can Time Machine do this?

[btownguy]

I'm about to purchase my first Mac and I'm trying to think through all the things that'll be different. I've always used some type of image backup software for Windows - currently Acronis TruImage. I make an image backup of my entire computer which results in one big file being created. When I'm in Windows, if I want to pull out just one file from that image, I can browse the image from the Acronis software. Easy.

With Time Machine, I understand that you connect an external hard drive and the system will create an initial image backup. After that, it creates hourly/daily/weekly/monthly incremental backups automatically. You then use the Time Machine interface to "go back in time" and pull a file out from whenever you need it.

Couple of questions:

1) Does the external hard drive have to be dedicated to Time Machine? I currently have a 1.5 Tb external USB hard drive that I use for making image backups of my various computers in the house.

2) Let's say I upgrade to a future version of OSX and decide to do a clean install instead of an "update". When I get the OS installed, can I then start pulling files out of my old Time Machine backup? Or is Time Machine going to start backing up the newly installed Operating System to the external disk?

 

[MacDawg]

1. The HDD does not have to be dedicated to TM. The easiest thing to do it make a partition for TM. I keep one partition for TM, one for Carbon Copy Clone, one for WinClone and one for storage.

2. If you do a clean install, you can use Migration Assistant with TM to pull your data.

Woof, Woof - Dawg

 

[btownguy]

1. The HDD does not have to be dedicated to TM. The easiest thing to do it make a partition for TM. I keep one partition for TM, one for Carbon Copy Clone, one for WinClone and one for storage.

2. If you do a clean install, you can use Migration Assistant with TM to pull your data.

Woof, Woof - Dawg

Does the migration assistant allow me to manually browse through folders and select which files/folders need to be copied over? That's one of the problems I have with the various Windows intelligent migration programs. It thinks that it knows better where my data is than I do...which is rarely the case.

 

[Mal]

Does the migration assistant allow me to manually browse through folders and select which files/folders need to be copied over? That's one of the problems I have with the various Windows intelligent migration programs. It thinks that it knows better where my data is than I do...which is rarely the case.

When coming from a Time Machine backup, it will allow you to choose a date and it will then restore everything to the same locations as before. If you want more control, you would instead use the Time Machine program, though of course keep in mind it will only browse backups associated with that computer, so if you move to another computer/hard drive or do an Erase and Install you'll not be able to use it.

In a regular Migration from another computer, you'll only get to choose which accounts and if you want applications, network settings, and documents outside of the user folders to be transferred.

jW

 

[Freyqq]

Couple of questions:

1) Does the external hard drive have to be dedicated to Time Machine? I currently have a 1.5 Tb external USB hard drive that I use for making image backups of my various computers in the house.

2) Let's say I upgrade to a future version of OSX and decide to do a clean install instead of an "update". When I get the OS installed, can I then start pulling files out of my old Time Machine backup? Or is Time Machine going to start backing up the newly installed Operating System to the external disk?

you guys are making this way to complicated =\

1. Yes. It makes a folder that puts all your backups in it organized by date of the backup. It doesn't modify the drive or anything. You can also view the files directly instead of using apple's pretty interface. It makes references to each file, so when you look at the relevant folder of the titled backup date, you see the entire hard drive as it was on that date. Then, you can just browse from there if you wanted to.
2. Yes.