.HFS+ Private Directory Data_

[Blizzard]

When you recover a portable device that was formatted HFS+ do you typically copy the ".HFS+ Private Directory Data_" folder and the "Baclkups.backupDB" folder to the customer's recovery device? There is a lot of disk space used by ".HFS+ Private Directory Data_" and plenty of user data in there. Is it just a waste of space on the new device?
Can Time Machine still use this data if it's copy/save and not a sector for sector clone?

 

[Jared]

I used to, but it's just so many files and nothing anyone ever cares about, that I've stopped recovering that folder. I've seen up to 4 million files in there before, and it was so much it kept crashing data recovery software before it would finish the folder.

Since I've been excluding that folder, I've yet to get a single complaint from a customer of missing data. I don't think the average Mac user is even aware that folder exists.

 

[Blizzard]

Thanks Jared, I don't like the idea of not giving the customer some of their user files but it appears that these files are from their laptop and should still be on the laptop. Like you, I feel like they don't even know these files are on this device.