Detailed account from the decision to start making an automatic backup to its final reporting and completion, for Ventura 13.2.1 to local storage.
backup
You’re running bit short of disk space, so put tens of GB of old files into the Trash, then empty it. Why doesn’t the amount of free space increase?
While macOS uses DAS-CTS to schedule hundreds of background activities, third-parties normally use launchd. Comes with a full diagram explaining DAS-CTS.
Backing up with Time Machine to a NAS or other network storage is different. Here’s an account of how it creates and handles sparse bundle storage in Ventura 13.2.
How running a background task takes a tiny fraction of second, although the task itself takes seconds or minutes, and why it’s run on E cores.
How macOS schedules tasks like making automatic Time Machine backups, from property list to transactions between DAS and CTS.
The story of how Mac OS X went from cron, to launchd, and ended up with Duet Activity Scheduler, to schedule background activities like backups.
Virtual Machines for lightweight virtualisation on Apple silicon Macs rely on sparse files. Here are tips to ensure they stay small and don’t explode to full size.
Excessive CPU use by mds_stores is a common cause of sluggish performance. Explains what it does and what you can do bring it under control.
Has Ventura brought any relief from Disk Utility’s inability to run First Aid on Time Machine’s backups, and what about changes in Time Machine itself?
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