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Can I stop a Time Machine Backup and Resume it Later?
- Thread starter cbrain
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Yes but what I want to know is this: If I was to stop a Time Machine backup, would it resume from where it left off when the next backup is due?
Thanks for the reply though.
Thanks for the reply though.
I dont know. I would have thought it probably would, since its copying individual changes rather than one large backup image, but I cant tell.
If you unmount (eject) the backup drive, then backup resumes where it left off after remount. I don't know if issuing a Stop has the same effect. The overhead is so small that the only reason to suspend the backup is to disconnect a laptop anyway, so you might as well just unmount.
I don't know, but I would guess it just picks up with a new backup.
I mean, it's backing up every hour...so if it misses one hour, what's the big deal? Next hour will capture the changed files as well as it would this hour.
Seems like a bit of overkill to finish the last incomplete backup, then do another recalculation of what's changed this past hour for a new backup within a few minutes of the previous hour's incompleted backup ending. No?
I mean, it's backing up every hour...so if it misses one hour, what's the big deal? Next hour will capture the changed files as well as it would this hour.
Seems like a bit of overkill to finish the last incomplete backup, then do another recalculation of what's changed this past hour for a new backup within a few minutes of the previous hour's incompleted backup ending. No?
So here is the deal. This is the first backup on this drive. So, I set it to backup last night, which it did not finish, so now, I am wanting to stop it, but let it complete the first full backup later...
Any thoughts?
It does seem to work for me. I stopped (hit the 'x' in the Time Machine pane) an overnight backup that had 4 Hours left bc I had to go to work a few days ago. It had been backing up for >8h at that point. I plugged it back in not too long ago this evening and it currently says 35% done with 2h left, so it definitely did not start completely over.
Edit: for posterity, here's the Apple Support page that tells you how to do this.
Edit: for posterity, here's the Apple Support page that tells you how to do this.