Backing up with Time Machine or Western Digital Back up software help needed?

[crowe-t]

I had a G5 running OS 10.4.11 with a 160Gb Hard drive and an extra 320Gb Hard drive inside the tower. I was running a back up using a Western Digital My Book Studio Edition with a 500Gb Hard drive. Recently the G5 died and I picked up a Mac Mini 2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo processor running OS 10.6.8 with an internal 320 Gb Hard Drive. I plan on picking up an external enclosure for the extra 320Gb hard drive that I had added to the G5 tower. I already restored most of the content from the WD My Book to the Mac Mini's internal 320Gb drive.

I was using the software that came with the Western Digital My Book (WD Anywhere Backup) to run the back up on the G5.

Since OS 10.6.8 has Time Machine I'll either use that or the WD Anywhere Backup to run the back up for the Mac Mini.

The WD Anywhere Back up software basically copied everything over and created the same folders as were on the G5.

My main question is, how does Time Machine work? Does Time Machine do the same and create duplicate folders on the back up hard drive or does it do it differently?

Also if I decide to use the WD Anywhere Back up software to run the Mac Mini back up it will create a new back up and write over the existing files/folders on the WD My Book drive I have.

Will Time Machine behave the same way or will I be able to just have it continues the back up without having to re-write the back up all over again. It is time consuming.

Also how does Carbon Copy Cloner work? Is it a better back up program then Time Machine?

Any help will be appreciated.

 

[Flynnstone]

I use SuperDuper (like CCC) & TimeMachine.
With Super Duper I create an offsite backup that is bootable copy of the hard drive.
TimeMachine is a combo backup & archive. Its not bootable.

If I delete a file on my computer, I can use TImeMachine to retrieve a copy.
If computer is stolen or hit buy lighting, I can use TimeMachine to restore to a new computer (or can use offsite back & TimeMachine).
If computer & TimeMachine backup drive is stolen or hit buy lighting, I can use the offsite back to where the computer was at that backup.


P.S. I recently had a lightening strike that took out a TimeMachine backup drive (luckily only the power supply), my Mini (or just the power supply, not sure yet), an Airport Express, a 8 port switch & an Airport Extreme. Actually the Express & Extreme kinda work except the Ethernet port are not functioning.

 

[crowe-t]

Flynnstone, Thanks for the information.

Does Time Machine just create duplicate folders of the main system's hard drive?

I know with Time Machine you can go back to specific dates and retrieve stuff but does it back up only newly created/added stuff or back up the older stuff and need tons of space on the back up hard drive?

What's the benefit of a bootable back up?

 

[Weaselboy]

Flynnstone, Thanks for the information.

Does Time Machine just create duplicate folders of the main system's hard drive?

I know with Time Machine you can go back to specific dates and retrieve stuff but does it back up only newly created/added stuff or back up the older stuff and need tons of space on the back up hard drive?

What's the benefit of a bootable back up?

Time Machine will backup everything including the OS and system folders and all your apps and data on the drive, then it also keeps versions along the way as things change. There is a good article here explaining how this works.

Depending on how you use your machine, the Time Machine versions can take a lot of space. If you mainly just work with documents, the version storage for those it not a big deal. But if you have a 3GB video you edited three time in one day, each version will be backed up by Time Machine for a total 9GB of space used on the backup drive. As the drive gets full, older versions of files get deleting always keeping the most current version of everything. It really works quite well.

If you have a complete drive failure you can also boot from a locally attached Time Machine disk and do a complete system restore (OS and all apps and data) to a new blank, replacement drive.

There are some "clone" apps like SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner that copy your data onto an external and that drive can actually be booted to and used to run the Mac.

The difference being that the Time Machine backup is also bootable, but only to restore to a replacement drive... not to actually run the system.

 

[Flynnstone]

1) TimeMachine creates a "sparse bundle". Simple answer you can't or its difficult to browse with Finder. But why! There are software Tools, Timemachine or Back in time.

Main reason for using TimeMachine is to find a lost file or version of it & to recover from a failed hard drive or computer.

TimeMachine can use a ton of space. Hard drives are cheap.

2) Why Bootable?

When your hard drive fails in your computer, what do you do? With TimeMachine only, you need to go buy a drive and install it in the computer. Then install the OS. Then restore from TimeMachine backup.
With a bootable backup drive & your computer works but drive has failed, you just plug in the bootable backup and boot from it. You're up and running!
Buy a new drive to replace failed one and use SuperDuper or CCC to copy back from back to new primary drive.

 

[Weaselboy]

With TimeMachine only, you need to go buy a drive and install it in the computer. Then install the OS. Then restore from TimeMachine backup.

You are mistaken. Since Lion 10.7.2 Time Machines copies the recovery partition onto the Time Machine disk, so you can option key boot to the TM disk and format a blank disk then click restore to put the OS and all data on the new drive. There is no need to install the OS first and then restore.

 

[crowe-t]

Does a program like SuperDuper work with Time Machine or is it just a stand alone back up program?

If I run both will it create 2 back ups or just one TM back up that's bootable?

 

[Weaselboy]

Does a program like SuperDuper work with Time Machine or is it just a stand alone back up program?

If I run both will it create 2 back ups or just one TM back up that's bootable?

No. Superduper and the like are separate and would create a separate backup. You could use one disk with two partitions if you want. One for Time Machine and one for something like Superduper.