A question for those who have tested it: how large should a typical Time Machine backup drive be? I understand that this will vary with our use etc., but let's assume that I have an iMac with a 320 GB disk, about 100 GB of it available. WHat size drive should I consider for backup? How often do you think I'll need to add another backup drive?
The part I get lazy about when doing automated backups is what to do when the backup disk gets full. Sure there are algorithms for throwing out the oldest data, but I'm most comfortable making sure I have a roomy backup disk to start with. Don't skimp on the size, I'd love every 120GB hard disk to be backing up to a 750GB drive but that's not always affordable. My cost effective preference is for 2x the size of the data I'm backing up. With differential backups, 1.5x is certainly usable, but I get very anxious if I have a drive that's less than the size of the data I'm backing up and I have to start making choices of what to exclude.
You can exclude the system and applications areas and just back up users data, of course. Very easy to do. If you have to restore from backup you'll need to manually reinstall OS X and all your apps, but that's mainly an issue of convenience and time savings. Next on my list of things I exclude are my CD's that I have ripped for iTunes. I can get them back because I still have the physical CD, but it'll take a while to re-rip.
And remember, there is nothing stopping you from also using other backup techniques. It may be a good idea to make a disk image to a different medium (like tape or something) for longer term storage. There will never be a perfect backup solution, but Time Machine is a very nice piece to have.
Another thing. I have a desktop Mac and my wife has a MacBook running through Airport. Will I be able to partition an external HD so each of us can take advantage of Time Machine? I am new to partitioning an HD, so the question also extends to this point: Is each partition seen as an individual HD to accomplish what I hope will be full utilization of Time Machine backups for both Macs?
There is no need to partition the external drive. Time machine puts separate directories for different computers, and backs each up to it's own directory.
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.
Use Time machine for the day to day stuff. And use another tool like Carbon Copy Cloner to snapshot the state of your disk for a particular time period to off-line storage. (You don't need to snapshot the time machine drive).
The answer for this is in the article. Did you read it, or just the headline?
It's usually best to read the article BEFORE posting questions.
Dude, stop being a dick. Read over your own quote again: it doesn't say anything about multiple machines, just multiple users. Someone below you, however, was nice enough to answer the question.
Does anyone know if you are able to back up more then one computer to only one drive? I'd like to just buy one external drive, hook it up to an AirPort, and have both my computers share it for backup.
I could be wrong, but I think you would either need a server or a network drive (could be a wireless network drive also).
Fantastic article. I've been reading every one of these - and for me they've all been great - but this one was the best of the bunch for me.
Now, if there was only a way to compress this great information down to about five words and convince non-OS X users to take to Leopard, Time Machine alone would sway a good number of folks.
Great article. Up until this point I had zero interest in Time Machine since I thought it was the same as Windows' "System Restore", which is nearly useless. After reading this, Windows' backup and system restore apps look like a waste of time and effort.
After finding a source, Time Machine sets up a full backup. It then schedules a backup every hour.
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?
Use Time machine for the day to day stuff. And use another tool like Carbon Copy Cloner to snapshot the state of your disk for a particular time period to off-line storage. (You don't need to snapshot the time machine drive).
That may work, although I think I WOULD want to snapshot the Time Machine drive. If I were to snapshot the time machine drive every six months and keep the snapshot drive off site, that's solve the issue if things ever went horribly wrong.
What would be great is if you could boot from the leopard dvd, and run a restore which searches for a time machine backup and lets you do a complete restore back to a specified date.
I am not sure why this is not mentioned, but this feature is part of Leopard already as you can see in this ThinkSecret gallery that shows the install process of Leopard:
Dude, stop being a dick. Read over your own quote again: it doesn't say anything about multiple machines, just multiple users. Someone below you, however, was nice enough to answer the question.
"Time Machine works with any standard external Firewire or USB drive, and is also designed to work with shared network drives, such as Apple's shared disks served up by the new Airport Extreme base station. Multiple Leopard users can backup to the same drive, as Time Machine stores each systems' backups separately by name. 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."
The use of Airport Base Station and Multiple Users, IMO, implies multiples users from multiple machines not being an issue.
Great Article. iWish you showed the MO drive, but you can't have it all. Time-lined, well thought out, a really good piece of journalism, thanks Apple Insider!
An MO cartridge probably doesn't look that much different from the Bernoulli disk that they showed. Other than reading the label, you'd know the difference if you slid open the door.
I like the simple approach Apple have taken to this using hard links, and like the fact that I'll just be able to browse through the backups like ordinary folders without using the outer-space interface.
Not because I don't like the outer-space interface, but just because being able to access them as ordinary files make me feel more confident in the system.
The only unanswered question in my mind is how Spotlight works back through time. Do they back up the entire Spotlight index each backup? That is the only way I can think of.
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?
Two answers: (1) perhaps you could use iDisk as one while travelling... perhaps buying more .mac space would be worth it for road warriors!
and (2) There is a wonderful drive family from Western Digital called the "My Book" family. I bought a firewire 500GB from COSTCO for around $165. They are power efficient (shut down after xxx minutes) and very reliable.
The terabyte models should be out soon. I'll get one when I move to Leapard and still use backup to .mac and the 500G drives. Can't be too safe (as I just found out Monday!!!)
Dude, stop being a dick. Read over your own quote again: it doesn't say anything about multiple machines, just multiple users. Someone below you, however, was nice enough to answer the question.
Don't be a dick yourself. Read the question, AND the answer.
The first time an external drive is plugged in, Time Machine offers to use it for backups.
Will Time Machine keep bugging you until you let it use a drive? For example, if you answer No the first time, will Time Machine keep bugging you every time you plug in the same drive? If you answered No to one drive and then connect a different drive, will Time Machine bug you to use the new one?
Comments
A question for those who have tested it: how large should a typical Time Machine backup drive be? I understand that this will vary with our use etc., but let's assume that I have an iMac with a 320 GB disk, about 100 GB of it available. WHat size drive should I consider for backup? How often do you think I'll need to add another backup drive?
The part I get lazy about when doing automated backups is what to do when the backup disk gets full. Sure there are algorithms for throwing out the oldest data, but I'm most comfortable making sure I have a roomy backup disk to start with. Don't skimp on the size, I'd love every 120GB hard disk to be backing up to a 750GB drive but that's not always affordable. My cost effective preference is for 2x the size of the data I'm backing up. With differential backups, 1.5x is certainly usable, but I get very anxious if I have a drive that's less than the size of the data I'm backing up and I have to start making choices of what to exclude.
You can exclude the system and applications areas and just back up users data, of course. Very easy to do. If you have to restore from backup you'll need to manually reinstall OS X and all your apps, but that's mainly an issue of convenience and time savings. Next on my list of things I exclude are my CD's that I have ripped for iTunes. I can get them back because I still have the physical CD, but it'll take a while to re-rip.
And remember, there is nothing stopping you from also using other backup techniques. It may be a good idea to make a disk image to a different medium (like tape or something) for longer term storage. There will never be a perfect backup solution, but Time Machine is a very nice piece to have.
Another thing. I have a desktop Mac and my wife has a MacBook running through Airport. Will I be able to partition an external HD so each of us can take advantage of Time Machine? I am new to partitioning an HD, so the question also extends to this point: Is each partition seen as an individual HD to accomplish what I hope will be full utilization of Time Machine backups for both Macs?
There is no need to partition the external drive. Time machine puts separate directories for different computers, and backs each up to it's own directory.
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.
Use Time machine for the day to day stuff. And use another tool like Carbon Copy Cloner to snapshot the state of your disk for a particular time period to off-line storage. (You don't need to snapshot the time machine drive).
The answer for this is in the article. Did you read it, or just the headline?
It's usually best to read the article BEFORE posting questions.
Dude, stop being a dick. Read over your own quote again: it doesn't say anything about multiple machines, just multiple users. Someone below you, however, was nice enough to answer the question.
Thanks for the great article!
Does anyone know if you are able to back up more then one computer to only one drive? I'd like to just buy one external drive, hook it up to an AirPort, and have both my computers share it for backup.
I could be wrong, but I think you would either need a server or a network drive (could be a wireless network drive also).
Fantastic article. I've been reading every one of these - and for me they've all been great - but this one was the best of the bunch for me.
Now, if there was only a way to compress this great information down to about five words and convince non-OS X users to take to Leopard, Time Machine alone would sway a good number of folks.
Thanks again.
Leopard is making this switcher very excited!
After finding a source, Time Machine sets up a full backup. It then schedules a backup every hour.
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?
Use Time machine for the day to day stuff. And use another tool like Carbon Copy Cloner to snapshot the state of your disk for a particular time period to off-line storage. (You don't need to snapshot the time machine drive).
That may work, although I think I WOULD want to snapshot the Time Machine drive. If I were to snapshot the time machine drive every six months and keep the snapshot drive off site, that's solve the issue if things ever went horribly wrong.
Thank you for the suggestion.
m.
What would be great is if you could boot from the leopard dvd, and run a restore which searches for a time machine backup and lets you do a complete restore back to a specified date.
I am not sure why this is not mentioned, but this feature is part of Leopard already as you can see in this ThinkSecret gallery that shows the install process of Leopard:
http://www.thinksecret.com/archives/...e/install.html
At least this was in there, I'm assuming its still in recent build as it is very useful.
Dude, stop being a dick. Read over your own quote again: it doesn't say anything about multiple machines, just multiple users. Someone below you, however, was nice enough to answer the question.
Great Article. iWish you showed the MO drive, but you can't have it all. Time-lined, well thought out, a really good piece of journalism, thanks Apple Insider!
An MO cartridge probably doesn't look that much different from the Bernoulli disk that they showed. Other than reading the label, you'd know the difference if you slid open the door.
Not because I don't like the outer-space interface, but just because being able to access them as ordinary files make me feel more confident in the system.
The only unanswered question in my mind is how Spotlight works back through time. Do they back up the entire Spotlight index each backup? That is the only way I can think of.
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?
Two answers: (1) perhaps you could use iDisk as one while travelling... perhaps buying more .mac space would be worth it for road warriors!
and (2) There is a wonderful drive family from Western Digital called the "My Book" family. I bought a firewire 500GB from COSTCO for around $165. They are power efficient (shut down after xxx minutes) and very reliable.
The terabyte models should be out soon. I'll get one when I move to Leapard and still use backup to .mac and the 500G drives. Can't be too safe (as I just found out Monday!!!)
Dude, stop being a dick. Read over your own quote again: it doesn't say anything about multiple machines, just multiple users. Someone below you, however, was nice enough to answer the question.
Don't be a dick yourself. Read the question, AND the answer.
The first time an external drive is plugged in, Time Machine offers to use it for backups.
Will Time Machine keep bugging you until you let it use a drive? For example, if you answer No the first time, will Time Machine keep bugging you every time you plug in the same drive? If you answered No to one drive and then connect a different drive, will Time Machine bug you to use the new one?
Contact Apple about them. If they are being ramped up to support this they should have some reasonable answers.