I would like to use QRecall to archive the contents of many drives I have accumulated over the years.

I will be using a Retina Macbook Pro with a 2.7 Ghz Intel Core i7 processor and 16 GB RAM.
The archive will be on a 4TB external drive via USB3.

I will attach each of the drives to my MBP and capture them interactively, one at a time.

I want to set QRecall settings such that the searches will be as fast as possible (considering that I have 16 GB RAM).

I want to be able to perform the following searches:
1. Search across ALL drives using the most recent layer of each (i.e. the most recent capture of each drive which will be in different QRecall layers)
2. Search across ALL drives using ALL layers so that I can find deleted and modified files
3. Search across one or more drives using the most recent layer of each
4. Search across one or more drives using ALL layers so that I can find deleted files

How would you suggest I go about achieving the above goals (QRecall settings, Archive settings, capture workflow and search workflow)?

Wayne Fruhwald wrote:I will attach each of the drives to my MBP and capture them interactively, one at a time.

If these are all removable drives, I would suggest creating a capture action for each volume. Use an event schedule to start the capture when the drive connects, repeating once or twice a day. Whenever you connect a drive, its changes will be automatically captured.

You can set all of the actions to capture to the same archive.

I want to set QRecall settings such that the searches will be as fast as possible (considering that I have 16 GB RAM).

Searching an archive is fundamentally bounded by I/O. Archive search speed is affected most by the seek time of the drive containing the archive.

I want to be able to perform the following searches:
1. Search across ALL drives using the most recent layer of each (i.e. the most recent capture of each drive which will be in different QRecall layers)
2. Search across ALL drives using ALL layers so that I can find deleted and modified files

When you perform a search, you are searching within the items contained in the navigation bar location (at the bottom of the browser window). So if the navigation bar location is My Computer > Main HD > Users, the search will be limited to the items in the Users folder of the Main HD drive.

To search a single volume, navigate to the root directory of that volume and perform your search.

To search multiple volumes (belonging to the same owner), navigate to the owner and perform your search.

I find the search option "Only Show Matching Items" useful when searching entire volumes or top-level directories.

To include or exclude deleted items in your search, choose View > Show/Hide Deleted Items.

The browser will display the timeline of the earlier versions of each item via the layers pane, whether you're searching or not. You don't really "search all layers"; that happens implicitly. You simply search for an item, and then browse the versions of that item.

3. Search across one or more drives using the most recent layer of each
4. Search across one or more drives using ALL layers so that I can find deleted files

You can search all volumes or one volume (as described), but not an arbitrary set of volumes. Of course, searches are interactive. You can start a search and switch volumes, which will resume the search in that volume.