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How to speed up opening time of large sparsebundle

E

ehof

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 27, 2015
25
1
Hi there,

I'm using large encrypted sparsebundle (8TB each) some sparsebundles open right away and some take a long time to open. My guess is that they are formatted differently and being indexed or checked before they open. Is there anyway of speeding this up by bypassing the above somehow?

I'm using 10.13.3.

Many thanks!
 
My guess is that it depends on how much data is in the bundle. The more data in the bundle, the longer it takes to read and mount the volume. That's logical. You don't really have 8TB of data in each one do you?
 
Maybe there's a terminal command that can ignore the scan or index of the sparsbundle each time I try to mount it? Just to be clear it's fast once it's mounted. the problem is that the mounting time takes ages.
Cheers
 
The command-line tool for working with disk-images of all kinds is 'hdiutil'. See its man page:
https://ss64.com/osx/hdiutil.html

You can also get the builtin summary with this command-line (paste into a Terminal window):
Code: 
hdiutil help

The verb for opening an image is 'attach'. You can get its builtin summary with:
Code: 
hdiutil attach -help

You may find the '-verbose' or '-debug' option gives you helpful details. Or not.

You might try the '-noverify' option and see if it affects the time taken to attach.
 
Last edited:
chown33 said:
The command-line tool for working with disk-images of all kinds is 'hdiutil'. See its man page:
https://ss64.com/osx/hdiutil.html

You can also get the builtin summary with this command-line (paste into a Terminal window):
Code: 
hdiutil help

The verb for opening an image is 'attach'. You can get its builtin summary with:
Code: 
hdiutil attach -help

You may find the '-verbose' or '-debug' option gives you helpful details. Or not.

You might try the '-noverify' option and see if it affects the time taken to attach.
Click to expand...


Thank you. Do I just copy paste this to the terminal? How does it know which sparsbundle to open? Sorry I'm not very technical.
 
ehof said:
Thank you. Do I just copy paste this to the terminal? How does it know which sparsbundle to open? Sorry I'm not very technical.
Click to expand...
The commands that I showed can be pasted directly into a Terminal window. Be sure to end them by pressing the RETURN key on your keyboard, if you didn't paste an entire line.

You tell it which sparsebundle to open by passing in the path to it. Read the man page.

You can get the pathname of a file in the clipboard by selecting it in a Finder window, then pressing ⌘C. Then go to the Terminal window and press ⌘V to paste it in.

You can test this copy/paste in a Terminal window by typing in the word echo followed by a single space. Then paste in the filename, and it should expand to the complete path. Press RETURN and the 'echo' command will run, printing out all the parameters it receives, which will be what you just pasted in.

Drag-and-drop into a Terminal window also works.

If you're unsure of a command, then copy and paste it into a reply here. Be sure to paste the complete exact command. Accuracy is important.
 
Thanks chown33,

This is what comes out with -noverify.

Initializing…

CBSDBackingStore::newProbe directory, not a valid image file.

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 0, score -1000, CBSDBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 1, score 1000, CBundleBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 2, score -1000, CRAMBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 3, score -1000, CCarbonBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 4, score -1000, CDevBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 5, score -1000, CCURLBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 6, score -1000, CVectoredBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 0, score 100, CBSDBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 1, score -1000, CBundleBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 2, score -1000, CRAMBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 3, score 100, CCarbonBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 4, score -1000, CDevBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 5, score -1000, CCURLBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 6, score -1000, CVectoredBackingStore

CBSDBackingStore::newProbe directory, not a valid image file.

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 0, score -1000, CBSDBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 1, score 1000, CBundleBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 2, score -1000, CRAMBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 3, score -1000, CCarbonBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 4, score -1000, CDevBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 5, score -1000, CCURLBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 6, score -1000, CVectoredBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 0, score 100, CBSDBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 1, score -1000, CBundleBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 2, score -1000, CRAMBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 3, score 100, CCarbonBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 4, score -1000, CDevBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 5, score -1000, CCURLBackingStore

DIBackingStoreInstantiatorProbe: interface 6, score -1000, CVectoredBackingStore

Attaching…

Error 35 (Resource temporarily unavailable).

Finishing…

DIHLDiskImageAttach() returned 35

hdiutil: attach failed - Resource temporarily unavailable
[doublepost=1555400774][/doublepost]With
hdiutil attach -help this is what I get


hdiutil attach: attach disk image

Usage: hdiutil attach <image>

Device options:

-readonly force read-only

-kernel attempt to attach the image in-kernel


Mount options:

-mount required|optional|suppressed mount volumes?

-nomount same as -mount suppressed

-mountpoint <path> mount at <path> instead of inside /Volumes

-mountroot <path> mount volumes on <path>/<volname>

-mountrandom <path> mount volumes on <path>/<random>


Processing options (defaults per framework preferences):

-[no]verify (do not) verify image checksums

-[no]autofsck (do not) perform automatic filesystem checks

-[no]idme (do not) process IDME enabled images

-[no]autoopen (do not) open root of new mounts


Common options:

-encryption <crypto method>

AES-128 - 128-bit AES encryption (recommended)

AES-256 - 256-bit AES encryption (more secure, but slower)

-stdinpass

-agentpass

-recover <keychain-file>

-imagekey <key>=<value>

-drivekey <key>=<value>

-shadow <shadowfile>

-insecurehttp

-cacert <file | dir>

-plist

-puppetstrings

-verbose

-debug

-quiet
[doublepost=1555401093][/doublepost]I may have entered the wrong text at some point, my terminal knowledge is very limited or in other words non existent.
The sparsebundle doesn't seem to mount anymore.
This APFS sparsebundle is very big at 7.8TB on an 8TB drive. Is it now corrupt or can it be saved somehow?
 
Based on what appear to be a number of errors, I think the safest course is for you to treat the sparsebundle as damaged (corrupted), and act accordingly.

If it doesn't mount at all any more, then it's probably not recoverable, and you'll have to get any data that was on it from other backups. If you have no other backups, then I suspect your data is gone. However, I could be wrong, since I don't fully understand exactly what data was on which drive or sparsebundle, as I found your description vague and imprecise, and you didn't mention backups at any point. In particular, is the "5TB to 6TB in an 8TB sparsbundle" on each drive a backup of other data on the drive, or if not, where are backups kept?
 
Hi there, Thanks for your help. I'm not sure which backup are you referring to. I never mentioned that I use the sparsbundle as a backup. I store sound effects on it. I use an APFS sparsebundle it's 7.8TB in size and lives inside an 8TB drive.
 
You never mentioned why you use sparsebundles at all, as distinct from folders. Some people keep backup or archived copies of files on disk images (sparsbundle or other format). Other people use disk images for other reasons.

If the sparsebundle is roughly the same size as the drive it's on, then why not just format the 8TB drive as APFS and use that? Or if it just holds sound effects, and has no other reason to be in APFS, then why not keep it as journaled HFS+? In other words, are there technical reasons for choosing a sparsebundle and APFS?

If you have no backup of the 7.8TB sparsebundle, and it really is damaged (corrupted), then I think you've probably lost all the data that was on it.
 
Thank you, encrypted sparsebundles are used for security.

Just checking, are you saying that there’s nothing to try at this point and just format the drive?
 
A) You can enable encryption on an entire drive, and avoid using a sparsebundle only to get encryption.
https://support.apple.com/guide/dis...rotect-a-disk-with-a-password-dskutl35612/mac


B) I don't know of anything else to try, especially for an encrypted sparsebundle. Any recovery would have to account for the encryption, as well as the APFS format.

My guess is that some of your drive's blocks have failed, which caused the sparsebundle bands stored in those blocks to fail. However, it's also possible that some damage was introduced, in either the sparsebundle's file-system or of the disk itself, by some other mechanism, such as a crash, a cable unplug, etc. Damage can propagate when it isn't corrected.
 
Thanks for taking the time to answer.
This is for security over a network where users details are shared.

I’m guessing a program like disk warrior isn’t going to help at this point.
 
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