Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

jeff k · Aug 28, 2011, 07:14 PM

I have never ever used time machine. I back up once a day with Super Duper. But there is one excel file driving me crazy. Its very important and screws up sorting. So a daily backup would be nice. Only thing -- with Time Machine, I just cant back up a file or two correct? All My work is on an expensive 2 terabyte Drive. I have tons of spare smaller hard drive, but to play this game, I'd have to fork out for another 2 TB correct?

mduell · Aug 29, 2011, 01:47 PM

You could exclude everything else from the TM backup. It's not elegant, but it works.

I'd also suggest moving to a real backup, instead of daily cloning. 2-3TB drives are cheap.

jeff k · Aug 29, 2011, 07:32 PM

M,
did not understand the 2nd part. I bought three 3TB drives, ONe is main, one is backup, and one is offsite. They are $600 each.

I have 10 older 250 GB drives in the closet. I would love to use one of these. I only want to back up a few text folders.

How do you do time machine and exclude things? I've been told for TM to get going, your drive has to back up first everything from another drive. not true?

ibook_steve · Aug 29, 2011, 08:17 PM

Originally Posted by jeff k

How do you do time machine and exclude things? I've been told for TM to get going, your drive has to back up first everything from another drive. not true?

Time Machine preferences -> Options

Steve

Uncle Skeleton · Aug 29, 2011, 09:49 PM

Originally Posted by jeff k

M,
did not understand the 2nd part. I bought three 3TB drives, ONe is main, one is backup, and one is offsite. They are $600 each.

Now they're $110 each:

Newegg.com - HITACHI Deskstar 0S03230 3TB 5400 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

For USB version, $130:

Newegg.com - Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 3TB USB 2.0 Black External Hard Drive STAC3000100

jeff k · Aug 30, 2011, 01:11 PM

Steve, ok, just set up my 500GB old drive.
I excluded all the other hard drives on my desktop.

But the folder I want to use with Time Machine is on a 3TB hard rive. PIty there is currently no way to tell exclude parts of that Hardrive.

Out of luck here correct?

turtle777 · Aug 30, 2011, 01:25 PM

Originally Posted by jeff k

But the folder I want to use with Time Machine is on a 3TB hard rive. PIty there is currently no way to tell exclude parts of that Hardrive.

Out of luck here correct?

No, you can exclude as many folders from the Source as you wish.
Just exclude the majority of the folders on your Source 3TB HD.
However, I'm not sure if you can exclude all system folders, and be confined to a "data" only TM backup.

Time Machine preferences -> Options

-t

ibook_steve · Aug 30, 2011, 01:48 PM

I think the confusion here is that you can exclude individual folders, not just entire drives.

Steve

jeff k · Aug 30, 2011, 02:30 PM

Interesting, is this new? is does seem to be able to exclude folders. A year or two ago, I asked on a forum and I don't think it could do that.

Of course it's really a mess as I've now got a list of 5 hard drives and 10 folders to exclude. Would be a lot nicer if I just saw the 1-2 folders I want to include.
also, I deleted the last back up folder. started over, but nothing is happening. How do I tell TM to try again?

mduell · Aug 30, 2011, 05:08 PM

Flip the TM switch to On and wait a couple minutes.

You massively overpaid for your 3TB drives. Where did you buy them from, Apple?

ibook_steve · Aug 30, 2011, 06:27 PM

You've always been able to select individual files or folders.

Steve

jeff k · Aug 30, 2011, 06:45 PM

M, maybe it was $600 for all three!

Steve, How can I select an individual folder to backup, that would be nice than excluding 15 things.

Is this fairly new ability to do that?

thanks

Waragainstsleep · Aug 30, 2011, 06:57 PM

Do Apple ship 3TB drives? They didn't last I looked.

jeff k · Aug 30, 2011, 07:54 PM

no it was Seagate I think external. but anyway, waiting on Steve -- how to add just certain folders, not exclude others thanks!

ibook_steve · Aug 31, 2011, 02:08 AM

You can only exclude, not include. I never said include.

Just go to the top level of your drive and exclude all folders except the one that contains what you want to back up. This really is not that hard.

Steve

Waragainstsleep · Aug 31, 2011, 11:54 AM

I have a Leoapard server which runs an iSCSI RAID unit for a small company. Can anyone think of a reason why I shouldn't use TM to backup the boot drive to the RAID unit?

It seems like the simplest way to do it but I can't help have a feeling its not a great idea for some reason.

cgc · Aug 31, 2011, 12:14 PM

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep

Do Apple ship 3TB drives? They didn't last I looked.

3TB drives are way too new for Apple to include them, maybe in a few more years they will

jeff k · Aug 31, 2011, 12:38 PM

THANKS Steve,
will test, and report back if/ have questions, appreciate it!

jeff k · Sep 4, 2011, 11:49 PM

Ok, it's working good, so I'm pleased. Only thing is it's a 500gb drive. I'm backing up about 140GB of that.
TM only goes back about 2 days. So If I come to the realization I need something from a week ago I'm screwed. Why only two days?

turtle777 · Sep 4, 2011, 11:53 PM

Originally Posted by jeff k

Ok, it's working good, so I'm pleased. Only thing is it's a 500gb drive. I'm backing up about 140GB of that.
TM only goes back about 2 days. So If I come to the realization I need something from a week ago I'm screwed. Why only two days?

Because you just started backing up two days ago ?

-t

Andy8 · Sep 5, 2011, 12:44 AM

Originally Posted by turtle777

Because you just started backing up two days ago ?

-t

Exactly.

jeff k · Sep 5, 2011, 01:04 PM

No, I am 5 days now.

jeff k · Sep 5, 2011, 01:06 PM

Just tested that new button, and say 2 for the disk cache, it does not clear it fully like web developer does.

turtle777 · Sep 5, 2011, 04:03 PM

Originally Posted by jeff k

Just tested that new button, and say 2 for the disk cache, it does not clear it fully like web developer does.

-t

jeff k · Sep 5, 2011, 07:27 PM

Sorry, I accidentally posted in wrong forum on that one!

Back to this one, why do cut off after 2 days. How many days do you guys get with TM?

Andy8 · Sep 5, 2011, 07:41 PM

Originally Posted by jeff k

Sorry, I accidentally posted in wrong forum on that one!

Back to this one, why do cut off after 2 days. How many days do you guys get with TM?

Time Machine - hourly, daily, weekly and monthly backups.

Your TM target drive is not connected always?

jeff k · Sep 5, 2011, 11:15 PM

Yes, it's always connected. So TM does hourly backups?

turtle777 · Sep 5, 2011, 11:19 PM

Time Machine saves hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for everything older than a month until the volume runs out of space. At that point, Time Machine deletes the oldest weekly backup.

-t

jeff k · Sep 6, 2011, 12:12 AM

Thanks T, based on my drive and what I'm backing up, how far back would I get you suspect? a week, two weeks?
if you are backing up 100GB on a 500GB drive. how does it work?
each hour slot represent a full 100GB?

turtle777 · Sep 6, 2011, 05:42 AM

Originally Posted by jeff k

Thanks T, based on my drive and what I'm backing up, how far back would I get you suspect? a week, two weeks?
if you are backing up 100GB on a 500GB drive. how does it work?
each hour slot represent a full 100GB?

No, TM is intelligent. Only CHANGES are backed up. If your only change is 1MB from one hour to the next, that TM backup for the next hour will take only 1MB in space.

Therefore, backing up 100GB on 500GB should last you a long time (many months), unless you do something weird like changing the modification date on all files of the 100GB.

-t

Spheric Harlot · Sep 6, 2011, 06:11 AM

...or renaming folders, or moving them.

turtle777 · Sep 6, 2011, 06:12 AM

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot

...or renaming folders, or moving them.

Really ?

I thought renaming a folder would not backup all the content again.

-t

Spheric Harlot · Sep 6, 2011, 07:43 AM

Moving it to a different location definitely does.

jeff k · Sep 6, 2011, 11:30 AM

thanks Turtle, ok, then curious look:
ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting

So, every folder also says main hardrive, and has document and website, these are 100GB folders. Obviously it's not recreating all 100GB, it's just pointing to the present drive and then showing what changed back in time/ or really how that file was back then??

Also, notice a lot of entries for 9/5, but only 9/2, 9/3, 9/4 only 1 entry, what the deal on that?

Spheric Harlot · Sep 6, 2011, 12:26 PM

Hourly backups get condensed into daily backups after a while, which then get condensed into weekly, and then monthly backups eventually.

The file system was extended to accomodate Time Machine: It allows a disk to have a single file live in several locations, even though it only exists once on the drive physically.

jeff k · Sep 6, 2011, 01:20 PM

S,
thanks, but which hourly gets condensed, does it choose the one with the most changes?

You second sentence, you are trying to say that all those entries are indeed not new versions of 100GB of info. The stuff that is the same all points to the same place?

Spheric Harlot · Sep 6, 2011, 02:50 PM

Originally Posted by jeff k

S,
thanks, but which hourly gets condensed, does it choose the one with the most changes?

According to this link, it's the first backup of each day/week/month:
Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions 12. Should I delete old backups? If so, How?

So it's not actually condensed, but thinned. Apologies for the confusion.

Originally Posted by jeff k

You second sentence, you are trying to say that all those entries are indeed not new versions of 100GB of info. The stuff that is the same all points to the same place?

Exactly.

Files which have never been changed reside on the backup disk exactly once, physically. You're just seeing them linked into multiple locations (i.e. into the folders for every backup that happened when the files existed on your disk).

Multiple copies only exist of files which have been changed over time.

jeff k · Sep 6, 2011, 04:51 PM

S,
thanks for that lucid reply. that helps. I'll keep an eye on this and report back on how many backup remain in a week or two...