I’m trialing DT just now. I created an encrypted database yesterday and imported ~18GB of documents, that went pretty well. Then I realized that the database had been created as a huge monolithic image, which doesn’t seem good for backup purposes. I searched this forum and found the hint that a sparsebundle can be used instead, if you create it and move a DT database into it manually.
Tried that - it worked. I was able to move the documents from yesterday’s test database into the new one that lives in the sparsebundle - cool stuff. (Though I wonder why “sparsebundle” is not an option in the standard “create encrypted database” feature, or even the default? Surely sparsebundles are generally “better” than sparse images because of the obvious backup advantage?)
Anyway, here’s the snag I found. DT can access the database in the sparsebundle as you would expect, but it does not dismount it correctly when I quit the application. I can see in Disk Utility that the sparsebundle has not been ejected after DT is closed, and when I restart DT it does not open the database automatically. In fact I can’t open the database at all - when I try, absolutely nothing at all happens. I need to manually eject the sparsebundle in Disk Utility, and then I can open it again in DT and all is good.
Questions, in summary:
Should I use this approach to keep an encrypted DT database in a sparsebundle? Is there a different approach that is recommended instead, keeping in mind that I want efficient incremental backups? I sort of wonder how everybody does this… don’t you keep backups?
Is the dismount behavior a bug? Can’t think that it’s somehow my fault… and while the approach I’m using seems a bit of a kludge, it works fine… other than the dismount.
A manually created sparsebunlde is not going to automatically eject itself just as it won’t when accessing files in the Finder.
Should I use this approach to keep an encrypted DT database in a sparsebundle? Is there a different approach that is recommended instead, keeping in mind that I want efficient incremental backups? I sort of wonder how everybody does this… don’t you keep backups?
Can you? Sure.
Should you? I don’t see any good reason to.
Is the dismount behavior a bug? Can’t think that it’s somehow my fault… and while the approach I’m using seems a bit of a kludge, it works fine… other than the dismount.
A manually created sparsebunlde is not going to automatically eject itself just as it won’t when accessing files in the Finder.
Well, you mount it, you eject it. Or you don’t, in which case I call that a bug.
Perhaps I wasn’t clear. I start with the sparsebundle unmounted. I use the DT menu entry Open Database to open the sparsebundle. This works fine, and of course the sparsebundle is mounted in the process. However, when I close the database in DT or quit DT, the sparsebundle is not completely unmounted (edit: for clarity - I believe it is technically unmounted, but it is not ejected).
Should you? I don’t see any good reason to.
I’m not following. Then what are you saying I should do?
I don’t see a good reason to put an encrypted database in a sparsebundle, including not putting it in an encrypted sparsebundle.
It’s not a bug. The sparsebundle is mounting via the filesystem just like any other volume. DEVONthink is set to unmount the encrypted database for security reasons. It doesn’t control the volume on which its located as your situation is.
And I still think it’s a bug. Again - you mount it, you eject it. I don’t care whether it’s volume, encrypted or not, if you’ve mounted it you should eject it when you’re done. Anyway… perhaps a matter of opinion, though of course I prefer mine.
I apologize for writing so many replies and I promise I will stop after this. However, to put yet another light on the topic: all I’m trying to do is create the exact same situation as the standard “encrypted database”. Only that standard feature uses a sparse image instead of a sparse bundle, and I want a sparse bundle for improved backup handling.
I did not expect that the mount/eject behavior changes depending on whether we’re talking bundle or image, and I don’t see why it should.
I use Quicken with my Quicken database in an encrypted sparsebundle. When I open Quicken, the sparsebundle is automatically mounted by MacOS. When I quit Quicken, the database is closed, but the sparsebundle is NOT automatically ejected by MacOS, as you would expect since it’s a mounted disk. I have to manually eject the sparsebundle by right clicking on it and choosing Eject. This is exactly the same situation.