Backing up with TimeMachine

[DisplacedMic]

Hi guys - I recently purchased Snow Leopard to upgrade my current Leopard system. I read that it is "better" to just go ahead and wipe everything and do a full install rather than simply upgrading.

First of all - is that true?

Second - can i rely on timemachine to back up everything i told it to?
eg - can i simply just copy all the relevant documents and programs and be right back where i was?
Would it be better to manually back up everything i want to be really sure about?

everything looks fine in time machine but i've never actually had reason to use it...

I probably will manually backup precious data - and i have all of my install disks for programs - but it would be great if i could just drag and drop everything back where it was after installing the new OS.

obviously i'm a new mac user - so please be gentle ;p

 

[maflynn]

Hi guys - I recently purchased Snow Leopard to upgrade my current Leopard system. I read that it is "better" to just go ahead and wipe everything and do a full install rather than simply upgrading.

First of all - is that true?

The train of thought with the wipe/install is that there's no pieces of the old OS to mess up your new installation. I actually prefer this as it clears out the crap that gets accumulated in the various /Library folders and other areas.

I do make sure I have a good backup

Second - can i rely on timemachine to back up everything i told it to?
eg - can i simply just copy all the relevant documents and programs and be right back where i was?
Would it be better to manually back up everything i want to be really sure about?

TM's appeal is that you set it and forget it and like most of apple's other products. You are limited in the number of options you have. Basically it will back up everything except for some directories you specify.


Personally, I use TM for day to day recoveries, but I also use Carbon Copy Cloner on a different external drive so I have a full backup there as well. That backup is for those times I fully mess up the system and I need a full restore. CCC's restore is an order of magnitude faster at restoring then using TM (when you restore everything)

 

[DisplacedMic]

Great! Thanks for the advice!