I have CWM 6.0.1.0 as my recovery and I have a good number of backups saved on my sdcard spanning a number of different roms (mostly cm10 official nightlies). I understand that the newer CWM backs up roms using a different method than before. When I look in my Clockworkmod directory on the sdcard, I see a BLOBS folder and a BACKUP folder. The latter contains the backups, but they are very small in size. So do I understand correctly that the bulk of the backup information is in the BLOBS folder?
Assuming that's true, how do we safely:
1) Delete individual backup? If I delete a backup from the BACKUP folder, how will it know what to delete from the BLOBS folder? Do we have to actually delete the backup from within recovery in order for it to delete the proper BLOBS info? Or can I delete an individual backup from the BACKUP folder from Root Explorer? If I do that, won't the BLOBS folder continue to grow in size with outdated information?
2) Back up the CWM backups to my PC? I assume I have to back up the entire BLOBS folder to my PC, right? And then I can just back up individual backups from the BACKUP folder, right? But I would need BOTH the individual backup and the entire BLOBS folder back on my phone to restore a backup, right? If so, then I revert back to question 1 and ask how to I pare down the BLOBS folder without messing up individual backups?
Thanks!
You can delete backups from Rom Manager or if using the newest version of cwm you can delete it from recovery. As far as backing it up. I just deleted all but the one(s) wanted and copy the cwm folder to my computer. Hope that helps.
ren274u said:
You can delete backups from Rom Manager or if using the newest version of cwm you can delete it from recovery. As far as backing it up. I just deleted all but the one(s) wanted and copy the cwm folder to my computer. Hope that helps.
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So we have to delete old backups using Rom Manger or from within Recovery? I delete some of them from Root Explorer, so does that mean the Blogs info will still retain old data. Or will it know to clear that space simply because the old backup files are missing?
Travisimo said:
So we have to delete old backups using Rom Manger or from within Recovery? I delete some of them from Root Explorer, so does that mean the Blogs info will still retain old data. Or will it know to clear that space simply because the old backup files are missing?
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I'm not sure how the blog info works. I just assumed if you delete from cwm it knows whats the data incorporated with the specific backup and it deletes it with it.
Wow, I tried copying the Clockworkmod folder to my PC via USB and it took over an hour just to index and then it just stopped and failed. I imagine because there are so many individual files in the Blobs folder that it causes Windows indexing to crash. I deleted all the old backups I didn't need, did the free up space thing in CWM and it's still impossible to copy to my PC. I have 3 backups left (from different roms), so I supposed the Blobs folder is going to be pretty large.
So I can see how this backup method works out good on the phone itself because it makes backups easier and faster. But trying to back them up to PC is ridiculous. The old way where I could just copy over an individual backup was much easier.
Isn't there a better way? Someone suggested zipping the Blobs folder up on the device first and then copying to PC, but zipping the Blobs folder is taking forever as well...
Related
Hey guys, ive got little space left on my sd card in my nexus.
Can i format it? What do i do with the clockwork folder?
Thank you
If you do not intend to flash a new ROM then no you can't. I'm pretty sure you can if you flash a ROM, but remember to backup your photos and music first.
Is there a reason why you can't just delete some of your media or photos? If you've done a few nandroid backups in CWM you can delete any old ones in the app.
Sent from my obnoxious finger using Swype
Actually, after a few more seconds thought, if you've copied your music and photos onto your computer, I'm pretty sure you could do this:
1) do a complete nandroid backup
2) locate it, copy the entire directory to your computer
3) make a note of where it came from (the directory tree)
4) format your sdcard
5) copy your nandroid backup back to your sdcard making sure the directory structure is the same as before
6) restore your nandroid backup
There may be important catalogue files in the CWM directory, so it may be better to copy the entire CWM backup directory tree from its root.
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Ive tought the same thing. I deleted my old backups, then i backup music and photos (7gb~) theni copy the whole clockwork folder back to the telephone?
elinho said:
Ive tought the same thing. I deleted my old backups, then i backup music and photos (7gb~) theni copy the whole clockwork folder back to the telephone?
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To restore from a nandroid from complete stock just create a folder called clockworkmod. Inside that folder create another called backup. In that folder paste your old backup file. If you format the whole sd card some files and settings will be missing when you restore.
IMO its easier to copy all the files you want to your pc, then just go through your phone and delete all the files you don't use on a regular basis
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elinho said:
Ive tought the same thing. I deleted my old backups, then i backup music and photos (7gb~) theni copy the whole clockwork folder back to the telephone?
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I just did that, and it worked fine. Everything was te same as before the format. I only had 2gb of photos though. Maybe you should go through yours before copying back to your phone and weed out any you don't need.
I use the instant upload with G+ (WiFi Only) and as I take photos, they get uploaded to a private album. Once they're uploaded I delete them from the phone. Saves space .
ka24e said:
I use the instant upload with G+ (WiFi Only) and as I take photos, they get uploaded to a private album. Once they're uploaded I delete them from the phone. Saves space .
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Does it keep them at full Q? Been thinking about it but was waiting for G+ to allow Google Apps accounts
I hope someone can help me. I have a 16 gig GS3. When I plug it in to the computer It says I have 1.5gb free out of 11.9gb. This is after I deleted all but the rom I am using and most of my backups. I've tried using directorybind to move some apps but shadowgun was the only big one I had and I just deleted it. Also, if I check the properties on all the files in the sd card it comes to 8.5gb. That leaves 2gb of unseen files. If that is the OS then why do I only have 11.9gb available. I am kindof wondering if I am making a new partition everytime I flash one of these wonderful roms peope are making. Does anybody know how I can free up some space on here. I'm not storing anything on there and it wont be long before I have no room what so ever.
Nate Rules said:
This is after I deleted all but the rom I am using and most of my backups.
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What recovery are you using? How exactly did you delete most of your backups?
If you're using some version of CWM 6, it stores the meat of your backup in the /sdcard/clockworkmod/blobs directory. If you delete the backups in the backup folder, the blobs it references won't be deleted. Reboot into recovery, backup and restore, and free up nandroid space. That will delete any blobs that aren't associated with a backup. See if that gets you your space back.
Oh, and never delete stuff in the blobs folder, at least not if you expect your backups to work.
lazarus2405 said:
What recovery are you using? How exactly did you delete most of your backups?
If you're using some version of CWM 6, it stores the meat of your backup in the /sdcard/clockworkmod/blobs directory. If you delete the backups in the backup folder, the blobs it references won't be deleted. Reboot into recovery, backup and restore, and free up nandroid space. That will delete any blobs that aren't associated with a backup. See if that gets you your space back.
Oh, and never delete stuff in the blobs folder, at least not if you expect your backups to work.
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Ok, before I do this, let me make sure I understand you completely. I don't think I have done any restoring. So are all my backups stored in the blob? And a backup and a restore will take it down to one backup? Do I delete the blob and then do a new backup? I'm pretty sure this is my problem, because I was wondering why my backups were only about 20 megs.
lazarus2405 said:
What recovery are you using? How exactly did you delete most of your backups?
If you're using some version of CWM 6, it stores the meat of your backup in the /sdcard/clockworkmod/blobs directory. If you delete the backups in the backup folder, the blobs it references won't be deleted. Reboot into recovery, backup and restore, and free up nandroid space. That will delete any blobs that aren't associated with a backup. See if that gets you your space back.
Oh, and never delete stuff in the blobs folder, at least not if you expect your backups to work.
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Sorry Lazarus, I reread your post and realized that free up nandroid space must be an option. I did it and it cleared up 3gb of space. So I have some breathing room. But that still leaves 7gb of stuff on my internal sdcard. Seems like alot when I am trying to minimize stuff on there. Also, I still feel like my partition is shrinking. I am pretty sure there was at least 13gb there a couple weeks ago and now there is 11.9gb.
Nate Rules said:
Ok, before I do this, let me make sure I understand you completely. I don't think I have done any restoring. So are all my backups stored in the blob? And a backup and a restore will take it down to one backup? Do I delete the blob and then do a new backup? I'm pretty sure this is my problem, because I was wondering why my backups were only about 20 megs.
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First, don't delete blobs. Bad stuff will happen.
When I said "reboot into recovery, backup and restore, and free up nandroid space", I meant in navigating the menus in CWR. When you get into recovery, select "Backup and Restore", then go to "Free Nandroid Space". If you already deleted the 20mb backup files you don't need, selecting that option will free the rest of the space. Also, any time you make a new backup, CWR will try to do the same thing before starting the backup. This way, you can selectively keep the backups you need and discard the ones you don't.
Again, don't delete any blobs and expect your backups to work. If for some reason you wanted to get rid of all your backups, you could delete the entire clockworkmod folder, and CWR will remake any directories it needs when you make your next backup. The downside of freeing space this way is you'd loose all of your backups, of course.
The reason this changed in CWM6 is to save space. Instead of backing up whole partitions in one huge file, it backs up each individual file into the blobs folder. If you back up often and much doesn't change much in between backups, CWR will only make another copy of files that actually changed. Smart, eh?
After just rooting first thing I want to do is a nand backup, but after backup complete it is only like 16meg!
Am I missing something here?
Cheers
You are doing nothing wrong... Inside the Clockworkmod folder is 2 other folders... Backup and Blobs...
Backup backs up settings and preferences, Blobs backs up the system data, apps and so forth...
DON'T delete the blobs folder or you won't be able to re-install backup.
Every backup uses the Blobs data files so the actual backup file is very small. Use your file manager to check the properties of the clockworkmod folder and it will be a bit bigger, same with blobs...
ultramag69 said:
You are doing nothing wrong... Inside the Clockworkmod folder is 2 other folders... Backup and Blobs...
Backup backs up settings and preferences, Blobs backs up the system data, apps and so forth...
DON'T delete the blobs folder or you won't be able to re-install backup.
Every backup uses the Blobs data files so the actual backup file is very small. Use your file manager to check the properties of the clockworkmod folder and it will be a bit bigger, same with blobs...
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Hi thanks for the reply,
ok i found the blods folder.
Problem now is i deleted old backups from recovery, but the blods folder seems to be the same size, i.e. taking up a lot of room on internal mem.
What's up with this?
Clockwork normally made backups in an individual folder, then you could delete the folder/backup, that was it...
Hi guys,
I just wish to know what if I try to restore my backup after deleting "Clockworkmod/blobs" folder from internal memory of my device? Would I be able to restore the ROM? Or "Blobs" folder is also important to restore the backup?
The size of Backup folder is just 12.4 MB and size of "Blobs" folder is 1.2 GB, so I am assuming that "Blobs" folder is also important to restore the backup?
Hi nice_guy75,
since Version 6 of CWM they use a new backup format.
Koushik Dutta (Koush) said:
New ClockworkMod Backup Format
ClockworkMod Recovery now deduplicates files between builds. This results in way smaller backups.
Don't delete /sdcard/clockworkmod/blobs
Overview
I've gotten a few questions about how this works, so I figured I'd make a post on it. Basically, here's what happens:
The files being backed up are hashed (sha256, not that it matters). Then it checks for a file with the name of the hash in
/sdcard/clockworkmod/blobs
So, if the hash of the file was c5273884b90d490134e7737b29a65405cea0f7bb786ca82c6337ceb24de6f5ed, it looks for /sdcard/clockworkmod/blobs/c5273884b90d490134e7737b29a65405cea0f7bb786ca82c6337ceb24de6f5ed
If the hash file is found, it continues on to the next file. Otherwise, it copies the file to the blobs directory with the file name being the hash.
ROMs and user data, for the most part, do not change too much between builds and backups. So, your APKs, system files, etc, are generally only stored once. This saves a ton of space. Especially between incremental backups.
Some of you may be thinking "well, how do I delete a backup?".
First, never delete the blobs directory. This would actually delete all your backups by rendering them unusable.
Simply delete the usual backup directory, and the next time you run a backup, all the unused hash files will be automatically delete (a process known as garbage collection). The recovery will show "Freeing space..." while this is happening.
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Hi All,
I'm trying to do a full backup of an N5 but I can't find the nandroid backups anywhere. I can see them from Clockworkmod (though it's called '1970-03-07.17.53.47' for some reason) but I've used xplorer and ES File Explorer to look in /SDCARD/ClockWorkMod/ and the folder is empty not even a backup folder. I've tried doing a system search for the '1970-03-07.17.53.47' I mentioned it's named at as in CWM but no luck.
I want the file so I can download it to my pc along with other backups and make further backups as i am on a custom rom (omnirom) now.. How do I find where the backup is saved? I need to move it to my pc and delete it to make further backups. Also, Can i delete it from that location and can i save it in the regular clockworkmod backup folder location for further backups? I am losing about 4.17 gb data for that backup and want a simple backup without all the apps and data that wouldnt be so large.
Thanks in advance.
click the link in my signature and look at section 5.4 - the answer is in there if you're using basic CWM