The first back up of the day takes nearly 3 mins

I've been working on a feature documentary for the last 2 years, and the first backup of the day always takes ages, while the subsequent backups take a few seconds. I'm now on version 20 on a Mac Studio M4 and the backup just took 2mins 50 seconds. It's a little frustrating - because when you open the project each day you're keen to get going, but after a few minutes, the backup kicks in – but now that I'm used to it, I go and make a tea.

(The start of the day is also invariably when you're showing someone else an update or changes, and so then you're both twiddling your thumbs soon after sitting down. This never looks great..)

Someone probably knows why this happens - perhaps it's cleaning the whole database each day as a housekeeping task? But couldn't this equally be done as the last backup of the day, when you quit?

(I do like to have regular back ups - set to every 15mins)

I've been working on a feature documentary for the last 2 years, and the first backup of the day always takes ages, while the subsequent backups take a few seconds. I'm now on version 20 on a Mac Studio M4 and the backup just took 2mins 50 seconds. It's a little frustrating - because when you open the project each day you're keen to get going, but after a few minutes, the backup kicks in – but now that I'm used to it, I go and make a tea.

Are you using a single timeline? Is everything in the documentary in a single project?

Worst case, especially for really large, complicated projects with hundreds of hours of source material, I'd suggest doing a few things:

1) Media Manage it and get rid of any files that aren't being used.

2) if you're in the middle of an edit, of course you can keep the files that are still being edited

3) keep the timelines as short and simple as possible. As an example, you could have one two hour show broken up into 5 or 6 acts, each about 25 minutes long. I think you'll find this will save much faster.

4) once the edit is absolutely locked, then you can rebuild one big "super timeline" of the entire show as a single render.

I definitely suggest you make multiple backups and do them manually every day. Don't just rely on the automatic backups -- make manual backups on removable drives that you can keep in a safe place.

For many years, I stayed away from long complicated timelines because they caused Resolve to bog down. In the last couple of years, I think this problem has been greatly improved, and I have started using 2-hour timelines without any performance speed issues.

Yes - it's single timeline, and multiple edit versions in the project. Multiple language versions etc. Breaking into chapters wasn't really an option for this project as I've been outputting evolving masters of the whole film every week for the last year for over 70 festivals now.

I'd still love to know why the first back up of the day takes 3 minutes, while the subsequent ones take a few seconds. I've been editing for 30 years and even Avid in the 90s didn't take 3 minutes to save a back up of an hour long broadcast show)))

And DaVinci on an M4 studio has no other lag problems, other than this first backup of the day. Renders fly. Outputs fly. It's a joy.

I find Timeline Backups much less intrusive than full Project Backups.

I find Timeline Backups much less intrusive than full Project Backups.

Very true. Also, just exporting a simple DRT takes about 2 seconds.

I think the problem is the Project Backup is also including some of the Cache files and Gallery stills, and those can pile up over time.

There are a lot of things you can do to make projects less bloated, and once you remove the bloat, then the backups get much faster. But... the o.p. has to be willing to incorporate the suggestions.

[Peter Chamberlain]

I've been working on a feature documentary for the last 2 years, and the first backup of the day always takes ages, while the subsequent backups take a few seconds. I'm now on version 20 on a Mac Studio M4 and the backup just took 2mins 50 seconds. It's a little frustrating - because when you open the project each day you're keen to get going, but after a few minutes, the backup kicks in – but now that I'm used to it, I go and make a tea.

(The start of the day is also invariably when you're showing someone else an update or changes, and so then you're both twiddling your thumbs soon after sitting down. This never looks great..)

Someone probably knows why this happens - perhaps it's cleaning the whole database each day as a housekeeping task? But couldn't this equally be done as the last backup of the day, when you quit?

(I do like to have regular back ups - set to every 15mins)

Just confirming, are you talking about a project "live save" or project backups?

Is your project library local and on a SSD?