I don't get robbed all that often, nor do people regularly firebomb my home, I'm happy to say. I just got antsy listening to stories of people who have lost years of their lives to stuff like that. I'd be pretty sad if I lost all of my data in a freak accident. Hence the need for off-site backups.
Thanks for your suggestion though. But swapping out every week would be tedious. I wonder if I could, as someone suggested earlier, make a copy of the Time Machine drive at semi-annual intervals. There's no reason that couldn't work, is there?
Or even better... if Time Machine can use multiple disks, then I could simply hook up one drive semi-annually, and the other just leave there. Perhaps it'll somehow know the difference. Hrm. I suppose I'll just need to wait for Leopard and try all these ideas out when I have the OS running.
Cheers!
m.
I keep all my important stuff on Amazon S3. Not including home movies (the backups are the original DV tapes stuck in the firesafe) the file sizes aren't THAT huge so at $0.15 a GB/month I think my costs have been around $5/month. Maybe 30GB of irreplaceable photos.
S3 may not be the best solution for time machine but JungleDisk does work fairly well as an offline backup tool of really important stuff that doesn't change much (like photos).
Yesterday, I stumbled upon a very disturbing thread at the Apple support discussions concerning the Airport Extreme. Apparently, Apple has very recently changed the verbage on their website to no longer explicitly indicate Time Machine is compatible with a USB hard drive connected to an AirPort Extreme. There was some conjecture that Apple might be experiencing difficulties with getting Time Machine to work properly with the AirPort drives, but no definitive answers. I'd certainly appreciate anyone's insight into this as I'm sure there are more than a few of us here who have purchased AirPort Extremes solely because of this feature.
Yesterday, I stumbled upon a very disturbing thread at the Apple support discussions concerning the Airport Extreme. Apparently, Apple has very recently changed the verbage on their website to no longer explicitly indicate Time Machine is compatible with a USB hard drive connected to an AirPort Extreme. There was some conjecture that Apple might be experiencing difficulties with getting Time Machine to work properly with the AirPort drives, but no definitive answers. I'd certainly appreciate anyone's insight into this as I'm sure there are more than a few of us here who have purchased AirPort Extremes solely because of this feature.
Hmmm - Apple's current web site on this issue has certainly changed from what was stated prior to this past Tue. It used to say AirDisk could be used per
""Effortless meets wireless.
With a hard disk connected to your AirPort Extreme Base Station, all the Macs in your house can use Time Machine to back up wirelessly. Simply select your AirPort Disk as the backup disk for each computer and the whole family can enjoy the benefits of Time Machine."
Now it states
"Pick a disk. Any disk.
You can designate just about any HFS+ formatted FireWire or USB drive connected to a Mac as a Time Machine backup drive. Time Machine can also back up to another Mac running Leopard with Personal File Sharing, Leopard Server, or Xsan storage devices."
This statement does not single out the AirDisk as being compatible. Notice the words "...just about any..." and "...connected to a Mac...". This kinda rules out the AirDisk IMO. At least for the time being. Bummer.
I guess we all will find out come Oct 26.
If it's not in Leopard 10.5 I'm sure Apple will quite likely get it into 10.5.1 or 2 or ASAP as, as you say. many people are wanting this AirDisk feature. AirDisk is not going to be the speediest backup device at around 4MB/sec to maybe 7 MB/sec but once past the first FULL Time Machine backup it should be OK for the smallish snapshots that follow.
I currently use Retrospect on one Mac to back up itself, and two other Macs once a day. I rotate weekly between three external Firewire hard drives.
From what I'm reading in this thread, I -think- I can do something similar with Time Machine. On week one, it'll see and backup to drive A, on week two, it'll effectively start over on drive B, etc.
Is that a correct interpretation? I guess I can find out in a couple of weeks, but I'll likely wait a month for the dust to settle before upgrading.
I'd appreciate the answers to a couple of queries.
Leopard is leaving behind my fleet of Power Mac G4s which I'm contemplating turning into NAS in support of TM. However it appears that only Leopard-networked storage, as opposed to any AFP shares, will do. Is this correct?
When purging a filled drive is it just the outdated instance of particular files that are removed or is it the oldest files at all that are deleted? The first case means that not too many complete hourly copies of my entire 1GB Entourage DB is stored whereas in the second case useless many instances of my mail DB are kept at the expense of old but unique files!
Does this mean I am going to have to connect my external HD every hour to my macbook to make a backup? can I not make it backup just once a day or something?
It's best to leave the external HD connected and on at all times.
Anatomy of a backup.
For the initial backup, Time Machine copies the entire contents of the computer to your backup drive. It copies every file exactly (without compression), skipping caches and other files that aren’t required to restore your Mac to its original state. Following the initial backup, Time Machine makes only incremental backups — copying just the files that have changed since the previous backup. Time Machine creates links to any unchanged files, so when you travel back in time you see the entire contents of your Mac on a given day.
Timing is everything.
Every hour, every day, an incremental backup of your Mac is made automatically as long as your backup drive is attached to your Mac. Time Machine saves the hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for everything older than a month. Only files created and then deleted before the next hourly backup will not be included in the long term. Put another way: You’re well covered.
Ready when you are.
When your mobile Mac is connected to your backup drive, Time Machine works as you’d expect. When it isn’t connected, Time Machine also works as you’d expect. It keeps track of which files have changed since the last backup and backs them up to your backup drive the next time you connect. On any Mac, if Time Machine is unable to perform a backup, that’s duly noted in its preferences pane.
Time Machine is also designed to back up to an encrypted image for extra file security, allowing it to dump its backups on any file server.
Time Machine's interface also shows off how to create unique data visualizations with Core Animation, something that weaves throughout Leopard and will no doubt inspire lots of creative interfaces from third party Mac developers.
Hey guys i bought a new lacie 500 gb external.. and i used it like a mounth.. after that i installed leopard and used time machine of course.. i did the backup etc etc.. And for time machine there is no problem for me.. When i need i can restore it.. but there is another thing.. before there was no problem like this, because i used the external on my pc too... after the back up time on time machine, i connected my external to my pc.. but my pc doesnt see the external.. i cant see , delete or edit my files.. because in my external there is 2 folders.. 1 is my mac book backup (works fine) and 2 my data ( movies , mp3 )... i can see,delete or edit my data only in my mac book when its connected .. but when i connect it to my pc there is nothing.. can you answer it? thank you very much.. and sorry for my bad english...
Hey guys i bought a new lacie 500 gb external.. and i used it like a mounth.. after that i installed leopard and used time machine of course.. i did the backup etc etc.. And for time machine there is no problem for me.. When i need i can restore it.. but there is another thing.. before there was no problem like this, because i used the external on my pc too... after the back up time on time machine, i connected my external to my pc.. but my pc doesnt see the external.. i cant see , delete or edit my files.. because in my external there is 2 folders.. 1 is my mac book backup (works fine) and 2 my data ( movies , mp3 )... i can see,delete or edit my data only in my mac book when its connected .. but when i connect it to my pc there is nothing.. can you answer it? thank you very much.. and sorry for my bad english...
If I had to guess, your external hard disk was reformatted. It was probably something like NTFS or FAT, which are Windows file systems that Macintoshes understand. But when you set it up for Time Machine, it was reformatted as HFS+ Extended (Journaled), which your PC will never understand.
At this point, I would set up a network between your Mac and PC, if you don't already have one use a cross-over ethernet cable to connect them. Then in the Mac System Preferences, in the Sharing preferences, turn on file sharing, click on the options button and turn on SMB file sharing, then add your external disk with the + button.
If I had to guess, your external hard disk was reformatted. It was probably something like NTFS or FAT, which are Windows file systems that Macintoshes understand. But when you set it up for Time Machine, it was reformatted as HFS+ Extended (Journaled), which your PC will never understand.
At this point, I would set up a network between your Mac and PC, if you don't already have one use a cross-over ethernet cable to connect them. Then in the Mac System Preferences, in the Sharing preferences, turn on file sharing, click on the options button and turn on SMB file sharing, then add your external disk with the + button.
Good luck!
İ tried what you said and worked perfect... i can connect by wireless too.. thank you again .. but if i want to share my files with my friend? i cant always bring my mac book with my external hard disc... its very strange.. so you say that my external should be always with my book because of my time machine backup.. anyway waiting for your reply .. thank you
Actually, what you're seeing is people here looking at all the information we have on "how it works", in contrast to the marketing description, and then asking about a hole that seems to be there in a reasonably unique situation.
For almost any regular users usage, it will work "as advertised".
[edit: The actual article says the deletion "maintains a complete, extensive set of backups that balance out the demands for backup frequency versus disk space."]
On a related note and as I said before, deleting files because they're in the backup is a bad idea - create an archive instead. It's similar to users who store their read emails in the trash because it's convenient.
Good idea!
Could someone with Leopard:
1) create File1 at noon, and delete it 1.5hrs later. Check it's in Time Machine.
2) Create File2 at 2pm, and delete it 1.5 hrs later. Check its in Time machine.
3) Wait till the hourly backups are deleted (2 days later, to be safe?)
4) see if both File1 and File2 are in the daily backup....
I know this is an old thread - I just came across it.
I just did a slightly modified version of the above test.
I created a file, made sure it was in a Time Machine backup, then deleted the file 1.5 hrs later.
I created a second file, made sure it was in a Time Machine backup, then modified the file 1.5 hrs later.
After the hourly back-ups were rolled into a daily backup the next day, the first file was completely missing from Time Machine and only the last version of the second file existed.
It doesn't surprise me that only the last version of the second file existed as I didn't expect Time Machine to support versioning. I do seem to recall Apple touting how Time Machine can even retrieve earlier versions of a file when describing the benefits of Time Machine (and I don't recall there being any caveats about saving each version with a different name, keeping them for more than a week, etc.).
I am surprised the first file was missing. If I'm correct, it seems that all but the last hourly backup is lost each day and all but the last daily backup is lost each week. Each weekly backup is then kept for as long as there is hard drive space to support it. I would have thought the daily backup would be a consolidated view of the hourly backups such that if a file that had been backed up were deleted then it would still be included in the daily backup. I would have assumed the weekly backups would function the same way with regard to the daily backups.
I think its a mistake to assume that files kept for less than a week are not likely important and the chances of needing to recover said file is rare. The reason we need backups in the first place is because of accidents.
I love Time Machine and think it's a great feature; however, I think Apple's marketing of it is misleading. I'm sure a lot of people who frequent the various Apple forums know how it works but I suspect that most other users do not. Apple has clearly marketed Time Machine as "Just tell your Mac you want it to backup your data and you're done. Every file you have is then backed up in case you ever delete it." This is obviously not true and could be a huge problem for people who rely on it as such.
I just want people to understand how it really works before they loose something they need. God knows you don't want to find out how it works after the fact.
Files created then deleted before the next hourly backup are not backed up at all (makes sense).
Files deleted the same day they are created are only kept for one day or less depending on when the daily backup is done.
Files deleted the same week they are created are only kept for one week or less depending on when the weekly backup is done.
Files deleted more than one week after their creation are kept as long as there is space on the hard drive.
If a file that exists in a weekly backup is modified and subsequently deleted before the next weekly back up then the modified version of the file is lost and the version from the previous weekly backup will exist.
I think its a mistake to assume that files kept for less than a week are not likely important and the chances of needing to recover said file is rare. The reason we need backups in the first place is because of accidents.
Yeah, it really is just "snapshots" of your drive at certain times.
So it has a snapshot of every hour for the last day, but tomorrow it just keeps one of those snapshots. If you had a file for a couple of hours, that were in different snapshots but not in the one that's kept of the day, then you lose those snapshots.
Perhaps Apple marketing should do something different, but for most people it will work as they understand it - since people tend not to delete files they just created.
Time Machine is billed to backup (an) internal drive(s) wirelessly to HDD(s) that are hooked up to Airport Extreme. But it DOESN'T!
(MacOSX.5.2).
It does not work! The external HDDs do not mount on the desktop. Disk Utility does not 'see' the external HDD(s). Drive Genius does not 'see' the external HDD(s). And – worst of all – Time Machine does not 'see' the external HDD(s)!
Funnily enough System Profiler DOES 'see' the external HDD(s)...
It explains the almost surreptitiously slipped in launch of 'Time Capsule', which IS supposed to wirelessly support Time Machine. Apparently the Time Machine/Airport Extreme combo cannot be made/upgraded/updated to work, so Apple launched a new thingy. Leaving Time Machine/Airport Extreme wannabe users like me in the lurch and forcing us to keep scewing around with physically connecting and disconnecting HDDs!
After this Time Machine/Airport Extreme lie I don't trust Apple anymore.
Time Machine is billed to backup (an) internal drive(s) wirelessly to HDD(s) that are hooked up to Airport Extreme. But it DOESN'T!
(MacOSX.5.2).
It does not work! The external HDDs do not mount on the desktop. Disk Utility does not 'see' the external HDD(s). Drive Genius does not 'see' the external HDD(s). And – worst of all – Time Machine does not 'see' the external HDD(s)!
Funnily enough System Profiler DOES 'see' the external HDD(s)...
It explains the almost surreptitiously slipped in launch of 'Time Capsule', which IS supposed to wirelessly support Time Machine. Apparently the Time Machine/Airport Extreme combo cannot be made/upgraded/updated to work, so Apple launched a new thingy. Leaving Time Machine/Airport Extreme wannabe users like me in the lurch and forcing us to keep scewing around with physically connecting and disconnecting HDDs!
After this Time Machine/Airport Extreme lie I don't trust Apple anymore.
Good morning. Just woke up?
This is old news, the released version of Time Machine has never worked with hard drives attached to the Airport Extreme. Apple dropped Air Disk support in Time Machine prior to the retail release of Leopard. With each point release of Leopard this is one of the first questions asked. Has Air Disk support returned to Time Machine.
The conspiracy theorist claim that the feature was removed so that Apple can sell us Time Capsule without competition. I like your idea better. As it says that Time Machine will eventually work with Air Disks.
Thank you for this very interesting and useful article !
The system of the revision of a file was not detailed, can you confirm my understanding :
- If I have the file toto.txt in my initial full backup which we will named backup1.
- Then I update this file before the next backup which we will named backup2.
From my understanding, for backup2 a new file is created by Time Machine (with an internal name which could be toto.txt.2) and the hard link toto.txt in backup2 is linked to toto.txt.2 whereas in backup1 the hard link toto.txt is linked to the first file toto.txt.
So for me each revision of a file is a new full copy of this file in the next backup and so there is not incremental backup system ?
Can you confirm ?
Thanks !
P.S : If I'm right what about iPhoto backups which seems to be a single library file for all the pictures ?
I want to do that too. Actually, I want to have one Time Machine drive at work and another one at home. When I arrive at work or home, I want to plug in and have it copy all the correct files, not just the ones that may have changed since the last incremental backup. That way I have two up-to-date and complete backups in case of damage or other catastrophe. This seems easy enough to do: just check the backup drive for the latest backup date and copy things that changed since then. But I would like some reassurance that it does in fact do the thing that we would expect Apple to do. Does anyone know?
Quote:
Originally Posted by machei
Here's what I wanted to know: I want to keep TWO backups. I've read that it's best to have one attached to your computer at all times as Time Machine will maintain, but another stored off-site in the event of a crash/robbery.
I want to do that too. Actually, I want to have one Time Machine drive at work and another one at home. When I arrive at work or home, I want to plug in and have it copy all the correct files, not just the ones that may have changed since the last incremental backup. That way I have two up-to-date and complete backups in case of damage or other catastrophe. This seems easy enough to do: just check the backup drive for the latest backup date and copy things that changed since then. But I would like some reassurance that it does in fact do the thing that we would expect Apple to do. Does anyone know?
That works. I got three different disks. Bear in mind that changing the disk may cause longer backup times compared to using just a single disk. (Because of the how this system works)
Comments
I don't get robbed all that often, nor do people regularly firebomb my home, I'm happy to say.
Thanks for your suggestion though. But swapping out every week would be tedious. I wonder if I could, as someone suggested earlier, make a copy of the Time Machine drive at semi-annual intervals. There's no reason that couldn't work, is there?
Or even better... if Time Machine can use multiple disks, then I could simply hook up one drive semi-annually, and the other just leave there. Perhaps it'll somehow know the difference. Hrm. I suppose I'll just need to wait for Leopard and try all these ideas out when I have the OS running.
Cheers!
m.
I keep all my important stuff on Amazon S3. Not including home movies (the backups are the original DV tapes stuck in the firesafe) the file sizes aren't THAT huge so at $0.15 a GB/month I think my costs have been around $5/month. Maybe 30GB of irreplaceable photos.
S3 may not be the best solution for time machine but JungleDisk does work fairly well as an offline backup tool of really important stuff that doesn't change much (like photos).
Yesterday, I stumbled upon a very disturbing thread at the Apple support discussions concerning the Airport Extreme. Apparently, Apple has very recently changed the verbage on their website to no longer explicitly indicate Time Machine is compatible with a USB hard drive connected to an AirPort Extreme. There was some conjecture that Apple might be experiencing difficulties with getting Time Machine to work properly with the AirPort drives, but no definitive answers. I'd certainly appreciate anyone's insight into this as I'm sure there are more than a few of us here who have purchased AirPort Extremes solely because of this feature.
Hmmm - Apple's current web site on this issue has certainly changed from what was stated prior to this past Tue. It used to say AirDisk could be used per
""Effortless meets wireless.
With a hard disk connected to your AirPort Extreme Base Station, all the Macs in your house can use Time Machine to back up wirelessly. Simply select your AirPort Disk as the backup disk for each computer and the whole family can enjoy the benefits of Time Machine."
Now it states
"Pick a disk. Any disk.
You can designate just about any HFS+ formatted FireWire or USB drive connected to a Mac as a Time Machine backup drive. Time Machine can also back up to another Mac running Leopard with Personal File Sharing, Leopard Server, or Xsan storage devices."
per http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/timemachine.html
This statement does not single out the AirDisk as being compatible. Notice the words "...just about any..." and "...connected to a Mac...". This kinda rules out the AirDisk IMO. At least for the time being. Bummer.
I guess we all will find out come Oct 26.
If it's not in Leopard 10.5 I'm sure Apple will quite likely get it into 10.5.1 or 2 or ASAP as, as you say. many people are wanting this AirDisk feature. AirDisk is not going to be the speediest backup device at around 4MB/sec to maybe 7 MB/sec but once past the first FULL Time Machine backup it should be OK for the smallish snapshots that follow.
From what I'm reading in this thread, I -think- I can do something similar with Time Machine. On week one, it'll see and backup to drive A, on week two, it'll effectively start over on drive B, etc.
Is that a correct interpretation? I guess I can find out in a couple of weeks, but I'll likely wait a month for the dust to settle before upgrading.
Thanks
John
Leopard is leaving behind my fleet of Power Mac G4s which I'm contemplating turning into NAS in support of TM. However it appears that only Leopard-networked storage, as opposed to any AFP shares, will do. Is this correct?
When purging a filled drive is it just the outdated instance of particular files that are removed or is it the oldest files at all that are deleted? The first case means that not too many complete hourly copies of my entire 1GB Entourage DB is stored whereas in the second case useless many instances of my mail DB are kept at the expense of old but unique files!
In the article it says this:
Does this mean I am going to have to connect my external HD every hour to my macbook to make a backup? can I not make it backup just once a day or something?
It's best to leave the external HD connected and on at all times.
Anatomy of a backup.
For the initial backup, Time Machine copies the entire contents of the computer to your backup drive. It copies every file exactly (without compression), skipping caches and other files that aren’t required to restore your Mac to its original state. Following the initial backup, Time Machine makes only incremental backups — copying just the files that have changed since the previous backup. Time Machine creates links to any unchanged files, so when you travel back in time you see the entire contents of your Mac on a given day.
Timing is everything.
Every hour, every day, an incremental backup of your Mac is made automatically as long as your backup drive is attached to your Mac. Time Machine saves the hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for everything older than a month. Only files created and then deleted before the next hourly backup will not be included in the long term. Put another way: You’re well covered.
Ready when you are.
When your mobile Mac is connected to your backup drive, Time Machine works as you’d expect. When it isn’t connected, Time Machine also works as you’d expect. It keeps track of which files have changed since the last backup and backs them up to your backup drive the next time you connect. On any Mac, if Time Machine is unable to perform a backup, that’s duly noted in its preferences pane.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/timemachine.html
Time Machine is also designed to back up to an encrypted image for extra file security, allowing it to dump its backups on any file server.
Time Machine's interface also shows off how to create unique data visualizations with Core Animation, something that weaves throughout Leopard and will no doubt inspire lots of creative interfaces from third party Mac developers.
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]
Looks like this feature was dropped at the last minute:
****http://db.tidbits.com/article/9270
Too bad. I was hoping to find a setting that would let me require an encrypted backup, but it's not there in the release version.
-- Andy
Hey guys i bought a new lacie 500 gb external.. and i used it like a mounth.. after that i installed leopard and used time machine of course.. i did the backup etc etc.. And for time machine there is no problem for me.. When i need i can restore it.. but there is another thing.. before there was no problem like this, because i used the external on my pc too... after the back up time on time machine, i connected my external to my pc.. but my pc doesnt see the external.. i cant see , delete or edit my files.. because in my external there is 2 folders.. 1 is my mac book backup (works fine) and 2 my data ( movies , mp3 )... i can see,delete or edit my data only in my mac book when its connected .. but when i connect it to my pc there is nothing.. can you answer it? thank you very much.. and sorry for my bad english...
If I had to guess, your external hard disk was reformatted. It was probably something like NTFS or FAT, which are Windows file systems that Macintoshes understand. But when you set it up for Time Machine, it was reformatted as HFS+ Extended (Journaled), which your PC will never understand.
At this point, I would set up a network between your Mac and PC, if you don't already have one use a cross-over ethernet cable to connect them. Then in the Mac System Preferences, in the Sharing preferences, turn on file sharing, click on the options button and turn on SMB file sharing, then add your external disk with the + button.
Good luck!
If I had to guess, your external hard disk was reformatted. It was probably something like NTFS or FAT, which are Windows file systems that Macintoshes understand. But when you set it up for Time Machine, it was reformatted as HFS+ Extended (Journaled), which your PC will never understand.
At this point, I would set up a network between your Mac and PC, if you don't already have one use a cross-over ethernet cable to connect them. Then in the Mac System Preferences, in the Sharing preferences, turn on file sharing, click on the options button and turn on SMB file sharing, then add your external disk with the + button.
Good luck!
İ tried what you said and worked perfect... i can connect by wireless too.. thank you again .. but if i want to share my files with my friend? i cant always bring my mac book with my external hard disc... its very strange.. so you say that my external should be always with my book because of my time machine backup.. anyway waiting for your reply .. thank you
Actually, what you're seeing is people here looking at all the information we have on "how it works", in contrast to the marketing description, and then asking about a hole that seems to be there in a reasonably unique situation.
For almost any regular users usage, it will work "as advertised".
[edit: The actual article says the deletion "maintains a complete, extensive set of backups that balance out the demands for backup frequency versus disk space."]
On a related note and as I said before, deleting files because they're in the backup is a bad idea - create an archive instead. It's similar to users who store their read emails in the trash because it's convenient.
Good idea!
Could someone with Leopard:
1) create File1 at noon, and delete it 1.5hrs later. Check it's in Time Machine.
2) Create File2 at 2pm, and delete it 1.5 hrs later. Check its in Time machine.
3) Wait till the hourly backups are deleted (2 days later, to be safe?)
4) see if both File1 and File2 are in the daily backup....
I know this is an old thread - I just came across it.
I just did a slightly modified version of the above test.
I created a file, made sure it was in a Time Machine backup, then deleted the file 1.5 hrs later.
I created a second file, made sure it was in a Time Machine backup, then modified the file 1.5 hrs later.
After the hourly back-ups were rolled into a daily backup the next day, the first file was completely missing from Time Machine and only the last version of the second file existed.
It doesn't surprise me that only the last version of the second file existed as I didn't expect Time Machine to support versioning. I do seem to recall Apple touting how Time Machine can even retrieve earlier versions of a file when describing the benefits of Time Machine (and I don't recall there being any caveats about saving each version with a different name, keeping them for more than a week, etc.).
I am surprised the first file was missing. If I'm correct, it seems that all but the last hourly backup is lost each day and all but the last daily backup is lost each week. Each weekly backup is then kept for as long as there is hard drive space to support it. I would have thought the daily backup would be a consolidated view of the hourly backups such that if a file that had been backed up were deleted then it would still be included in the daily backup. I would have assumed the weekly backups would function the same way with regard to the daily backups.
I think its a mistake to assume that files kept for less than a week are not likely important and the chances of needing to recover said file is rare. The reason we need backups in the first place is because of accidents.
I love Time Machine and think it's a great feature; however, I think Apple's marketing of it is misleading. I'm sure a lot of people who frequent the various Apple forums know how it works but I suspect that most other users do not. Apple has clearly marketed Time Machine as "Just tell your Mac you want it to backup your data and you're done. Every file you have is then backed up in case you ever delete it." This is obviously not true and could be a huge problem for people who rely on it as such.
I just want people to understand how it really works before they loose something they need. God knows you don't want to find out how it works after the fact.
I think its a mistake to assume that files kept for less than a week are not likely important and the chances of needing to recover said file is rare. The reason we need backups in the first place is because of accidents.
Yeah, it really is just "snapshots" of your drive at certain times.
So it has a snapshot of every hour for the last day, but tomorrow it just keeps one of those snapshots. If you had a file for a couple of hours, that were in different snapshots but not in the one that's kept of the day, then you lose those snapshots.
Perhaps Apple marketing should do something different, but for most people it will work as they understand it - since people tend not to delete files they just created.
(MacOSX.5.2).
It does not work! The external HDDs do not mount on the desktop. Disk Utility does not 'see' the external HDD(s). Drive Genius does not 'see' the external HDD(s). And – worst of all – Time Machine does not 'see' the external HDD(s)!
Funnily enough System Profiler DOES 'see' the external HDD(s)...
It explains the almost surreptitiously slipped in launch of 'Time Capsule', which IS supposed to wirelessly support Time Machine. Apparently the Time Machine/Airport Extreme combo cannot be made/upgraded/updated to work, so Apple launched a new thingy. Leaving Time Machine/Airport Extreme wannabe users like me in the lurch and forcing us to keep scewing around with physically connecting and disconnecting HDDs!
After this Time Machine/Airport Extreme lie I don't trust Apple anymore.
Time Machine is billed to backup (an) internal drive(s) wirelessly to HDD(s) that are hooked up to Airport Extreme. But it DOESN'T!
(MacOSX.5.2).
It does not work! The external HDDs do not mount on the desktop. Disk Utility does not 'see' the external HDD(s). Drive Genius does not 'see' the external HDD(s). And – worst of all – Time Machine does not 'see' the external HDD(s)!
Funnily enough System Profiler DOES 'see' the external HDD(s)...
It explains the almost surreptitiously slipped in launch of 'Time Capsule', which IS supposed to wirelessly support Time Machine. Apparently the Time Machine/Airport Extreme combo cannot be made/upgraded/updated to work, so Apple launched a new thingy. Leaving Time Machine/Airport Extreme wannabe users like me in the lurch and forcing us to keep scewing around with physically connecting and disconnecting HDDs!
After this Time Machine/Airport Extreme lie I don't trust Apple anymore.
Good morning. Just woke up?
This is old news, the released version of Time Machine has never worked with hard drives attached to the Airport Extreme. Apple dropped Air Disk support in Time Machine prior to the retail release of Leopard. With each point release of Leopard this is one of the first questions asked. Has Air Disk support returned to Time Machine.
The conspiracy theorist claim that the feature was removed so that Apple can sell us Time Capsule without competition. I like your idea better. As it says that Time Machine will eventually work with Air Disks.
Thank you for this very interesting and useful article !
The system of the revision of a file was not detailed, can you confirm my understanding :
- If I have the file toto.txt in my initial full backup which we will named backup1.
- Then I update this file before the next backup which we will named backup2.
From my understanding, for backup2 a new file is created by Time Machine (with an internal name which could be toto.txt.2) and the hard link toto.txt in backup2 is linked to toto.txt.2 whereas in backup1 the hard link toto.txt is linked to the first file toto.txt.
So for me each revision of a file is a new full copy of this file in the next backup and so there is not incremental backup system ?
Can you confirm ?
Thanks !
P.S : If I'm right what about iPhoto backups which seems to be a single library file for all the pictures ?
Here's what I wanted to know: I want to keep TWO backups. I've read that it's best to have one attached to your computer at all times as Time Machine will maintain, but another stored off-site in the event of a crash/robbery.
m.
Hi all,
So for me each revision of a file is a new full copy of this file in the next backup and so there is not incremental backup system ?
In the sense of a block device oriented system, no (which is pretty tough, BTW).
As a per file based backup, yes.
And no, files are not being renamed or such.
That's all done via the inode and directory structure of the respective filesystem.
P.S : If I'm right what about iPhoto backups which seems to be a single library file for all the pictures ?
This lib is a directory containing files.
So the above stated applies here.
HTH, Michael.
I want to do that too. Actually, I want to have one Time Machine drive at work and another one at home. When I arrive at work or home, I want to plug in and have it copy all the correct files, not just the ones that may have changed since the last incremental backup. That way I have two up-to-date and complete backups in case of damage or other catastrophe. This seems easy enough to do: just check the backup drive for the latest backup date and copy things that changed since then. But I would like some reassurance that it does in fact do the thing that we would expect Apple to do. Does anyone know?
That works. I got three different disks. Bear in mind that changing the disk may cause longer backup times compared to using just a single disk. (Because of the how this system works)
HTH, Michael.