Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Time Machine FAQ
- Thread starter atszyman
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Click on the Desktop, hit Cmd - , go to General and uncheck External Disks under 'Show these items on the Desktop:'.
Time Machine not Updating
Guys, for a month now, it's so annoying to update my Time Machine because my computer doesn't want to back up automatically. In the place under System Preferences-->Time Machine, where it says Next Backup: There's no time or date. It's just a couple of dashes. I can fix it by turning disconnecting my external HD, turning off TIme Machine, turning it back on, and then connect the HD again. But that's not how it's supposed to work. Anyone else having this problem?
Guys, for a month now, it's so annoying to update my Time Machine because my computer doesn't want to back up automatically. In the place under System Preferences-->Time Machine, where it says Next Backup: There's no time or date. It's just a couple of dashes. I can fix it by turning disconnecting my external HD, turning off TIme Machine, turning it back on, and then connect the HD again. But that's not how it's supposed to work. Anyone else having this problem?
Under "options", you didn't highlight the drive, did you? That specifies "do not back up".
Time Machine starting to fail...
Well, it worked for a month or so but now time machine tried to do the hourly backup and somewhere between "preparing" and "copying" it fails because the drive is mysteriously unmounted. I am using a 180gb external usb on a new MBP. I tried rebuilding the directory with Disk Warrior 4.1, but while it found lots of stuff wrong with the drive, the results with TM are the same.
As an aside, I find it interesting there is no real documentation on how this thing works, or if there is, it's hidden on the web somewhere. This thread was the closest thing I could find in google. But even in this thread's FAQs, there does not seem to much clarity on how this app really works. Understanding exactly what's going on and when would be helpful in troubleshooting, no? Error message explanations would be nice too. The help file for TM is just insane, have u noticed? How about this one:
"You may be able to use Time Machine for a long time before running out of space on your backup disk. If you do run out of space, the best thing to do is to attach a new backup disk."
Uh, wha???
And this is a classic: Apple Support article: “Time Machine stops backing up to external disk”, which leads to a 404 error:
Not Found
The requested URL /apdredirects/en/redir36973.html was not found on this server
But wouldn't ya know, as soon as I start posting a problem, it's been on the fritz for 4 days now, its now working but instead of doing an incremental it looks like it's doing a big chunk, 33mb worth. But at least its writing to the TM drive now... albiet slowly. It seems to have lost that much, and is now trying to reclaim it. (previous hourlys were about 1-2 gb max). Well, hoping this is a self-healing kind of app, cause who would know otherwise?
Well, it worked for a month or so but now time machine tried to do the hourly backup and somewhere between "preparing" and "copying" it fails because the drive is mysteriously unmounted. I am using a 180gb external usb on a new MBP. I tried rebuilding the directory with Disk Warrior 4.1, but while it found lots of stuff wrong with the drive, the results with TM are the same.
As an aside, I find it interesting there is no real documentation on how this thing works, or if there is, it's hidden on the web somewhere. This thread was the closest thing I could find in google. But even in this thread's FAQs, there does not seem to much clarity on how this app really works. Understanding exactly what's going on and when would be helpful in troubleshooting, no? Error message explanations would be nice too. The help file for TM is just insane, have u noticed? How about this one:
"You may be able to use Time Machine for a long time before running out of space on your backup disk. If you do run out of space, the best thing to do is to attach a new backup disk."
Uh, wha???
And this is a classic: Apple Support article: “Time Machine stops backing up to external disk”, which leads to a 404 error:
Not Found
The requested URL /apdredirects/en/redir36973.html was not found on this server
But wouldn't ya know, as soon as I start posting a problem, it's been on the fritz for 4 days now, its now working but instead of doing an incremental it looks like it's doing a big chunk, 33mb worth. But at least its writing to the TM drive now... albiet slowly. It seems to have lost that much, and is now trying to reclaim it. (previous hourlys were about 1-2 gb max). Well, hoping this is a self-healing kind of app, cause who would know otherwise?
If Time Machine is acting up on youn perhaps looking at an alternative such as SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner might be worth it? 
If Time Machine is acting up on youn perhaps looking at an alternative such as SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner might be worth it?
Superduper (developers site)
Thanks for the info, I wasn't aware of that. CCC might be the only alternative then at this point in time.
Thanks xUKHCx, ~Shard~:
I think Disk Warrior 4.1 must have fixed it, after that last 33 gb backup, the hourlies are taking a few seconds again. So all is well. Ps. I do have another drive for CCC, bootable as well. I am kindof a backup freak after spending most of my life on a PC. Now I am starting to think that one or other may be redundant. I have successfully done a full system restore from TM as well as from a CCC clone, and both worked and took about the same time to complete. Hmmm....
I think Disk Warrior 4.1 must have fixed it, after that last 33 gb backup, the hourlies are taking a few seconds again. So all is well. Ps. I do have another drive for CCC, bootable as well. I am kindof a backup freak after spending most of my life on a PC. Now I am starting to think that one or other may be redundant. I have successfully done a full system restore from TM as well as from a CCC clone, and both worked and took about the same time to complete. Hmmm....
I have a client who splits time equally between two locations, brings his MacBook back and forth between both locations, and has an external backup HD in each location.
Is it possible to set up Time Machine on his MB to recognize BOTH backup HDs, so that Time Machine will be active in whatever location he happens to be working, and he will essentially have a full TM backup in each location?
Is it possible to set up Time Machine on his MB to recognize BOTH backup HDs, so that Time Machine will be active in whatever location he happens to be working, and he will essentially have a full TM backup in each location?
Only for another day or so...
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/blog/index.php/shadedgrey/comments/for_those_about_to_ship/
Only for another day or so...
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/blog/index.php/shadedgrey/comments/for_those_about_to_ship/
Once again, good to know - thanks!
Only for another day or so...
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/blog/index.php/shadedgrey/comments/for_those_about_to_ship/
Damn the internet moves too fast for me
Glad they finally sorted this out been waiting for a long time to start using my license again, although I have switched back to CCC so I probably won't bother.
so ive got time machine setup nice and dandy on my imac at home but am trying to do it for my mom. I've got a partition on the desktop PC i made just for time machine and have made it shared and all that. I setup time machine to show unsupported volumes and it recognizes this one no problem. I go to backup and it gets stuck preparing, the temp sparse files are put into the backup drive but it says the backup disk image could not be created
anyway im stuck and im wondering if anyone else has come across this before when trying to backup to a windows shared drive
anyway im stuck and im wondering if anyone else has come across this before when trying to backup to a windows shared drive
TM took me over 25 hours to back up 90gb
Anyone compare to my full on hard drive back up of 25 hours?
90gb hard drive on mac
500gb external seagate usb 2.0 free agent desktop
macbook pro 2.2 ghz core 2 cuo/2gb ram/leopard
so, yeah, any input would be fine...its done, but its done a day later
Anyone compare to my full on hard drive back up of 25 hours?
90gb hard drive on mac
500gb external seagate usb 2.0 free agent desktop
macbook pro 2.2 ghz core 2 cuo/2gb ram/leopard
so, yeah, any input would be fine...its done, but its done a day later
Anyone compare to my full on hard drive back up of 25 hours?
90gb hard drive on mac
500gb external seagate usb 2.0 free agent desktop
macbook pro 2.2 ghz core 2 cuo/2gb ram/leopard
so, yeah, any input would be fine...its done, but its done a day later
Were you connected via usb draft spec .2 or something?
quick question...
I am new to Time Machine and I had a question. Say, suppose I connect my backup external drive and hit the "Back up Now" option at 1:00 p.m. and then I hit it again next at 4:00 p.m. Will Time machine backup the state of my machine which was at only 1 & 4 pm? or as Time Machine says it backs up every hour i.e. 2 pm and 3 pm also? Does it work in the background when the external is not connected to store the details and then transfer it when the external is connected?
I am new to Time Machine and I had a question. Say, suppose I connect my backup external drive and hit the "Back up Now" option at 1:00 p.m. and then I hit it again next at 4:00 p.m. Will Time machine backup the state of my machine which was at only 1 & 4 pm? or as Time Machine says it backs up every hour i.e. 2 pm and 3 pm also? Does it work in the background when the external is not connected to store the details and then transfer it when the external is connected?
I am new to Time Machine and I had a question. Say, suppose I connect my backup external drive and hit the "Back up Now" option at 1:00 p.m. and then I hit it again next at 4:00 p.m. Will Time machine backup the state of my machine which was at only 1 & 4 pm? or as Time Machine says it backs up every hour i.e. 2 pm and 3 pm also? Does it work in the background when the external is not connected to store the details and then transfer it when the external is connected?
If u have time machine turned on in preferences, it will back up once an hour - if ur external is connected. if u turn off time machine in preferences, u can still do backups manually as u say at 1 and 4. fogettabout "background work when the external is not connected" - time machine just backs up the current state of the machine when time machine runs, that's it. its not that smart (or some would say its that elegant).
new question: so one external filled up since december, but when it ran out of space it just kept crashing instead of doing what was expected: option to start all over. so i plugged in another external and set time machine to use that one, and now it's backing up there. is there a way to consolidate external A with external B so I can have the full record since december? Or has no one gotton this far yet in leopard...
cheers
ccfccp
Can I use multiple backup drives - no one seems to answer this question
After skimming most of the 12 page thread, I can't seem to find an answer to whether I can use multiple backup drives at the same time (I need to add a 500 gig drive to a 750 gig drive to accomodate the 1.2TB of data on the four drives in my mac pro.)
If this is possible, can someone direct me to the solution?
Please forgive me if I missed it. I did see the question asked twice but in both instances never saw a response.
Thanks!
After skimming most of the 12 page thread, I can't seem to find an answer to whether I can use multiple backup drives at the same time (I need to add a 500 gig drive to a 750 gig drive to accomodate the 1.2TB of data on the four drives in my mac pro.)
If this is possible, can someone direct me to the solution?
Please forgive me if I missed it. I did see the question asked twice but in both instances never saw a response.
Thanks!
Hi, I am just an another IOtI, but I think while you can use multiple external drives to do backups, you can only use one at a time, at least my experience is thus: When one drive gets close to filling up, u just plug in and switch to the drive in the tm preference pane, then fill that one up, and then i suppose plug in another when that one fills up...ad nauseum, or optionally format a previously filled drive and recycle it that way. don't forget to magic marker on the outside of the drive the dates of the backups it holds, ie. June 1 - July 15 2008. I think, and i use that term loosely, that to back up ur 1.2 tb of mbp data, you need to find a drive array at least that big but i have no experience using a RAID rack and time machine together, or u could buy one of these http://www.maximumpc.com/article/fingers_on_hitachis_7k1000_terabyte_hard_drive and get pretty close to doing your backup on one drive...i guess at least for one day or so. Does not seem to me that TM scales very well eh?
I would like to contribute my experience with the Time Capsule 500GB.
Short Story: I have never seen Airport Utility in all its glory like I did when adding Time Capsule to my existing network. It was important to me to 'BRIDGE' the Linksys G and Capsule N so that my N-Enabled devices could take advantage of the N-Protocol. Airport Utility was prepared for this and in 5 steps I had a working network. (8 minutes from box to providing service!)
Short Story: I have never seen Airport Utility in all its glory like I did when adding Time Capsule to my existing network. It was important to me to 'BRIDGE' the Linksys G and Capsule N so that my N-Enabled devices could take advantage of the N-Protocol. Airport Utility was prepared for this and in 5 steps I had a working network. (8 minutes from box to providing service!)