Entropy Reducers Amalgamated

After giving up on Carbonite a few weeks ago, I decided to give Crashplan a try. It's an interesting product, in that it allows you to choose between a paid plan (where you back up to their servers "in the cloud") or a free plan where you can back up to other computers, including another friend's computer over the internet (so presumably you could create your own free "Crashplan-lite" system).

I'm liking it so far, but it has one major drawback: the server a huge memory hog. My main machine isn't so skimpy (or at least I used to think so) at 4GB of RAM (all of it usable, since I'm now running a 64-bit operating system) but...

with my machine "at rest" it's sucking up by itself almost 1/8 of my free memory (and it gets piggier, if you can believe it.)

and this is with no other "user" processes running. (It seems that my standard set of background processes isn't so small, either, but...) It easily blossoms up to over 550 MB of memory used, which of course sends my poor little laptop into a fan-spinning frenzy.

This appears to be a common enough question but support at Crashplan seems to be ... well, at least they recognize the problem, even if they don't have a good way of managing it:

Jerry,

You can reduce the amount of memory, but depending on the size of your back up you may run into issues doing this. Please be aware it is not recommended or supported in any way by us here at CrashPlan.

Edit the CrashPlan engine's CrashPlanService.ini file to allow it to use more java memory:

Stop the backup engine: http://support.crashplan.com/doku.php/how_to/stop_and_start_engine
Edit the below line in in C:\Program Files\CrashPlan\CrashPlanService.ini
-Xmx512m
Edit to something larger such as 640, 768, 896, or 1024. E.g.:
-Xmx1024m

This is the maximum allowed. CrashPlan will not use that much until it needs it.
Start the backup engine.

You will want to change it to 300.

Again, we do not recommend that this is done, but if you do really see the need to reduce the memory, these are the instructions.

Nonetheless, hope springs eternal that this otherwise promising system can right itself and reduce its bloated memory footprint (it's clearly running with some java-like virtual machine, given the command line arguments).

Posted by Jerry B. Altzman at 9:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Fellow bicyclers:

I can't lay claim to biking all of the time, or even most of the time, but I do enjoy a bit of recreational biking around Brooklyn and some other parts of the 5 boroughs. Whether alone or with my children, I do my level best to obey the local traffic laws as they apply to bicycles, including stopping for stop signs, not weaving in and out of traffic, etc. Moreover I teach these to my children: to stop at all intersections where cars could be coming, and to be extra aware of traffic and pedestrians, and to stay off the sidewalk if at all possible.

Yesterday, while driving the family back from the Cloisters museum in Upper Manhattan, I had the opportunity to narrowly miss about a dozen bicyclists riding wildly down Ft. Washington Avenue, weaving in and out of traffic, running across and against red lights, and speeding through intersections--basically, making a nuisance of themselves.

I often see and hear anecdotes from bicyclists complaining how cars are "out to get them" and don't show them any respect. Well, let me remind you all that it goes both ways, and you should remind your fellows (repeatedly) to not be jerks on the road. Physics is a cruel mistress, and a ton+ of moving metal versus your gentle skeleton means that, even if you're right, you're still wrong.

Let's be safe out there!

Posted by Jerry B. Altzman at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)