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Time Machine saved my keister! (& my iPhoto Library, too!)

JNB

JNB

macrumors 604
Original poster
Oct 7, 2004
6,872
9
In a Hell predominately of my own making
In case you're wondering why you should (or shouldn't) use Time Machine vs SuperDuper/CarbonCopyCloner, here's today's case in point.

For whatever reason--and the how really isn't important here--my iPhoto library got fairly whacked. Thumbnails were there, but I lost hundreds of originals, and a lot of the thumbnails were blank dupes of a photo. All in all, the last 7 or 8 months worth of my library were a train wreck.

I have a SuperDuper! clone of everything, but that's as of yesterday. In other words, the cloned library was--being an exact duplicate of the current one--toast as well.

Open iPhoto, browse backups (which launches Time Machine and positions you in the correct path), select all the photos from the points in time that were lost, click restore, and voila!, it's all good again. Now I can execute another SuperDuper! clone and I'm reset, ready for the next disaster.

I knew there was a reason to have both...
 
joefinan said:
What's a keister?
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20080215-cck55scyef4qgs747en4jbftrh.jpg
 
That's definitely an area where TM rocks and SuperDuper! doesn't. Though that's not too fair to say, because that's not SuperDuper's intention. Good you have both options.
 
Yeah, there were a lot of times where wished there had been something like Time Machine. For me it is the biggest feature of Leopard.
Now if it would let you use two different HDs for off-site backups too it'd be perfect.
 
Time Machine comes in so handy. Especially for those "oops" scenarios. Just last night I was working on an Xcode project. At some point I hosed something up and it just wouldn't build. After spending 15 minutes trying to figure out what I just did I said "F it"! I deleted the whole project and using Time Machine was able to restore it from an hour ago. BOOM! Fixed. I was good to go.
 
how are you set up to use both? do you have 2 hard drives or are you able to partition one? how often do you activate super duper? sorry for the questions but I'm a walking time bomb. I have no back ups other than my weekly DVDs. I know, disaster is going to strike and I'll have noone to blame but myself.

I want to move on this but I honestly don't have a clue as to how to go about getting started. if you guys (anyone) had to back up a G5 iMac, G4 eMac, and a 2.2 MB and cost wasnt really a factor what would be your setup? I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I really need to get this tightened up. thanks
 
Getting Time Machine up and running is my next weekend project. I have one external drive for my SD clone, but I need to get another for my TM backups.
 
@jemeinc: You can backup multiple computers to the same TM external drive. I'll be keeping my TM backups on a separate disk from my SD backups.

Honestly, if I wanted to backup 3 separate computers I'd probably buy a Time Capsule.
 
jemeinc said:
how are you set up to use both? do you have 2 hard drives or are you able to partition one? how often do you activate super duper? sorry for the questions but I'm a walking time bomb. I have no back ups other than my weekly DVDs. I know, disaster is going to strike and I'll have noone to blame but myself.

I want to move on this but I honestly don't have a clue as to how to go about getting started. if you guys (anyone) had to back up a G5 iMac, G4 eMac, and a 2.2 MB and cost wasnt really a factor what would be your setup? I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I really need to get this tightened up. thanks
Click to expand...

the last time i used superduper!, you would need a dedicated external drive. because it will copy everything from a to z. i am not sure superduper! would create incremental backup.
 
thanks. I keep coming back to time capsule for the time machine back ups and an external for the super duper clones. I've been told that's not neccesary though. honestly, I think I'm suffering from "paralysis by analysis". the more I research it the more confused I get.
 
SuperDuper! does incrementals in that it doesn't recopy the entire drive each time, only the differences to save time, but you still have one cloned copy of your current environment.

I have one 500GB external partitioned for SD & TM separately, and have no problems. TM is automated (whenever connected), while SD is done manually as I spend a lot of time away from the drive.
 
jemeinc said:
thanks. I keep coming back to time capsule for the time machine back ups and an external for the super duper clones. I've been told that's not neccesary though. honestly, I think I'm suffering from "paralysis by analysis". the more I research it the more confused I get.
Click to expand...

My suggestion would be to use Time Capsule (assuming it works and isn't a piece of junk) for all 3 machines, only backing up your user folder (no system files, apps, etc). Then use one or two externals for clones. Either a large drive partitioned into 3, or individual drives. Or buy a double external enclosure (OWC sells a nice one) and use that. Since they're clones, you only external space the size of your drives. Even a touch smaller, since you shouldn't max out the space on your drives anyway. With TM backing up your user folder, you should only need to clone your drives maybe once a week.
 
JohnNotBeatle said:
I was going to tell you to ctrl-:apple:-D and hover your cursor over the word. More fun!
Click to expand...

How come I never heard about this before?
Great tool, did it exist in Panther as well?
Thanks for sharing.
I have Superduper, but I can really appreciate what Timemachine did for you. Time to upgrade to Leopard
 
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