Time Machine finally backing up iDisk with 10.5.4?

[peterbaby]

Hi,

This is something i've been waiting for since the Leopard release, and that would make even more sense with the forthcoming 20Gb of iDisk with mobileMe: the ability to save and recover the local copy iDisk content just as any other folder of the mac.
Beware, I do not mean backing up time machine on the iDisk, but really backing up the iDisk on time machine to include efficient versionning back up.

For those who may not know, for the moment, anyone having the iDisk "sync" option on, gets his iDisk backed up as a single file, a sparse bundle (unless of course you exclude it from TM). Meaning, any time there is a tiny change on the iDisk, TM backups up the whole thing (!!!) once again. Furthermore, the only way to recover an old version of a single file is to find an old bundle in time machine, extract it, and find out the right file. Not practical, neither space saving.

Two questions then:
1 - Does anyone have any insider information, or read anything, regarding the ability to cleanly back up the local iDisk with Time Machine in the future 10.5.4 ?

2 - Dumb question, am I like the only one to complain and find strange that Apple should have already thought about (and easily solved) this problem?
With 20GB, iDisk can really become my main working space, on the other hand, if I can't use the great versioning capacities of TM on it, it makes no sense.

thanks

 

[wordmunger]

I'm using DropBox now and finding it works much more reliably and faster than iDisk. It also backs up with Time Machine perfectly.

I now have one less reason to use .Mac/me.com. If I can figure out a substitute for iCal publish/subscribe then I'll probably completely ditch .mac.

 

[jeremy.king]

If I can figure out a substitute for iCal publish/subscribe then I'll probably completely ditch .mac.

You can publish to any WebDAV enabled server - I do this with my wife's calendars. She publishes to my web host via WebDAV and I subscribe from Google Calendar. Works quite well.

 

[peterbaby]

Thanks guys, but avoiding the problem by not using iDisk is not an option.

I do like the integrated functions of .Mac, and will not give it up.
Furthermore, I do not trust small companies in the US for handling my data. You guys have privacy laws (hence general terms & conditions) that would scare off any European customer such as me. Sure it's not different at Apple, plus I don't have homeland-security threatening data , but I'd rather trust a worldwide company.

Anyone having an idea for iDisk? Maybe I'll have to just wait and find out

 

[wordmunger]

You can publish to any WebDAV enabled server - I do this with my wife's calendars. She publishes to my web host via WebDAV and I subscribe from Google Calendar. Works quite well.

Intriguing. It looks like my host (ASO) doesn't support WebDAV though. Any other ideas?

 

[jeremy.king]

It looks like my host (ASO) doesn't support WebDAV though.

You should ask them...If ASO is so great, like everyone claims here, they should go out of their way for this as it's quite common. Basically they will WebDAV enable just a single directory in your account.

 

[johny5]

Hi,

For those who may not know, for the moment, anyone having the iDisk "sync" option on, gets his iDisk backed up as a single file, a sparse bundle (unless of course you exclude it from TM). Meaning, any time there is a tiny change on the iDisk, TM backups up the whole thing (!!!) once again. Furthermore, the only way to recover an old version of a single file is to find an old bundle in time machine, extract it, and find out the right file. Not practical, neither space saving.

thanks

I have been a .mac user for over a year now and thought its time to start using idisk. I work away from home a lot and the syncing to and fro would be great but when I tried using idisk about 10 months ago it seemed not to work for me.
I have since set it up today and tested it between a couple of macs and an xp (spit) machine and I am liking it now. This means I can work on any file on any mac whereas before I had my files on my mac pro and if I wanted to work on them on my macbook when away I had to do a full directory copy over and then when I returned copy all the files back again.
Idisk should be great for me.

I found this thread as I too want to backup idisk using time machine although it sounds like it is working for you am I missing something as mine isnt backing up the idisk?
I am guessing that the idisk files are seen as a single file somewhere on my mac?
I havent excluded the idisk from time machine but when i go back into time machine it hasnt backed any of the idisk up.

My other thought was that effectively you have at least 2 copies of the idisk files, local and online (plus more local if you sync between a few macs) so I guess it might be overkill to want to backup these again, but I totally see where you are coming from as I too want to backup these files

 

[peterbaby]

...it sounds like it is working for you am I missing something as mine isnt backing up the idisk?

Hi!
It is backing it up (if you have "local sync" turned on of course), but it a dirty and hidden way

I am guessing that the idisk files are seen as a single file somewhere on my mac?

Yes, in TM (or in the normal finder), the iDisk copy/backup is stored in
user folder/library/filesync
As mentioned, it is a file you have to mount in order to see the files in it.

My other thought was that effectively you have at least 2 copies of the idisk files, local and online (plus more local if you sync between a few macs) so I guess it might be overkill to want to backup these again, but I totally see where you are coming from as I too want to backup these files

Correct, but sayyou're working on a huge report for example, the great advantage is versioning (saving hourly backup of the same file), in case you do a big mistake at a certain point in time.
The key to Time Machine to me isn't back up (many software do so), but easy to save and to recover versioning.

BTW, 10.5.4 doesn't solve the problem

 

[johny5]

Hi!


BTW, 10.5.4 doesn't solve the problem

Damn I know, I realised that, also found out the sparse bundle file after i had a sync error with a 23k excel sheet. It messed up big time, everytime it tried to sync it just said error syncing then gave a really weird error description. Wasnt happy as I was about to copy over 900megs worth of work files there.
I couldnt even connect to my idisk via the web when you login through mac.com.
Luckily enough I backed up the few files from the local idisk then switched it off and was then able to copy the files back to idisk via another mac.

Anyway, come on Apple, why can we have standard file structures on the local idisc so that time machine can do its job!?
My guess is that its easier to see if the single sparse file has changed in size and date and then for it to sync itself to and fro the web as oppose to it trying to work out which files have changed? i dont know.....


My Idisk *still* wont work using the safari web browser!? if i go to idisk.com in Firefox it works by asking me to login. Safari just sits there.... any ideas?

 

[rpspaulding]

Yes, Seems So - and a nifty backup mix for MacOS

First, my technical answer, then how I'm intending to use it.

Realizing that I'm not an expert, I'll just share that my OS 10.5.4 does seem to back up my iDisk in Time Machine.

First, of course, you have make sure you've turned on MobileMe syncing in the MobileMe panel in System Preferences under the iDisk tab. (And if you hadn't turned it on yet, you might have to let your local copy of your iDisk sync up fully with the one on the net, which could take hours, depending on how much you've got there).

As long as syncing is on, a mountable disk image should be created on your disk. In 10.5.4 (and I think all builds of 10.5), you get to that disk image in the Finder by choosing "Go to Folder..." from the "Go" menu and entering "~/Library/FileSync" in the window that results. This brings you to an otherwise invisible folder.

Inside the folder you will see a folder with a bunch of random numbers and letters. Open it up. Inside there you should see something called "ACCOUNTNAME_iDisk.sparsebundle", where ACCOUNTNAME is your MobileMe account name.

So just launch Time Machine with this folder open and you should see previous disk images of your iDisk - check the "last modified" dates to be sure.

To open a copy of your iDisk, just double-click on it, and after a quick wait, it should mount as a Disk on your desktop.

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To me, iDisk and Time Machine seems a pretty foolproof mix for backup. I've got two Macs, and iDisk helps me create a copy of files on both computers, as well as the internet. Unless something quite freakish occurs, or I stupidly delete a file and that deletion syncs across computers, this provides a reasonable degree of protection of my data. This protects me from the usual cause of data loss - simple hard drive failure of one of my computers.

But Time Machine provides the double-check on that, in case I do mistakenly delete a file, or (God forbid) the iDisk routines somehow went totally awry and erased everything across all the computers. I can always go back a few hours, days, or weeks, and get a copy of the iDisk off of my Time Machine backup.

Now, you could add a backup to burnable DVD every few months or something. But to my mind, the iDisk syncing and Time Machine seems all the backup most people will reasonably need.

Especially as solutions like SugarSync gain in popularity, but do generally the same things as parts of MobileMe, Apple might be wise try to promote this mix of its two solutions as more of a solution to most people's backup needs.