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Restore Points on a Mac like in Windows

JayInNJ said:
No, you missed the point. Time Machine restores data only. Restore Points is for applications. Both are good for different things and really they are mutually exclusive.
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You're also missing the point.

In Windows Vista and 7, the Windows Shadow Copy service has been integrated with System Restore.

That means that "previous versions" of files like documents CAN be recovered.

Files are backed up daily and whenever a restore point is created.

The main advantage of this approach over Time Machine, is that it can happen without additional hardware being attached. I have a MacBook, it's not connected to an external hard drive very often, so I don't use Time Machine.

Even if it was, I don't want to dedicate an expensive drive to something that is likely to remain pointless 99% of the time.

My main issue with it is that the only time I am likely to use the feature, is when it wont work - because the computer hasn't been connected to the drive and the file I need wont have been backed up. Windows 7's "Previous Versions" doesn't have that issue.
 
Daveoc64 said:
You're also missing the point.

In Windows Vista and 7, the Windows Shadow Copy service has been integrated with System Restore.

That means that "previous versions" of files like documents CAN be recovered.

Files are backed up daily and whenever a restore point is created.

The main advantage of this approach over Time Machine, is that it can happen without additional hardware being attached. I have a MacBook, it's not connected to an external hard drive very often, so I don't use Time Machine.

Even if it was, I don't want to dedicate an expensive drive to something that is likely to remain pointless 99% of the time.

My main issue with it is that the only time I am likely to use the feature, is when it wont work - because the computer hasn't been connected to the drive and the file I need wont have been backed up. Windows 7's "Previous Versions" doesn't have that issue.
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i have to second that. a lot of us travel and use their notebooks for days or weeks without access to an external hard drive. during that time we still do updates via internet. restore points and data file backups on the internal drive make sense (even when it's not a perfect solution).
 
You don't "need" an external drive, I'm pretty sure you can select your internal drive as a backup disk, but it's kind of a pointless backup if your internal drive fails.
 
Daveoc64 said:
You're also missing the point.

In Windows Vista and 7, the Windows Shadow Copy service has been integrated with System Restore.

That means that "previous versions" of files like documents CAN be recovered.

Files are backed up daily and whenever a restore point is created.

The main advantage of this approach over Time Machine, is that it can happen without additional hardware being attached. I have a MacBook, it's not connected to an external hard drive very often, so I don't use Time Machine.

Even if it was, I don't want to dedicate an expensive drive to something that is likely to remain pointless 99% of the time.

My main issue with it is that the only time I am likely to use the feature, is when it wont work - because the computer hasn't been connected to the drive and the file I need wont have been backed up. Windows 7's "Previous Versions" doesn't have that issue.
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Again though, the point of a backup is just that...to backup your data in the case of drive failure.

There's no point of backing up to another section of your primary drive because all is lost either way if/when the drive fails. Sure, it's good for accidental file deletion-recovery, but that's about it.

IMO, using it as a backup method is just a false sense of security which is even worse than not using it at all.
 
NewMacbookPlz said:
Again though, the point of a backup is just that...to backup your data in the case of drive failure.
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Wrong. It's to backup your data in the case of drive/hardware failure OR human error. The ability to shadow copy/time machine onto your backed-up drive, while it does not protect against hardware failure, still has value in that it protects against human error (such as accidentally overwriting a file or directory, accidentally permanently deleting a file, etc.)
 
I feel sorrow for anyone relying on System Restore and Shadow Copy to back up their systems....much to less to the same drive their system files are on. What a joke....

S-
 
cmaier said:
Wrong. It's to backup your data in the case of drive/hardware failure OR human error. The ability to shadow copy/time machine onto your backed-up drive, while it does not protect against hardware failure, still has value in that it protects against human error (such as accidentally overwriting a file or directory, accidentally permanently deleting a file, etc.)
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Mind you, in Windows it's very easy with 3rd party software to recover accidentally deleted files. Hell, I was able to recover like 5GB of deleted MP3 files for a friend after a couple days.

Stating that I was wrong was quite off base too, seeing how you agree that a reason for backing up is just what I said.

As far as human error...you have two chances to not delete the file. Once when you move it to the trash/recycle bin and then again before you actually empty the trash/recycle bin. If you're the type who works at home/at a desk, keeping an external drive hooked up via USB and using Time Machine will create almost constant backups.

As said above, I worry for the folks who backup/rely on the backups created on their primary drives.
 
sidewinder said:
I feel sorrow for anyone relying on System Restore and Shadow Copy to back up their systems....much to less to the same drive their system files are on. What a joke....

S-
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Volume Shadow Copy works on the local drive. I put my System Restore Image on another disk though. :confused:
 
cmaier said:
Wrong. It's to backup your data in the case of drive/hardware failure OR human error. The ability to shadow copy/time machine onto your backed-up drive, while it does not protect against hardware failure, still has value in that it protects against human error (such as accidentally overwriting a file or directory, accidentally permanently deleting a file, etc.)
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In my experience, hard drive failure of some sort is just about the only way to lose data. You have to be as dumb as a bag of hammers to have a back-up but not protect yourself against the most probable failure mode.
 
MisterMe said:
In my experience, hard drive failure of some sort is just about the only way to lose data. You have to be as dumb as a bag of hammers to have a back-up but not protect yourself against the most probable failure mode.
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You've never accidentally copied over a file or saved over a file?
 
MythicFrost said:
You don't "need" an external drive, I'm pretty sure you can select your internal drive as a backup disk, but it's kind of a pointless backup if your internal drive fails.
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For TM, you need an external drive.

sidewinder said:
I feel sorrow for anyone relying on System Restore and Shadow Copy to back up their systems....much to less to the same drive their system files are on. What a joke....

S-
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You may feel "sorrow," but System Restore has saved my butt a number of times on my Windows XP computer. Once, an update screwed up something and allI had to do was restore from a previous restore point (BTW, for others, system restore points are EVERYDAY and when an update or program is added). In other cases, something just wasn't working right for whatever reason, and rather than hunting and troubleshooting for who knows how long, I just got a system restore from the last time I remember everything working right. Time Machine is not like this and also suffers from having to restore the whole drive, just to fix one problem.
 
-aggie- said:
For TM, you need an external drive.



You may feel "sorrow," but System Restore has saved my butt a number of times on my Windows XP computer. Once, an update screwed up something and allI had to do was restore from a previous restore point (BTW, for others, system restore points are EVERYDAY and when an update or program is added). In other cases, something just wasn't working right for whatever reason, and rather than hunting and troubleshooting for who knows how long, I just got a system restore from the last time I remember everything working right. Time Machine is not like this and also suffers from having to restore the whole drive, just to fix one problem.
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To be fair, if you know what files you need from TM, you can get them without having to get the whole drive. So, theoretically at least, if you have a system problem, you could just grab the relevant system directories.
 
I would say that unless an update screws up your system or you are dumb enough to delete something that is normally hidden and/or requires root access to delete then OS X is far less likely to have issues caused by installing an application or something. This is due in large part to the lack of a registry. If something with an app or part of the system is acting badly or crashing you can always delete a plist and restart to return to defaults for what was going wrong.

Windows may need System Restore but I really do not feel that OS X does. And yes I have used SR in Windows XP, Vista, and 7 with success, but that is due to he absolutely stupid nature of the OS and how easily it can be broken. You have to go out of your way to mess up anything really important in OS X.

At least that has been my experience. On my desktop at work I have an external hard drive dedicated to TM. My laptop I backup to TM every so often but I am not as worried about it due to the fact it doesn't make me money.
 
sidewinder said:
I feel sorrow for anyone relying on System Restore and Shadow Copy to back up their systems....much to less to the same drive their system files are on. What a joke....

S-
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I don't rely on it.

I'm just saying that it's infinitely more useful than Time Machine ever could be for me.
 
pdjudd said:
You may not do this deliberately, but accidents do happen from time to time. Accidents are not something that you can avoid all the time.
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He's perfect.

He also never uses shell scripts, since he assumes the trashcan buffers all deletes. And he never works on a document, edits it, then finds out he needed text from the original version.

There's a reason they invented version control system for programmers. Most people don't have the equivalent for productivity documents, and .snapshot/ shadow copy/ TM can serve that purpose.
 
As I explained on page 1, Restore Points are useless when you can't access them. There is no substitute for backing up onto an independent drive. I'll take Time Machine over any 1/2-way solution that offers a false sense of security. Too bad Windows does not come with such a cool feature. Thanks for the info though, buh-bye.
 
Time machine is plenty.

Critical data should be backed up to an external drive anyway.

As for "restore points" a la Windows, these shouldn't be necessary with OS X.
 
cmaier said:
He's perfect.

....
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I am not perfect. To the contrary, it is because I am not perfect that I am careful not to engage in the bad practices that so many Windows users are heir to. I'm flattered that you think I'm perfect, though. Thank you.
 
Just stumbled onto this thread and I also have questions about how time machine works

For the record I don't care whether windows 'restore points' are better or worse than time machine. I just want a backup solution that works best for my mac.

What I want is a way to create a 'restore point' as in a point where I can return the 'system' to (not files) in the event of say a very bad OS update or more realistically another year down the line my system becomes sluggish and I can't figure out how to fix it but I don't want to reinstall everything from scratch. I think I can use carbon copy cloner or super duper to do this?

But I also obviously want to have all of my files backed up (currently using time machine for this)

My question: is it possible to create a disk image (clone etc) that I can use as a restore point and then get just my current files from the time machine backup? I've been searching for a solution like this for a while and I haven't found a definitive answer.
 
Saturn1217 said:
Just stumbled onto this thread and I also have questions about how time machine works

For the record I don't care whether windows 'restore points' are better or worse than time machine. I just want a backup solution that works best for my mac.

What I want is a way to create a 'restore point' as in a point where I can return the 'system' to (not files) in the event of say a very bad OS update or more realistically another year down the line my system becomes sluggish and I can't figure out how to fix it but I don't want to reinstall everything from scratch. I think I can use carbon copy cloner or super duper to do this?

But I also obviously want to have all of my files backed up (currently using time machine for this)

My question: is it possible to create a disk image (clone etc) that I can use as a restore point and then get just my current files from the time machine backup? I've been searching for a solution like this for a while and I haven't found a definitive answer.
Click to expand...

You can use carbon copy cloner or super duper to clone your drive.
 
All these people saying we don't need restore points. Ugh!

I can give you two examples:

First you add some software that conflicts with other software and messes up the software (happened to me adding Photoshop with other Adobe products already installed). Instead of mucking around for hours trying to fix it, if you had a restore point, you could fix it in minutes.

For those unfortunate people who used Monolingual to save space, and then find they deleted a language needed by other software (supposedly Czech is used by something I can't remember), a restore point would save their butts.

Just because Apple does something does not mean it's the best way. Lots of things are, but not this, IMO.
 
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