Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

does time machine back ups EVERYTHING???

V

viktorlsn

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 26, 2011
57
0
Brazil
hello there ! i just came back from the store, i bought an seagate goflex desk 2tb external hard drive.
i already partition it on 3 with disk utility. my question is: does time machine backs up my ENTIRELY hard drive ? i'm doing some crazy **** here on my brand new imac(also here in brazil is EXTREMELY HOT, so i'm very concerned about my data) and and don't want to lose my 10000 songs, a lot of photos(around 50000) and 203 apps(also my downloads folder). does time machine it's the app for me or there is another one that backs up ALL of my personal things ? i'm doing a back up with time machine right now just to try, and it even asked me what i want to back up... i don't matter about prices or the time it spents backing up. just want all my things secure in case of my internal hd fails. also another thing(one more thing... :p), i hav some apps with serial(everybody does) that i can't find it anymore. does it back up also my "library"folder were it contains ?
thanks in advance and sorry about the bad english.

Viktor
 
are u sure ? did already did a restore with your time machine back up ? it worked ? thanks for the reply !
 
viktorlsn said:
are u sure ? did already did a restore with your time machine back up ? it worked ? thanks for the reply !
Click to expand...

Yes, I am sure, because that is what TM is there for.

Time Machine lets you automatically back up your entire system in Mac OS X v10.5 and Mac OS X 10.6 or later. Time Machine keeps an up-to-date copy of everything on your Mac--system files, digital photos, music, movies, TV shows, documents, and so forth. You can easily go "back in time" to restore files if you ever need to.
Click to expand...
from Mac 101: Time Machine

But as I don't like TM for the sole reason not being bootable, I use CarbonCopyCloner for my backups. But with CCC I can't go back in time to a file version prior to a newer one.
 
i think i did a mess... my back up it's not complete yet and i only put 800 gigs and in the link that you put on your post ti says that i suposed to put a bigger space(aroud 2 and 3 times). what now ? i stop the back up, erase that one and partition the whole external drive ? no problem whith that, but it's going to take more time...

----------

what do u mean "not bootable"?
 
viktorlsn said:
i think i did a mess... my back up it's not complete yet and i only put 800 gigs and in the link that you put on your post ti says that i suposed to put a bigger space(aroud 2 and 3 times). what now ? i stop the back up, erase that one and partition the whole external drive ? no problem whith that, but it's going to take more time...
Click to expand...

You should have at least twice the capacity for your TM backup HDD/partition, for example, if you have a 1TB HDD and have 250GB of data and don't plan on getting more, than a 500GB partition should suffice, as TM backups several versions of changed files.

And for backup purposes, you should use one dedicated HDD, but you don't need to.
And if it is important data, you should consider backing up twice.
I have three copies of all my photographs and video footage, in case one HDD fails, I have at least two backups.
 
dude thanks VERY Much for your attention, one more thing...do you mean "not bootable" like you cannot start the OS with it ?
 
Time Machine does two things: It stores the latest version of everything that is on your Mac, and it also stores the version of one hour ago, two hours ago, three hours ago, and so on. So if you delete a folder of photos by mistake, and you notice in two weeks time, the photos will still be in your Time Machine backup and you can get them back.

Keeping older versions around to protect you from user mistake takes space. Eventually your backup disk will be full, and then the oldest versions will be removed. So at some point things that you deleted a year ago will disappear forever. The bigger the backup drive, the longer it can keep your old stuff. That's why it is suggested that your backup drive should be twice as big as your real drive, because then it can store your complete drive _and_ keep old versions around for a very long time.

You shouldn't partition your backup drive, because Time Machine can only use a single partition. So if you have a 2000 GB drive, and partition it into 4 x 500 GB, then Time Machine can only use 500 GB. Best to have just one partitition.
 
viktorlsn said:
dude thanks VERY Much for your attention, one more thing...do you mean "not bootable" like you cannot start the OS with it ?
Click to expand...

Yes, you can't start from a TM backup, you have to at least start the Mac OS X installation procedure and restore from the backup.

One example, where cloning was good for me.

I have an MBP with a 60GB SSD and created some big ass video files (together 25GB), which were also using a high bit rate, due to being HD and using a video editing codec, thus not as compressed. As time was running out for the presentation, last minute changes, I couldn't compress those files to something smaller and they couldn't be played via USB HDD or even Firewire HDD (slight lag), so I had to use my internal SSD, but that meant deleting some applications (Adobe and Final Cut Studio and Avid Media Compose, which all take up a lot of GBs), so I could store the video files and play them without problems.

It worked flawlessly.

After that was over, I used a cloned backup from one week ago and booted from it and cloned it back to the SSD, which took less than half an hour, and the MBP was whole again.

Would I use TM, it would have taken at least an hour, maybe even more and I couldn't use my MBP during that time (if necessary).

Anyway, TM has many perks though, and I am more of a power user, thus I like more control over such things,

If you are new to Mac OS X, also have a look here:
 
simsaladimbamba said:
Yes, you can't start from a TM backup, you have to at least start the Mac OS X installation procedure and restore from the backup.

One example, where cloning was good for me.

I have an MBP with a 60GB SSD and created some big ass video files (together 25GB), which were also using a high bit rate, due to being HD and using a video editing codec, thus not as compressed. As time was running out for the presentation, last minute changes, I couldn't compress those files to something smaller and they couldn't be played via USB HDD or even Firewire HDD (slight lag), so I had to use my internal SSD, but that meant deleting some applications (Adobe and Final Cut Studio and Avid Media Compose, which all take up a lot of GBs), so I could store the video files and play them without problems.

It worked flawlessly.

After that was over, I used a cloned backup from one week ago and booted from it and cloned it back to the SSD, which took less than half an hour, and the MBP was whole again.

Would I use TM, it would have taken at least an hour, maybe even more and I couldn't use my MBP during that time (if necessary).

Anyway, TM has many perks though, and I am more of a power user, thus I like more control over such things,

If you are new to Mac OS X, also have a look here:
Click to expand...

i think it take only half hour because your hd it's not so big and also is a ssd. but thanks to your opinions, i think i will try out the time machine one. so what i could undertand for yours replies up here is that ccc runs faster than tm; also that ccc don't take soooooooo long for backing up; but ccc don't can get back in time; is that correct ?
 
viktorlsn said:
i think it take only half hour because your hd it's not so big and also is a ssd. but thanks to your opinions, i think i will try out the time machine one. so what i could undertand for yours replies up here is that ccc runs faster than tm; also that ccc don't take soooooooo long for backing up; but ccc don't can get back in time; is that correct ?
Click to expand...

The SSD was not part of the quickness, as my backup was on an external USB HDD.
And yes, you are correct about TM and CCC.
 
ok, thanks.
i will give a try to tm. i do not have concerns about presentations and stuff like that.... later when i buy another external hd(hoping thunderbolt will be less expensive :D) i maybe will back up twice as you said before: one tm and another by ccc. thanks again dude and good night !
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back