Time Capsule - How do I know...?

[Gala]

I just did my first "Backup" to my Time Capsule. I have over 20 movies on my Macbook Pro drive in iTunes that I Home Share to my Apple TV.

How do I know if those movies are all saved on my TC and know when it's safe to delete all of them from my Macbook Pro?

 

[MCAsan]

I would suggest a different approach. Get a large external drive and move folders of movies, photos and other items you don't need when mobile...to the external drive. These days you can get a 3TB external drive for less than $150. Then have Time Machine backup the internal drive and the external drive (the complete file system) to Time Capsule.

 

[Gala]

I would suggest a different approach.

I was under the impression that the TC could back up in the way I was expecting. I understand that I'm really not "backing up" anything because everything will still only be saved on one spot.

What I'm trying to do right now because I don't have money for a TC and External, was find something to store these movies on since they have my Macbook pretty much maxed out for storage.

Since my Macbook isn't stationary in the house I didn't want to have to plug the External in at my desk with MB each time I wanted to watch a movie. So far I have borrowed an ExHD & saved all my stuff on it as a "fail safe" and deleted a couple movies from my MB. I then tried watching on the Apple TV and they work fine, but I just want to make sure that they are being read from the TC.

 

[r0k]

I was under the impression that the TC could back up in the way I was expecting. I understand that I'm really not "backing up" anything because everything will still only be saved on one spot.

What I'm trying to do right now because I don't have money for a TC and External, was find something to store these movies on since they have my Macbook pretty much maxed out for storage.

Since my Macbook isn't stationary in the house I didn't want to have to plug the External in at my desk with MB each time I wanted to watch a movie. So far I have borrowed an ExHD & saved all my stuff on it as a "fail safe" and deleted a couple movies from my MB. I then tried watching on the Apple TV and they work fine, but I just want to make sure that they are being read from the TC.

A TC is not a very good value, especially since Apple dumbed down Airport Utility to kindergarten level. I recommend an AEBS and an USB drive. If that's too much, consider one of the consumer grade network drives from Western Digital or LaCie. Bear in mind they are not very reliable but it's better to copy your movies to a NAS drive than to rely on Time Machine as a long term backup. I have lost TM archives over and over again with the most recent occurrence this past week. They simply keep getting corrupted from time to time and I'd hate to be in a situation where my only copy of something was in there.

 

[marzer]

I just did my first "Backup" to my Time Capsule. I have over 20 movies on my Macbook Pro drive in iTunes that I Home Share to my Apple TV.

How do I know if those movies are all saved on my TC and know when it's safe to delete all of them from my Macbook Pro?

How did you copy them to the TC? File copy or Time Machine backup?

If it was by a Time Machine backup, then NO you do not want to delete them from your Macbook. A backup is intended to store an additional copy of the original in a dynamic archive. If you delete the original form your machince it will eventually be removed from the backup archive to make room for newer changes to your files.

You need to maintain a consistent backup process first. Use the Time Capsule as intended. Keep backuping up your Macbook via Time Machine to ensure at least your data is recoverable.

THEN start looking for options to expand your Macbook storage. But at least you will have everything safely backed up before you start moving data to other places. One option, connect the borrowed exteranl to the TC so iTunes can at least read the movies over the network. With the understanding that for now nothing on that drive will be captured by Time Machine (to the Time Capsule) as it continues to backup your Macbook. So put stuff on it that wouldn't make you cry if you lost the external.

I recommend a bigger internal drive for the Macbook over an external, its an easy DIY upgrade. You'll have all your data on the TC, and then you can do a full restore to the new drive. You can even put the old drive in an external case and connect it to the TC for more network storage.

 

[marzer]

A TC is not a very good value, especially since Apple dumbed down Airport Utility to kindergarten level. I recommend an AEBS and an USB drive. If that's too much, consider one of the consumer grade network drives from Western Digital or LaCie. Bear in mind they are not very reliable but it's better to copy your movies to a NAS drive than to rely on Time Machine as a long term backup. I have lost TM archives over and over again with the most recent occurrence this past week. They simply keep getting corrupted from time to time and I'd hate to be in a situation where my only copy of something was in there.

Sorry you've had such a bad experience with Time Capsules. I've used one for years with little issues. I've successfully recovered each of my 3 machines in the house at least one time from the Time Capsule.

Either way, backups (Time Machine or any other backup solution) were NEVER intended to store an only copy of data.

 

[r0k]

Sorry you've had such a bad experience with Time Capsules. I've used one for years with little issues. I've successfully recovered each of my 3 machines in the house at least one time from the Time Capsule.

Either way, backups (Time Machine or any other backup solution) were NEVER intended to store an only copy of data.

Even if my experience had been perfect, it's still a lot to pay $300 for a TC when a Synology DS112j and a 2TB WD Green drive combined cost less than that amount. And there is a definite advantage to having the drive separate from the network interface.

Sorry if I gave the impression I don't consider them a good value simply because I lost data. They just aren't competitively priced and any NAS solution where you have to send away your data in the mail to get the thing repaired is not the best solution. For instance, an AEBS with a USB drive formatted HFS+ Journaled is a much better choice because you can plug the drive in any Mac and get your stuff back and if you upgrade or fry the AEBS you still have your data.

 

[brentsg]

Whether it's a good value or not is completely off topic for the OP.

 

[marzer]

Even if my experience had been perfect, it's still a lot to pay $300 for a TC when a Synology DS112j and a 2TB WD Green drive combined cost less than that amount. And there is a definite advantage to having the drive separate from the network interface.

Sorry if I gave the impression I don't consider them a good value simply because I lost data. They just aren't competitively priced and any NAS solution where you have to send away your data in the mail to get the thing repaired is not the best solution. For instance, an AEBS with a USB drive formatted HFS+ Journaled is a much better choice because you can plug the drive in any Mac and get your stuff back and if you upgrade or fry the AEBS you still have your data.

Sure, I understand for YOU your solution was a better value. For my needs the Time Capsule has been the best value, giving me the features I desired at a very good price. Esp. since it was the ONLY solution on the market providing me those desired features.

And since the OP already has one, no point trying selling him on a different solution when he wants to make use of this one.

 

[Gala]

So has it been established that the Time Capsule does not actually save things on it like an external HD because it just keeps taking backup "snap shots" of the computers. This in turn would cause me to lose data if deleted off of my MBPro.

For example,

Oct. 10 I have movie A, B, C on my MBPro and TC backsup. Then I delete C from my MBPro.
Oct. 11 I have movie A & B on MBPro. Then the TC backsup and it only keeps movie A & B since it saves most recent backup?

 

[laudern]

So has it been established that the Time Capsule does not actually save things on it like an external HD because it just keeps taking backup "snap shots" of the computers. This in turn would cause me to lose data if deleted off of my MBPro.

For example,

Oct. 10 I have movie A, B, C on my MBPro and TC backsup. Then I delete C from my MBPro.
Oct. 11 I have movie A & B on MBPro. Then the TC backsup and it only keeps movie A & B since it saves most recent backup?

No. You would be able to open your TM and get access to movie C if you went to the date in time in which movie C was backed up on in your TM.

If your TC runs out of room on the HDD, it will then start deleting the oldest things that were backed up which are no longer on your current drive. So on a 3TB TC, you may have movie C still there a year later, but when that TC runs out of space, the TM will slowly start deleting old backups no longer on your pc

 

[Big Stevie]

No. You would be able to open your TM and get access to movie C if you went to the date in time in which movie C was backed up on in your TM.

So would it be up to me to have to remember the date that movie C was backed up, in order to watch the movie? Or is there an easier way of finding it on the TC?

 

[Gala]

I would suggest a different approach.

I returned the TC and picked up a 1TB WD Passport (for Mac/Compatible with Time Machine). I asked the guy at Best Buy if I would use part of the space for TM backups & the rest for Hard Storage of my files without risk of overwrite with subsequent backups over time.

He said I don't need to partition anything. To just drag & drop files into the Passport & then point the TM to the Passport for backups. Does this sound right?

 

[marzer]

I returned the TC and picked up a 1TB WD Passport (for Mac/Compatible with Time Machine). I asked the guy at Best Buy if I would use part of the space for TM backups & the rest for Hard Storage of my files without risk of overwrite with subsequent backups over time.

He said I don't need to partition anything. To just drag & drop files into the Passport & then point the TM to the Passport for backups. Does this sound right?

Yes. That's right. But you could've done the same thing with the Time Capsule, backup up to it with Time Machine and drag&drop files over for long term storage, and have the convenience of accessing it over the network.

Keep in mind, Time Machine likes to assume its the only thing using the drive, so eventually you may get an out of space error from Time Machine that you might need to deal with manually.

 

[Gala]

Keep in mind, Time Machine likes to assume its the only thing using the drive, so eventually you may get an out of space error from Time Machine that you might need to deal with manually.

Great thanks. I plan to eventually get the Time Capsule/network storage further down the road & use the Passport as the Ex HDD in the method you recommended before. Right now this method should work fine and save me $200 in the process.