a HUGE amount of Ram . . . Thanks for the advice.

I paid more to upgrade my Macintosh Portable to 4 MB RAM than to upgrade my TiBook to 1 GB RAM! (I paid more for the Mac Portable than for the TiBook, too.)

Now, I’m envious of people who are running 8 GB RAM on G5s. :astonished:

RAM is good – get all you can.

By the way - DT 1.7.6 will already introduce the new format reducing the memory usage (usually between 10 and 40%).

When are we likely to see 1.7.6? And (I hate to raise the subject again) how’s the Pro version coming on?

Today we’re going to release DT 1.8 and DA 1.2.1. Next week “DT Lite”, PhotoStickies 5.0 and XMenu 1.1 will come and then we’ll continue to work on the Pro edition (and nothing else - don’t expect anything until DT Pro will arrive :smiley:)