modifying Time Machine backups

[deboni]

An iMac has an external drive with two partitions: one used as a Time Machine target and a smaller one used for other purposes. The smaller partition does NOT need to be backed up by TM, but for some reason, after TM was initiated and had been running for a a week or so, that small partition started getting backed up by TM. Ultimately, i discovered this and excluded it in TM's prefs. It's no longer showing up in the TM backups.

Now I'm curious: What would happen if I manually opened the TM target partition and manually deleted all the backups of that smaller partition, to scavenge the space? Would this confuse TM and foul up future backups?

Tom

 

[dvd]

Time Machine has a function to do this for you, so you don't have to risk confusing it.

Bring up a finder window and highlight your external drive. Then activate Time Machine as if you were going to restore something. Now in the top of the finder window, click the gear icon and it will drop down a menu. One of the options is something like, "Delete all backups of (whatever)"

Then make sure to put it in your exclude list. -- edit, oops sorry just noticed that you've already excluded it.

 

[fuziwuzi]

to avoid starting another thread, i have a related question i am going to post here.

i do not currently own a mac, but will shortly.

i wanted to know what if i activated time machine on a drive, am i able to copy files to that drive to transport them from A to B? or do i need to partition the drive, and stored files on a partition?

does time machine backups completely take over the partition/drive.

cheers

 

[deboni]

Thanks, dvd!

That was a good tip, a feature I did not know about. I'll try it out.

In answer to the question by fuxiwuzi, TM does NOT require its own partition, and can share space with other usage. However, I think it's a bad idea to mess with files put there by TM. The files and folders owned by other apps and the finder are fair game. For safety, I'd give Time Machine its own partition and access its files only through its user interface.

Also, you may already know it, but I'll say it anyhow: if you use the same physical volume for regular use AND Time Machine backups, you're doing yourself no favors and not measurably improving your security. You still have a single point of failure that will take out everything.

One reasonable scheme is to use two drives, partitioning both into small "normal usage" partitions and larger TM target partitions. Then use each to back up the other.

T

 

[mrklaw]

can you expand on that? I just bought 2x750GB drives to use for backup. I was thinking of partitioning each to give 500GB for time machine and 250GB for 'general' data (music, movies etc - non critical stuff that doesn't need to be stored on my main HDD).

I'd then just plug each in for say a week, storing the other at my office to keep an off-site backup in case of burglary/fire etc.

How would you recommend I back up my 'general' data in the 250GB partition? I was thinking to bring the HDD to the office/home, connect both up to my imac/macbook and transfer from one to the other (just the 250GB partition, the 500GB being left for TM).


Is there a handy bit of software that'll make sure they are both synced up?

 

[deboni]

two drive scheme with Time Machine

Sorry for the delay. My two-drive scheme works like this.
Say you have an internal and an external drive, each with, say, 750 GB capacity. Partition each into a 250 and a 500 partition.

Use Internal250 for everyday use, and set up External500 to be a Time Machine target for backing up Internal250.

Use External250 for extraneous use, and set up Internal500 to be a Time Machine target for backing up External250.

This way, if either drive fails, you don't lose either of the 250 GB partitions, although one will need to be restored from its 500 GB TM target when the failed drive is replaced.

I could go further, and talk about raiding with multiple drives, but that gets expensive fast, and also may not be real practical for some systems, such as laptops or iMacs.

Good luck!

Tom