time machine backup

[mrdinh]

if you use a external harddrive, i assume you have to turn it on 24hrs a day?...and when the mac sleeps does it still back up on schedule?

can i use a internal drive ie. bay 2 or 3 etc?

thanks

 

[miles01110]

I don't keep my drive on 24 hours a day. If you plug in the drive and turn it on, TM will back up pretty soon afterwards.

 

[mrdinh]

also, ie. i have 3 internal drives...1 for the main os, 1 for timemachine, and 1 for storage...does timemachine auto backup on all drives?

thanks

 

[BlueRevolution]

All of the HFS (Mac)-formatted non-Time Machine partitions, yes. I suggest blacklisting your non-essential files, though, unless you have tons of space on the Time Machine drive. Backing up two drives to one may prove problematic as Time Machine doesn't make compressed backups. If you're trying to back up two full 500 GB drives, your Time Machine drive should be at least 1.5 TB to account for versioning.

I suggest buying a dedicated external drive for Time Machine. Maintaining a backup is a good idea for many reasons, and an internal backup drive won't help you if the computer is stolen or dropped, or the PSU surges and fries all of the drives in your box at once.

Since hard drives only have a limited shelf life, it's a good idea to leave your (external) backup drive off most of the time if you don't use it for versioning as well as traditional backup. Your system will remind you if you haven't made a backup in 7 days. And no, Time Machine won't back up while your computer is sleeping.

 

[Jackyl]

I don't keep my drive on 24 hours a day. If you plug in the drive and turn it on, TM will back up pretty soon afterwards.

Just go the TM in the menu bar and click "Back up now." you don't have to wait at all.

 

[bobr1952]

When I first bought my iMac, I left TM on--thought it was pretty cool to have data every hour--I back up to a Time Capsule. But I soon tired of the every hour thing as I really don't create that much new information so I turned TM off and now back up manually ever 2 or 3 days. For me, this is a much better method until Apple decides to make TM more flexible.

 

[Tumbleweed666]

When I first bought my iMac, I left TM on--thought it was pretty cool to have data every hour--I back up to a Time Capsule. But I soon tired of the every hour thing as I really don't create that much new information so I turned TM off and now back up manually ever 2 or 3 days. For me, this is a much better method until Apple decides to make TM more flexible.

In which case, whats the point of that??, the backups will be teeny tiny, and also may catch that one time you badly altered a really important file/photo/whatever 3 hours ago and the latest backup you have is 3 days old ! Thats the entire point of TM (to me), apart from needing no hands-on, so you dont forget to take a backup, it can also catch the stuff that happens during the day.