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Time Machine HD Reccomendation
- Thread starter dasphli
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Sorry about not being specific enough.
I have an iMac Core 2 Duo 20". I'd prefer to use an external hard drive. But i don't won't one which wouldn't look nice next to my computer.
I found this one, but i was concerned about the size. Am i able to set a preference on Time Machine to back up data until a certain point to prevent it from filling up my HD?
http://www.play.com/Product.aspx?pa...Passport+V2+External+USB+2.0+2.5"+Hard+Drive+
I have an iMac Core 2 Duo 20". I'd prefer to use an external hard drive. But i don't won't one which wouldn't look nice next to my computer.
I found this one, but i was concerned about the size. Am i able to set a preference on Time Machine to back up data until a certain point to prevent it from filling up my HD?
http://www.play.com/Product.aspx?pa...Passport+V2+External+USB+2.0+2.5"+Hard+Drive+
That's a portable drive, based on a 2.5" laptop drive. Since you've got an iMac, get an external based on a 3.5" drive that includes FireWire. USB has a faster rated speed, but FireWire is faster in the real world.
Getting a 3.5" external drive will be faster, cheaper, and offer greater capacity.
You want something like this:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/ME2FW7320GBJ/
EDIT: This would be good to, is closer to the price for the one you referenced, and is from the same retailer.
http://www.play.com/Product.aspx?ti...tion+/+USB+2.0+/+eSATA+/++External+Hard+Drive
Let say you have a 750 GB drive. And it is over 85% full. Could you use Time Machine to backup that drive using multiple external Firewire drives? Or do you have to get at a minimum of 750 GB external Firewire drive and perhaps have just enough room for a few incrementals of some select files.
If Time Machine doesn't allow it directly, you could set up a software RAID setup with multiple firewire drives in Disk Utility. This would, in effect, combine the drives into one, but would keep the drives from working independently. That is, you couldn't unplug one and take it to your friend's house to share some files.
Also, though, you may need far more than 750GB, depending on how often the files are modified. If 600GB are static, you won't have much of an issue, but if you're running a video editing system or something where lots of large files are modified all the time, you'll need enough storage to have a backup of each of the versions, going back as far as you allow in the Time Machine preferences.
Does someone know how TimeMachine will work on MacBooks? Can it be used with only one internal HDD like Vista's ShadowCopy?
Time Machine needs it's own partition for storing backups, so technically you could partition your MacBook's internal drive in two, and use on as the back up volume.
It's not a particularly good solution, though, as your data and the backup are on the same drive - if that drive goes down, you lose both your data AND your backup. Drive space is also limited on laptops, so giving a large percentage of your storage over to a (not particularly secure in this case) backup system isn't very practical.
The best solution for laptops (especially those with wireless N) at the moment appears to be a large USB drive attached to an Airport Extreme Base Station. So long as you're within range on the wireless network, your backups are offloaded to a separate disk and you don't lose any local storage on your laptop. That's the theory anyway, we'll have to wait and see what the performance is like (I've heard that Airport Disks are pretty slow).
It's not a particularly good solution, though, as your data and the backup are on the same drive - if that drive goes down, you lose both your data AND your backup. Drive space is also limited on laptops, so giving a large percentage of your storage over to a (not particularly secure in this case) backup system isn't very practical.
The best solution for laptops (especially those with wireless N) at the moment appears to be a large USB drive attached to an Airport Extreme Base Station. So long as you're within range on the wireless network, your backups are offloaded to a separate disk and you don't lose any local storage on your laptop. That's the theory anyway, we'll have to wait and see what the performance is like (I've heard that Airport Disks are pretty slow).
Thx, so what is TimeMachine exactly? Can you restore the whole drive if it dies? Read: is it more a hardware backup system or more a system to help protect us from our own mistakes (deleting or overwriting files)?
It's a bit of both, I think. It's both a backup system to safeguard against drive failure AND a rollback system so you can retrieve stuff you deleted or changed by mistake.
Time Machine backs up everything, so yes you can restore your entire system in the event of a complete drive failure. Replace the drive, install Leopard off the DVD and somewhere along the installation routine it'll ask you if you want to restore from a Time Machine backup drive...
The cool aspect of Time Machine, though, is the a la carte restore functionality - that's what you see demoed all the time.
Using apps as the front end for traversing the backups and restoring data is a stroke of genius, I think. We deal with a lot of stuff that we don't think of as "files", and even though they are stored as such we don't really know where these files are hidden away. Would you know which files on your harddrive you need to restore in order to get back an Address Book contact? No, but now you don't need to.
Apps can be made Time Machine capable, which allows them to present their current window in multiple versions with different data sets for different days (i.e. the daily Time Machine backups). The Finder can do this, allowing you to restore files from the backups, but they've also demoed this working from inside Address Book and iPhoto. I'd guess that most Apple apps will be Time Machine capable once Leopard is released.
Time Machine backs up everything, so yes you can restore your entire system in the event of a complete drive failure. Replace the drive, install Leopard off the DVD and somewhere along the installation routine it'll ask you if you want to restore from a Time Machine backup drive...
The cool aspect of Time Machine, though, is the a la carte restore functionality - that's what you see demoed all the time.
Using apps as the front end for traversing the backups and restoring data is a stroke of genius, I think. We deal with a lot of stuff that we don't think of as "files", and even though they are stored as such we don't really know where these files are hidden away. Would you know which files on your harddrive you need to restore in order to get back an Address Book contact? No, but now you don't need to.
Apps can be made Time Machine capable, which allows them to present their current window in multiple versions with different data sets for different days (i.e. the daily Time Machine backups). The Finder can do this, allowing you to restore files from the backups, but they've also demoed this working from inside Address Book and iPhoto. I'd guess that most Apple apps will be Time Machine capable once Leopard is released.
On a related note, I have a 320 GB external drive, which I'm considering using as my Time Machine drive when Leopard arrives. My MBP has a 160 GB internal drive, so I think this is a good choice of size. My question is this:
I also have SuperDuper! cloning my system to a 250 GB external drive. Should I stop using SuperDuper! or change the backup schedules for both so they don't run at the same time and possibly conflict with one another?
I also have SuperDuper! cloning my system to a 250 GB external drive. Should I stop using SuperDuper! or change the backup schedules for both so they don't run at the same time and possibly conflict with one another?
I'd also like to know that. Will time machine back up programs as well so I'm protected if my internal HDD crashes?
SJ has said several times that you can use time machine to restore your entire mac, to any point, so you can either restore it to yesterdays state, or a week ago, or 17 days ago, whatever. Or just one file
So yes, it will backup everything.
I have used SuperDuper in the past, but it works differently from Time Machine. TM can keep backups going back weeks and take up only as much space as the new files you've added to your system since the oldest backup maintained.
In the event of a system failure, you can restore your time machine backup using the Leopard install disc IIRC.
SuperDuper smart backups aren't as fast as Time Machine backups after the first one, and aren't as flexible.
Thx, yes it is very interesting and i see the advantages of this ui model. But TimeMachine may be not supported from every app at release. "Previous Versions" in Vista on the other hand has the advantage, that it is integrated in the Explorer (= file based) that means that is works with every application (for example in the open or save dialogs) even with old Windows XP apps running on Vista. Let's see how TimeMachine will take advantage of the differences.