How do Macbook/laptop people plan on running TimeMachine?

[zub3qin]

Time Machine sounds great.
It backs up your system automatically every hour.
This makes sense on an iMac, but for those with Macbooks, how do you plan on using Time Machine?

Do we periodically "dock" the Macbook to a harddrive, and will it know to do its backup then automatically? Or do we need to tell it to backup manually?

It would be nice if the Macbook could when sleeping, or nightly, send via wifi any changed files to the hard drive as part of Time Machine. So you would have a hard drive on the network. The Macbook sits anywhere in your house connected to your network. On its own in the background, the changed files are sent to the HD wirelessly.

I think that the very first backup would need to be done with an attached HD, but all the subsequent backups should be relatively small files, and could be handled wirelessly.

What do others think?

 

[rmh]

I think that the very first backup would need to be done with an attached HD, but all the subsequent backups should be relatively small files, and could be handled wirelessly.

Agreed. I'll definitely be using a networked HD with my AEBS for backing up my Macbook.

 

[CybrMike]

Network Attached Storage

 

[taybo20]

I'll probably just hook up my external with a USB and make periodic back ups. I'm not active enough with files to make me maintain a constant connection to the back up HD.

 

[pdjudd]

I'll probably just hook up my external with a USB and make periodic back ups. I'm not active enough with files to make me maintain a constant connection to the back up HD.

I plan on doing the same. Sadly portable hard drives are a bit pricey and are limited in storage. Lack of internet connection at home makes NAS impractical.

 

[xpovos]

I believe it's somewhere in the features list where Apple mentions that Time Machine will still keep track of changes on your portable Mac when the Time Machine backup drive is not connected. Then, when it mounts, the backup will take place automatically in the background.

If this works as expected, I'll be setting up my network drive (via AEBS) as my Time Machine backup drive for my laptops. AirPort Disk Agent automatically mounts that drive when I connect to the home network, so I'm assuming that any changes I made on the laptop while at work (or wherever) will then automatically be taken care of as soon as I connect at home.

 

[mashinhead]

most of my multimedia, or itunes files are on an external hd. so i would have to get a second external for time machine. but my current external is wireless. so how does that work. will it automatically backup the files on that drive too even though it isn't part of the startup drive?

 

[richard.mac]

i use my MBP as a desktop replacement with a display so ill have my backup drive plugged in all the time and let TM do its thing.

when i go to uni i take my laptop so i have to unplug the backup drive. obviously TM wont be able to do its thing so ill have a gap between backups. when i get home ill just plug in back in and TM will continue doing its hourly backups again on the uni work i just did... so its all good

 

[Jookbox]

i plan on getting an external hard drive.. like today. i take my macbook to work everyday, and i'll just have it do it's thing every evening when i get home. shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Angrist]

I plan on setting automatic wake/sleep times on all my machines for like 4-5am, and back my PBook/iMac up onto the G4 tower.

Ideally I need to replace all 4 HDDs in the Tower and setup a nice mirrored RAID too protect against drive failure. Still haven't found a good way to backup offsite to protect from nasty things like floods and fires .... anyone have a good (cheap) method to do that?

 

[DoreanGrae]

I plan on using the 500 GB Iomega drive that I just bought off of the Apple Online Store ($140, ridiculous deal if anyone's looking for one) hooked up to my AEBS. The way I understand it, TM will work just fine over an AirPort networked drive. It'll kinda suck if it doesn't though.

 

[jxflyer]

Re: Time Machine for the portable crowd...

Here's is what Apple saying about this...

Ready when you are.
When your mobile Mac is connected to your backup drive, Time Machine works as you’d expect. When it isn’t connected, Time Machine also works as you’d expect. It keeps track of which files have changed since the last backup and backs them up to your backup drive the next time you connect. On any Mac, if Time Machine is unable to perform a backup, that’s duly noted in its preferences pane.

 

[chatoyer]

I look forward to playing around with TM, but at the moment it will be difficult to get me to switch from my current backup strategy: two external 3.5" firewire drives, one at home, the other at the office. Macbook is mirrored once a day using SuperDuper when I'm in the shower at home, and again once a day just after I've arrived at the office and am getting coffee/gossiping/etc. When I travel, I have a Lacie rugged firewire 2.5" that I use with SuperDuper as well to mirror the MB everyday.

 

[JNB]

I look forward to playing around with TM, but at the moment it will be difficult to get me to switch from my current backup strategy: two external 3.5" firewire drives, one at home, the other at the office. Macbook is mirrored once a day using SuperDuper when I'm in the shower at home, and again once a day just after I've arrived at the office and am getting coffee/gossiping/etc. When I travel, I have a Lacie rugged firewire 2.5" that I use with SuperDuper as well to mirror the MB everyday.

Wow. Three separate backup drives? Not paranoid at all, are we?

I have a similar need (on the road five out of seven days, ~40 weeks a year), but as much as I like SuperDuper, the separateness in the way you're managing it just doesn't work for me. I'm hoping that TM does a better job of docked/mobile maintenance.

Actually what I want is a simple and transparent yet secure tunnel to the home network and a "cheap" NAS...

 

[Stampyhead]

Here's is what Apple saying about this...

Ready when you are.
When your mobile Mac is connected to your backup drive, Time Machine works as you’d expect. When it isn’t connected, Time Machine also works as you’d expect. It keeps track of which files have changed since the last backup and backs them up to your backup drive the next time you connect. On any Mac, if Time Machine is unable to perform a backup, that’s duly noted in its preferences pane.

Wow, that's freakin awesome. Leopard rules...

 

[italiano40]

i think i will just before i goto bed i will sync it manually to Time machine

 

[Matek]

Huh, i thought the point of time machine was primarily to store CHANGES made to files (kinda like Shadow Copy on windows) and later restore them when you realise you lost/changed/overwrote something. Of course it's cool if you store the backups on an external drive, because it protects you from hard drive faliure, but the main functionality remains when using the internal drive, so I don't see a major problem in using it with a laptop without external storage.

 

[Sbrocket]

Here's is what Apple saying about this...

Ready when you are.
When your mobile Mac is connected to your backup drive, Time Machine works as you’d expect. When it isn’t connected, Time Machine also works as you’d expect. It keeps track of which files have changed since the last backup and backs them up to your backup drive the next time you connect. On any Mac, if Time Machine is unable to perform a backup, that’s duly noted in its preferences pane.

Whoa, I had heard rumors but never tested it myself. That's pretty awesome...why is that feature at the very bottom of the page for Time Machine? That's a major feature in my opinion.

My laptop is always plugged into my external on my desk at night, but its with me 8-10 hours out of the day since I carry it around everywhere. I was just planning on letting it do nightly backups, since that would be plenty. Hrm, maybe I could somehow hook up my external drive to the campus network - that'd be interesting.

 

[downingp]

I just bought a MBP and connected to my wireless network. I am able to connect to the external hard drive via the network perfectly. You guys say you can set up the MBP so it will automatically connect to the external hard drive when I connect to the the network. How do I do this?

thanks.

 

[DoreanGrae]

I just bought a MBP and connected to my wireless network. I am able to connect to the external hard drive via the network perfectly. You guys say you can set up the MBP so it will automatically connect to the external hard drive when I connect to the the network. How do I do this?

thanks.

If you go to the AirPort Disk Utility, you can set the disk to automatically connect with password (assuming you have a password). Save your password in Keychain and it'll auto-connect whenever the disk becomes available (i.e. whenever you're connected to the network).

 

[notsofatjames]

Actually what I want is a simple and transparent yet secure tunnel to the home network and a "cheap" NAS...

When you find one, let me know!
I think once Time Machine is out in the wild we'll see some of the successful and not so successful wireless drives. Maybe some manufacturer will make a WiFi, bonjour-enabled (for easy set-up), time-machine ready, silent, sexy, Apple compatible, external hard drive... maybe even apple will make it with a bit of luck! one can dream..

 

[MrMoore]

Here's is what Apple saying about this...

Ready when you are.
When your mobile Mac is connected to your backup drive, Time Machine works as you’d expect. When it isn’t connected, Time Machine also works as you’d expect. It keeps track of which files have changed since the last backup and backs them up to your backup drive the next time you connect. On any Mac, if Time Machine is unable to perform a backup, that’s duly noted in its preferences pane.

Thanks for the tidbit. I have a MacBook Pro and external firewire drive, but I don't always have it connected. It is good to know I can still use Time Machine.

Of course I never had the need to restore a file

 

[downingp]

If you go to the AirPort Disk Utility, you can set the disk to automatically connect with password (assuming you have a password). Save your password in Keychain and it'll auto-connect whenever the disk becomes available (i.e. whenever you're connected to the network).

Thanks for the tip. I have the external hard drive hooked up to my iMac right now. I then am sharing it over the network. When I open up airport disk utility, nothing shows up.

 

[LMO]

For those of you who plan to use NAS (or AEBS attached storage), do you plan to connect the drive directly for the initial full backup? At network speeds that full backup could take a long, long time.

 

[CalBoy]

Huh, i thought the point of time machine was primarily to store CHANGES made to files (kinda like Shadow Copy on windows) and later restore them when you realise you lost/changed/overwrote something. Of course it's cool if you store the backups on an external drive, because it protects you from hard drive faliure, but the main functionality remains when using the internal drive, so I don't see a major problem in using it with a laptop without external storage.

Well, the basic idea is to allow both all changes to be viewed, and to give you backup protection. The reason you wouldn't want your internal drive to store the changes forever is notebooks have a limited amount of storage. Professionals who put together large projects might find that their presentations are changed every day, and subsequently, Time Machine would create a new record of each one. If you can imagine a large project X 30 (for one month's worth of changes), you can see that it can add up to a lot compared to the limited amount of storage that notebooks have. Hence, the external drive takes care of that for you.