[Aegis]

Say I've got 700gb data and a 750gb external for Time Machine. It obviously can't fit multiple backups, so will it just tell me that the backup drive is full and redo (or update) the backup to it's current state?

[peeb]

Older stuff will drop off eventually - it will warn you when this happens.

[Aegis]

So, it doesn't make complete serialized backups, it just serializes what changes?

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Simon 

Absolutely. I love SVN!

But I can imagine there are very many Mac users who will gladly use TM but never want to touch something like SVN.

Well, those users probably need to have a decent backup anyway.

Seriously, Time Machine will probably be a force pushing people towards buying external hard drives in order to use it, and that's not a bad thing at all.

[peeb]

Originally Posted by Aegis 

So, it doesn't make complete serialized backups, it just serializes what changes?

The Apple site describes how it works in detail. As does this thread.

[0157988944]

Originally Posted by Mithras 

I disagree -- having an internal partition for Time Machine would still keep the "human error" backup -- i.e., allowing you to access previous revisions of documents, or deleted files.

My answer, too.

[Gankdawg]

Originally Posted by Mithras 

2. At least twice the space seems like a good rule of thumb.

I'm going with 1 to 1. Sort of. I ordered my new iMac with a 750 GB drive (I currently have about 400 GB of stuff) and then will use a 750 GB firewire 800 drive for TM. How does TM deal with your Bootcamp partition?

[OliverTwist]

Just curious, how do you guys manage to have 100s of gigabytes of data? Is it ripped DVDs and iMovie/FCP projects? I have less than 10GB total.

Anyway, regarding my earlier question about backing up volumes, I'm relieved to hear that it's possible. If anyone has confirmed it in practice, I'd be interested in knowing. I've already ordered a 400GB drive to back up to. It's important that I ONLY back up the volume - I don't want my main drive backed up at all.

[Gankdawg]

I have video from my digital video camera and old footage and stuff. That's what's taking up a ton of space for me.

[0157988944]

Video and Final Cut probably are the biggest contributors.

[Koralatov]

Originally Posted by Mithras 

Yeah, by default it will back up other attached volumes as well.

I trust that you can turn off backing up of attached volumes? I have two external HDs attached to my iMac (one 320GB, one 500GB) filled with video, and I don't want them to get backed up as well. If TM backs them up too, I'll wind up needing a 1TB backup drive.

Also, on my iMac, I have FireWire and USB2. I take it I'd be best using a FW drive for backup? And what ratio of backup drive size to main drive size is good? 3:1? 4:1? More:1? I have an 80GB drive, half-full, so should I aim for at least 250GB?

[mmurray]

OK so I have Leopard installed on a MacBook and TM running onto a new 750GB external drive. If I have Mail foremost on the MacBook and launch TM then it gives me a nested series of Mail windows and the usual TM interface. But if I look back at my InBox from an hour ago there are half a dozen unread messages from months back ? It should be empty as it is now.

And why does Mail behave like this whereas if other applications are open eg Safara when I launch TM a Finder Desktop window appears with all the older ones behind it ?

I think I will keep cloning with SuperDuper until I have some faith in this.

Thanks - Michael

[washkow]

OK, I have a Infrant ReadyNAS connected over my network, I managed to get it connected to my computer over an AFP connection (by going to finder and then saying "connect to server" and then afp://address.whatnot.whonow). Then I want time machine to backup to that drive, but when I open time machine and go to that select drive box, my AFP is not recognized. Any thoughts on how to solve this?
thanks!

[pvonk]

At home I have used a Mac Mini as the house's backup file server (for my MBP and my wife's PB. From what I've read, TM, if installed on the Mini, can back up each laptop to the Mini's external HDs. However, at work I also have an external HD that I connect when I'm there and do an automatic backup to it each working day. (I use Tri-Backup for the backup software since it can auto mount the Mini's drives, and SuperDuper for special boot drives / yes, I'm a safety kind of guy!)

So my question is, can I have two locations that TM backs up to? Perhaps I'd have to manually switch the "destination" each time I open the MBP, depending on whether I'm home or at work.

[pvonk]

Originally Posted by washkow 

OK, I have a Infrant ReadyNAS connected over my network, I managed to get it connected to my computer over an AFP connection (by going to finder and then saying "connect to server" and then afp://address.whatnot.whonow). Then I want time machine to backup to that drive, but when I open time machine and go to that select drive box, my AFP is not recognized. Any thoughts on how to solve this?
thanks!

I thought you'd have to have a "network drive" attached to a Mac that has Leopard installed? Also, I'm curious, how do you have the ReadyNAS formatted? FAT32?

[0157988944]

Originally Posted by mmurray 

OK so I have Leopard installed on a MacBook and TM running onto a new 750GB external drive. If I have Mail foremost on the MacBook and launch TM then it gives me a nested series of Mail windows and the usual TM interface. But if I look back at my InBox from an hour ago there are half a dozen unread messages from months back ? It should be empty as it is now.

And why does Mail behave like this whereas if other applications are open eg Safara when I launch TM a Finder Desktop window appears with all the older ones behind it ?

I think I will keep cloning with SuperDuper until I have some faith in this.

Thanks - Michael

It's not broken or anything. Think about it. You can't "Back up" Safari, so it won't move Safari into a backup scenario. Instead, it grabs the Finder Window, which you can back up. In Mail, Address Book, iPhoto, and a few others are the only ones that will enter Time Machine, because they are the only back-uppable apps.

[Dork.]

Here's a stupid question for you all: how will Time Machine back up files that are open?

For instance, I open up an existing Word document at 12:01 PM, make some changes over the course of time and save it at 2:34 PM, and then make more changes over the course of time and save and close it at 4:59.

Time Machine makes hourly backups, but only of the stuff in the filesystem, right? So I will end up with three versions of this file in Time Machine: the original, and the two versions that were saved. Time Machine won't go and, say, make a snapshot of the open file in the condition it was at 1 PM, between saves, will it?

[macintologist]

Originally Posted by OliverTwist 

Just curious, how do you guys manage to have 100s of gigabytes of data? Is it ripped DVDs and iMovie/FCP projects? I have less than 10GB total.

Anyway, regarding my earlier question about backing up volumes, I'm relieved to hear that it's possible. If anyone has confirmed it in practice, I'd be interested in knowing. I've already ordered a 400GB drive to back up to. It's important that I ONLY back up the volume - I don't want my main drive backed up at all.

Ripped DVDs, music, and I keep all my Mac torrents downloads archived in case I need the original installer.

[macintologist]

Originally Posted by pvonk 

At home I have used a Mac Mini as the house's backup file server (for my MBP and my wife's PB. From what I've read, TM, if installed on the Mini, can back up each laptop to the Mini's external HDs. However, at work I also have an external HD that I connect when I'm there and do an automatic backup to it each working day. (I use Tri-Backup for the backup software since it can auto mount the Mini's drives, and SuperDuper for special boot drives / yes, I'm a safety kind of guy!)

So my question is, can I have two locations that TM backs up to? Perhaps I'd have to manually switch the "destination" each time I open the MBP, depending on whether I'm home or at work.

I don't think Apple designed Time Machine with users like you in mind. Sorry

[Peter]

I just dont get the point of TimeMachine for laptop users. When would I ever have my HDD plugged in except when I'm at home?
I want the TimeMachine "restore certain files" functionality with me all the time.

[Cliff_O]

Originally Posted by [email protected] 

Am I correct in my understanding that Time Machine will not recognise hard drives attached to Apple's own wifi network via Airport Extreme?? That's a pretty big oversight IMHO for it detracts from the mentality of 'set it up and forget it' by requiring us laptop users to physically attach the HD to use TM. Can anyone confirm that this is true; that TM cannot see airdisks?

TIA

That's what the docs say. BUT, that's not what I am seeing, in my case.

I have 2 external drives in eSATA/USB 2.0 cases. They are normally connected to my AEBS via a hub. I connected one via eSATA to my MBP, designated it as a Time Machine backup target and Time Machine did its thing. I unmounted it and reconnected it to the AEBS. Time Machine still recognizes the drive and is backing up to it over wireless. It's dead slow, so I may turn it off. But for now, I'm just going to watch it and see what it does.

[legacyb4]

Tried the .com file trick on a Tiger-based Appleshare volume from my desktop to my laptop but it's not recognized. Can anyone confirm if a partitioned internal drive that's shared out on a Leopard system will be usable?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Peter 

I just dont get the point of TimeMachine for laptop users. When would I ever have my HDD plugged in except when I'm at home?
I want the TimeMachine "restore certain files" functionality with me all the time.

I feel the same way, which is why I have a file server setup to backup to with the laptops in my house. The initial cloning is slow, but incremental backups beyond this are acceptable (I'm using rsync, I don't have Leopard yet).

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Dork. 

Here's a stupid question for you all: how will Time Machine back up files that are open?

For instance, I open up an existing Word document at 12:01 PM, make some changes over the course of time and save it at 2:34 PM, and then make more changes over the course of time and save and close it at 4:59.

Time Machine makes hourly backups, but only of the stuff in the filesystem, right? So I will end up with three versions of this file in Time Machine: the original, and the two versions that were saved. Time Machine won't go and, say, make a snapshot of the open file in the condition it was at 1 PM, between saves, will it?

That will be the first thing I test when I get Leopard installed. I'm hoping that it keeps track of all revisions and merely turns over local revisions by syncing them with your external media every hour, but it is unclear to me whether or not this applies.

The easiest way I know of to test this is to open up a Textedit file, write in something, save, write in something else, save again, and invoke the TM interface. If you can backpeddle, I will be very happy!

[0157988944]

Originally Posted by Dork. 

Here's a stupid question for you all: how will Time Machine back up files that are open?

For instance, I open up an existing Word document at 12:01 PM, make some changes over the course of time and save it at 2:34 PM, and then make more changes over the course of time and save and close it at 4:59.

Time Machine makes hourly backups, but only of the stuff in the filesystem, right? So I will end up with three versions of this file in Time Machine: the original, and the two versions that were saved. Time Machine won't go and, say, make a snapshot of the open file in the condition it was at 1 PM, between saves, will it?

It will work like this:

Time machine Backup: 12:00 PM

File created: 12:01 PM

Time Machine Backup : 1:00 PM will back up the 12:01 created file.

Time Machine Backup: 2:00 PM will back nothing up, as no changes have been saved.

File Saved: 2:34 PM

Time Machine Backup: 3:00 PM backs up 2:34 PM saved file.

Time Machine backup: 4:00 PM will back nothing up once again

File Saved: 4:59 PM

Time Machine Backup: 5:00 PM will back up 4:59 saved changes.


So, you will end up with the file backed up 3 times, so that if you inadvertently erased and saved the file at 3:15, you can go back to the 2:34 version.

[Simon]

Yeah, that's quite obvious, but what happens when you have two revisions of a file between TM backups? Will you end up with just one backed up version or two?

IOW

Time machine Backup: 12:00 PM
File created: 12:01 PM
File saved: 12:05 PM
File saved: 12:10 PM
Time machine Backup: 1:00 PM

How many versions of that file will my TM backup now have?

[nickm]

Time machine Backup: 12:00 PM
File created: 12:01 PM
File saved: 12:05 PM
File saved: 12:10 PM
Time machine Backup: 1:00 PM

How many versions of that file will my TM backup now have?

Just one. To a first order approximation, Time Machine takes a snapshot of your disk as it exists when it runs a backup. When it runs, Time Machine asks the file system "which files have changed since I last backed up?" and the file system will report that file as among the changed and it will be backed up as it was saved at 12:10.

[Simon]

OK, good to know. Thanks.

[davidrivera]

I have 2 external drives I want to designate for backups but I read some where that Time Machine can only backup to one device and time. Is this true?

[Drakino]

Originally Posted by legacyb4 

Tried the .com file trick on a Tiger-based Appleshare volume from my desktop to my laptop but it's not recognized. Can anyone confirm if a partitioned internal drive that's shared out on a Leopard system will be usable?

It should be. I found a way to use two Leopard systems to get Time Machine working on my NAS, and the initial steps involve having one Leopard machine mount a disk on the other one over AFP. Once it was mounted, Time Machine showed "External Disk on MacMini" under Choose Disk, and let me back up to it.

Using this method makes a sparsebundle disk image, instead of just dumping to a folder like a locally connected disk ends up with. For me, this seems to be reliable, and the sparsebundle image might be something people who are using Airport Disk might want to investigate.

My instructions are posted over here on getting it up and running with the ReadyNAS. Ignore the NAS setup and do the same sharing procedure to use the Airport Disk:
ReadyNAS :: View topic - Time Machine and ReadyNAS solution (Two Mac method)

[legacyb4]

I've rejigged my G5, clearing out one of the 250GB drives and partitioning it 70/160 for system/backup. Created a folder on the Backup share named "Macbook" and shared that folder out with write/read access to everyone (that way, no authentication is needed to mount that share). Mounted it and set it as a destination in Time Machine, added my excludes because I don't really need a backup of every file on my laptop, and am now in the process of running my initial backup. It does look like it's creating a sparsebundle image on the shared folder that, in return, gets mounted as a disk image on my laptop. What happens next, I have no idea. The hope is that if the share is dismounted, it will automatically remount as needed?

Update: Once I worked out the connection issues (flaky Airport connection, G5 going to sleep on me), it looks like without actually mounting the TM share, TIme Machine will still kick off a backup and mount the sparseimage disc and run a backup. Firing up Time Machine also mounted the drive without prompting. Now to try applying permissions back on the share and see if saving the password to my keychain will allow the same.

Originally Posted by Drakino 

It should be. I found a way to use two Leopard systems to get Time Machine working on my NAS, and the initial steps involve having one Leopard machine mount a disk on the other one over AFP. Once it was mounted, Time Machine showed "External Disk on MacMini" under Choose Disk, and let me back up to it.

Using this method makes a sparsebundle disk image, instead of just dumping to a folder like a locally connected disk ends up with.

[Drakino]

Originally Posted by legacyb4 

I What happens next, I have no idea. The hope is that if the share is dismounted, it will automatically remount as needed?

The best way to test this is once it finishes a backup, eject the disk image and mounted disk. Then click the Time Machine dock icon. From what I saw, it should try to remount the share if it can, but this wasn't solid for me once I moved it to my NAS. If I didn't save the password when I initially connected via the Finder, Time Machine asked for the password when I picked the remote disk, so thats a good sign it should make an attempt at least.

My laptop is currently doing a large Time Machine backup right now (Just copied over my 11gb photo library and 9 gb music library off the Tiger backup), but if I get time later I'll poke at this more.

[talisker]

Just an observation - from the various Time Machine threads it appears that most people's intention is to keep their external drive permanently connected and let TM do its thing. Those who want to disconnect the drive seem to be in the minority.

Leaving your backup drive permanently connected has limited value as a backup. Sure, it will protect against failure of the computer's hard drive, or accidental deletion of files. But it won't guard against loss through theft (a thief would be pretty likely to steal both the computer and the hard drive if he broke in) or house fires etc.

If you're going to rely on TM to protect irreplacable files then you have to have a back up that you at least hide somewhere in your house / office, or ideally take offsite.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Peter 

I just dont get the point of TimeMachine for laptop users. When would I ever have my HDD plugged in except when I'm at home?
I want the TimeMachine "restore certain files" functionality with me all the time.

The point is to have an off-site backup. First and foremost, it's a backup solution to me, but obviously the feature goes deeper than that. Only later on, with ZFS, you can have Time Machine with you on the road.

[sedlacek]

Originally Posted by Cliff_O 

That's what the docs say. BUT, that's not what I am seeing, in my case.

I have 2 external drives in eSATA/USB 2.0 cases. They are normally connected to my AEBS via a hub. I connected one via eSATA to my MBP, designated it as a Time Machine backup target and Time Machine did its thing. I unmounted it and reconnected it to the AEBS. Time Machine still recognizes the drive and is backing up to it over wireless. It's dead slow, so I may turn it off. But for now, I'm just going to watch it and see what it does.

So Cliff_O.....you did nothing more than what you've written here? No other hacks and such? (my copy of 10.5 is still on the way thanks to a secretary here at work who clearly doesn't get it, but I disgress....)

-A

[desertmac]

Originally Posted by Cliff_O 

That's what the docs say. BUT, that's not what I am seeing, in my case.

I have 2 external drives in eSATA/USB 2.0 cases. They are normally connected to my AEBS via a hub. I connected one via eSATA to my MBP, designated it as a Time Machine backup target and Time Machine did its thing. I unmounted it and reconnected it to the AEBS. Time Machine still recognizes the drive and is backing up to it over wireless. It's dead slow, so I may turn it off. But for now, I'm just going to watch it and see what it does.

Cliff_O: You have exactly my set up. Will try it myself later today or tomorrow, but would really appreciate hearing about any additional experience you have with this.

[mishakim]

TM did something odd for me yesterday, I'm wondering if anyone else has seen similar:
My backup drive is a 500GB external, usually connected by FW to my G4 desktop. TM on the desktop works as advertised. For my Powerbook, my intent was to do the first backup with a wired connection, then let incremental backups go over the network.

I connected my Powerbook by USB (FW not working, that's another story), it did the first backup, no problem. Reconnected hours later, did a second backup, no problem.

Next day, I mounted the external drive via sharing from the desktop. TM began running, but instead of incrementing the existing backup and creating a new hardlinked folder in the backups folder, it created a new sparsebundle at the root level, mounted that, and backed up the entire drive again (took hours).
When I run the TM client, it shows all the backups, so it's aware of both, but the sparsebundle is still sitting there at root.

Anyone seen similar? Is it going to maintain two parallel backups, one when I'm directly connected and one when it sees the drive over the network? I'd be OK with that, as long as it doesn't go copying the whole hard drive again. (I'm at work now, will next test when I get home.)

[Cliff_O]

Originally Posted by desertmac 

Cliff_O: You have exactly my set up. Will try it myself later today or tomorrow, but would really appreciate hearing about any additional experience you have with this.

Originally Posted by [email protected] 

So Cliff_O.....you did nothing more than what you've written here? No other hacks and such? (my copy of 10.5 is still on the way thanks to a secretary here at work who clearly doesn't get it, but I disgress....)
-A

Nothing beyond what I described. While time machine (TM)seemed to recognize the airport disk as a TM disk, the backup behavior didn't seem to work as I expected it should. TM appeared to be initiating a new complete backup when connected to the disk via AEBS. It was so excrutiatingly slow, I turned TM off and gave up on the experiment. I will just tether the laptop to the drive via USB or eSATA every day to capture a backup via TM.

Originally Posted by mishakim 

TM began running, but instead of incrementing the existing backup and creating a new hardlinked folder in the backups folder, it created a new sparsebundle at the root level, mounted that, and backed up the entire drive again (took hours). When I run the TM client, it shows all the backups, so it's aware of both, but the sparsebundle is still sitting there at root.

Anyone seen similar?

I saw that with the backup initiated when the disk was attached via the AEBS. I didn't wait for the backup to complete as it was taking too long so I cancelled it. I deleted the sparsebundle from the TM disk. I can't say that I've tested my backup by performing a restore from it, but it looks OK. It definitely looks OK from within TM.

[legacyb4]

If you have the luxury of running Leopard on a desktop, you can enable offsite Time Machine backups for your laptop as well.

Here's a quick post on how you can a) run your wireless backups following the various instructions above and b) extending that functionality through an SSH tunnel so that it works outside of your network as well:

Time Machine: Backup to Fileshare Over SSH | macbit.net

It's a bit slow depending on your uplink speed at your offsite location, but it seems work pretty smoothly.

[Jim Paradise]

Has anyone experienced one of the following two problems? After hitting Restore, a message pops up saying something along that lines that "You do not have sufficient privileges to perform that operation" on an admin account. The second problem is that after hitting Restore, it will ask for the admin password, but then restore the file onto the backup and not my hard drive. The duplicate file then has "(original)" appended to it. I've seen the following problem on more than one computer, so it can't just be my configuration.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by legacyb4 

If you have the luxury of running Leopard on a desktop, you can enable offsite Time Machine backups for your laptop as well.

Here's a quick post on how you can a) run your wireless backups following the various instructions above and b) extending that functionality through an SSH tunnel so that it works outside of your network as well:

Time Machine: Backup to Fileshare Over SSH | macbit.net

It's a bit slow depending on your uplink speed at your offsite location, but it seems work pretty smoothly.

Another way to do this is the install sshfs/MacFUSE and point TM at this disk. The problem is, TM will only automount AFP disks.

[mduell]

The Time Machine/FileVault integration is completely retarded; secure, but nearly useless.

It will only back up your entire home folder as an encrypted binary blob (so if you change one character in one filename, it makes another copy of your 40+GB home folder), and it will only backup that binary blob while you're logged out. The intelligent thing to do would be per-file or per-timepoint encrypted disk images, but Apple chose the 'easy' and incredibly inefficient/annoying way instead.

[Cadaver]

Can't get Time Machine to work correctly on my MacBook Pro. I've got a Mac Pro at home and I've assigned one of the internal drives to TM. Works great. However on my MBP, a Western Digital 160GB Passport USB harddrive, even freshly formatted to HFS+ journaled and GUID partition map causes Time Machine to error out (fails with "error writing").

The drive is good as far as I can tell - no error when it was used for routine data storage.

There's about 45GB worth of material to backup on my MBP. When I first run TM, it goes for a while but only copies about 6GB worth of data. Then, after about a 5-10 minute delay, it will start backing up again, but will fail at some point with an "error writing data to the drive Passport."

I've seen this issue posted on the Apple discussion forums, but no one there has a working solution either.

[Drakino]

For those seeing sparseimages created when shuffling the drive around, this is what I would expect to see based on my own experiences.

Time Machine creates a folder structure on any locally connected disks for the backups. However, when Time Machine is backing up over the network (to an Airport Disk, to a Leopard Server, or to a Leopard Client, or in my case a 3rd party NAS), it uses a sparseimage. Likely this is for portability, as only Leopard HFS+ understands hard links on directories. The sparseimage behavior is leftover from earlier developer seeds where you could officially put the Time Machine backup on an Airport Disk.

[mishakim]

Originally Posted by Drakino 

However, when Time Machine is backing up over the network (to an Airport Disk, to a Leopard Server, or to a Leopard Client, or in my case a 3rd party NAS), it uses a sparseimage.

Excellent point, that makes sense. I think it still has some implementation issues, however (beyond the inelegance of seeing a .sparesebundle file at root on my external drive). Yesterday, it didn't attempt a backup, so I clicked on the "change disc" button to see what the options were. My backup drive was there (with the server in parentheses), so I clicked it, but that apparently confused it, because now it says there's never been a backup, and won't start one. If I click the client, it shows the backup from Sunday, but not the ones from Saturday. I can't find any way, however, to tell the system to resume backups.

[Appleman]

OK, I bought a Western Digital MyBook II, 1 TB.

First made it RAID mirror, with the included software, so I had roughly 500 GB double.
Time Machine didn't work: took ages just to give me a error message.
Thought maybe I need to keep it the full 1 TB so erased and went back to 1 TB.
Time Machine didn't work: took ages just to give me a error message.
Thought maybe I need Apple's own Disk Utility to format it, so did so.
Time Machine didn't work: took ages just to give me a error message.

I cannot find something like an exclusion for this hard disk.
It's connected to PowerMac G5 dual 2 GHz via FireWire 800.

Is it because the actual disk is actually two hard drives?
Is WD MyBook simply incompatible? Cannot find anything on Apple.com or WD.com.

Many thanks, as this starts to annoy me a little...

[schalliol]

Is there anyway to get Time Machine to work to two different drives for two locations? i.e. backup at home and backup at work.

[Appleman]

Seems like you have to erase/ format disk as "Mac OS X, case sensitive, journaled" and it should work.
Read that on apple forums.
Anyone?

[frdmfghtr]

I had initial trouble using a 300 GB external drive in a USB enclosure. My MacBook had 95 GB of data for the initial backup (I didn't exclude any files) and it hung at about the 4 GB mark.

I restarted TM with the system, library, and applications folders excluded, and the backup went fine.

I added the applications folder, and the next backup worked fine.

I've since excluded all but the user folders, figuring it the event of a crash, I can reinstall the OS and apps from original media and recover the data from TM. If you ave a lot of data in the initial backup, try excluding parts to reduce the initial size and add them later. It seemed to work here, although I never added the system files to the mix to see if a system file was causing the hang-up.

[plamparello]

Time machine on a laptop is terrible. What is the point of having it when it doesn't internally store changes and it only backups when I have the hard drive plugged in which defeats the purpose of portability. I lost a file and it was my fault, but time machine definitely gives people a false sense of security.