What's the point of time machine?

[mancubuss]

I have 460 of my 500 filled, so i bought a 750 to store things on....However somehow 650 of that are filled....so time machine must be making copies of things? How does my spare hd have more on it than my actual??? I'm just going to not use time machine and move all my media over there manually...so what is the point of time machine? it seems much easier to jsut do this

[Peace]

Think about that if your system crashes or your main HD goes out. After that happens you will be happy you used TM.

[MLeepson]

Or even on a much smaller scale: If you delete a file and empty the trash can, Time Machine will "go back in time" and find the file.

[mancubuss]

i still don't see the point...on my spare i keep music, videos, documents and photos...the things that can't be replaced...so if my hd went out i'd have everything except a few small programs i'd have to download

[Hello.there]

I'm beginning to wonder about the point of Time Machine myself. It's been working away since I got my iMac a few months ago, I finally needed it to rescue me when I discovered I accidentally deleted a photo.....could I find it in Time Machine? NOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo! Sorry, feeling emotional. :o

[gauchogolfer]

i still don't see the point...on my spare i keep music, videos, documents and photos...the things that can't be replaced...so if my hd went out i'd have everything except a few small programs i'd have to download

Most people don't keep up-to-date backups, thus Time Machine helps them do that easily.

[superleccy]

Go and find out what Time Machine actually does and think about how it works, and then you'll understand why "your spare hd has more on it than your actual".

If you just want some software to maintain a 'current clone' of your HD, then check out SuperDuper!

Or yes, you can do it manually. See how long you can be bothered to do that for before you get sick of it.

SL

[jazzyman]

My TM will only work if I use an external hardrive.. is there anyway that i could use a partition within my iMac?

[mancubuss]

can anyone explain why time machine used 150 more gb than info that was on my main hd(i only deleted about 10gb of info since i used time machine)

[Peace]

My TM will only work if I use an external hardrive.. is there anyway that i could use a partition within my iMac?

Wouldn't that defeat the purpose? What happens if your hard drive fails.

[NicP]

can anyone explain why time machine used 150 more gb than info that was on my main hd(i only deleted about 10gb of info since i used time machine)

Because you have probably edited files, and the older versions are backed up

[OllyW]

can anyone explain why time machine used 150 more gb than info that was on my main hd(i only deleted about 10gb of info since i used time machine)

It copies any changes you make to the files on your hd. For example, if you are working on a 10GB file throughout the day, it will make a copy of that file ever hour until you finish, so after 8 hours you will have used an extra 80GB.

At the end of the day, it rounds up all the hourly backups so you get 70GB back but lose the incremental backups.

[xraydoc]

I'm beginning to wonder about the point of Time Machine myself. It's been working away since I got my iMac a few months ago, I finally needed it to rescue me when I discovered I accidentally deleted a photo.....could I find it in Time Machine? NOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo! Sorry, feeling emotional. :o

Something's not right then. If the file is over an hour old, there should be a copy (at least one) of it in Time Machine. Are you using the Time Machine interface or are you just digging through the TM drive?? The couple of times I've had to replace something, its always been right were I expect it to be.

[cohibadad]

you can select what parts of your system to not back up to Time Machine in System Preferences. So if you just want to back up media, deselect everything else.

[Hello.there]

Something's not right then. If the file is over an hour old, there should be a copy (at least one) of it in Time Machine. Are you using the Time Machine interface or are you just digging through the TM drive?? The couple of times I've had to replace something, its always been right were I expect it to be.

Thanks xraydoc, I'll look in to and make sure I'm not doing something exceptionally dumb :o. When I looked for the photo I just started up Time Machine and searched the folder where it should have been....no joy. But maybe I should read my manual again???

[cavemonkey50]

Thanks xraydoc, I'll look in to and make sure I'm not doing something exceptionally dumb :o. When I looked for the photo I just started up Time Machine and searched the folder where it should have been....no joy. But maybe I should read my manual again???

If the photo is in iPhoto, the Time Machine interface will work with that as well.