Sparse Disk Bundling, Revisited.

[John Davidson]

I got a call from one guy that had a corrupted one. Eventually he was able to get his stuff out. We also had one that acted a little funky, but I think it was all the crap we were throwing in the edit more than anything else.

They’re surprisingly solid.

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[Erik Lindahl]

But they do add a layer of “single point of failure”?

Of course one has backups of critical data. Just thinking things like a power-failure should cause a file to get corrupt. One file in a project normally isn’t a problem unless it’s the project-file or in this case… The whole media-asset bundle. But perhaps it’s so uncommon it’s not something one has to fear really?

[Robin S. kurz]

Question is: why would you be using one to begin with?

[John Davidson]

It would be the equivalent of your Time Machine backup becoming corrupt every time your city has a brown out, or you unplug the drive, etc. Time Machine also uses sparse disks.

But honestly, with the exception of Craig’s classroom there’s very little need for them that I can come up with these days.

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[Erik Lindahl]

That’s true, then again, Time Machine isn’t know for it’s “rock solid” performance… 🙂