Time Machine

[Dark Void]

Hello,

I just received my 1 TB external drive in the mail today. I plugged in the AC Adaptor (3.5'' form factor) and USB 2.0 cable and it was recognized by Time Machine almost instantly. I closed the prompt, formatted it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and began backing up. I was really pleased with how smoothly everything went, I just have a couple of questions about Time Machine itself.

I do not want to leave my external drive plugged in and have it back up every hour or at any interval for that matter, so I switched Time Machine to "Off" before I unplugged the drive. It says that Automatic Backups are now off and I plan to plug it in weekly or biweekly to continue backing up my internal hard drive as it gets filled up. Will Time Machine recognize the fact that I did a backup today and only backup the files that are missing from the current backup if I backup next week, even if it's not plugged in all of the time?

Also, when I was backing up my internal it didn't account for and back up about 5 GB of space that is filled up on it. Would this be because that is the space of Mac OS X itself?

Thank you.

 

[soco]

I would just leave TM on and when you plug the drive in, cancel the backup when it starts unless you want it to continue. It won't mess your backups up.

This is what I do with my Lacie.

 

[Dark Void]

I would just leave TM on and when you plug the drive in, cancel the backup when it starts unless you want it to continue. It won't mess your backups up.

This is what I do with my Lacie.

what does leaving it on actually do though? will it attempt to do hourly backups but realize there isn't a drive plugged in?

 

[awer25]

what does leaving it on actually do though? will it attempt to do hourly backups but realize there isn't a drive plugged in?

It'll do nothing. I leave mine on all the time even though I plug in the backup drive once a week or so. If there's no TM drive connected, it'll just wait until you plug one in.

 

[Dark Void]

It'll do nothing. I leave mine on all the time even though I plug in the backup drive once a week or so. If there's no TM drive connected, it'll just wait until you plug one in.

and when you do plug in your drive, it begins backing up only the files that were not in the last backup, correct?

 

[awer25]

and when you do plug in your drive, it begins backing up only the files that were not in the last backup, correct?

Yep, just the new stuff. Sometimes the computer schedules the next backup for 30min or so after plugging it in, so I just click Backup Now to get it done.

 

[Dark Void]

Yep, just the new stuff. Sometimes the computer schedules the next backup for 30min or so after plugging it in, so I just click Backup Now to get it done.

ah, very cool. i turned it on and it says "next backup: when disk is connected." i did not see this before as i turned time machine off before i unplugged the drive when it still displayed an hourly time that it would backup. i will be leaving it on then. : )

thanks a lot for the info man i appreciate the help.

 

[Dark Void]

Sorry to double-post but I have a couple more questions.

It is my understanding that Time Machine will not delete files on your backup that you've deleted on your internal drive that have already been backed up. This is obvious, as that is the point of Time Machine, to recover lost files. However, can't you theoretically fill up yourexternal rather quickly this way? I have a 500 GB internal and a 1 TB external.

So say I install a 15 GB application (a game, lets say) that contains various files, and then Time Machine backs all of those up when I manually update one week. I decide that I no longer want to play the game and delete the .app and all of the relevant files off of my internal. How would I go about managing the space on the external, and get rid of it as well?

I could theoretically fill up 1 TB of external space with only a 500 GB internal if I were to keep installing one week, backing up, then deciding I do not want what I added, delete it on the internal, but that space is still taken up on the external. I am not saying that I will do that hehe but it was just something I was thinking about. Are there any built in features of Time Machine that helps it manage itself in this sense?

Also, is the fact that Time Machine didn't back up about 5 GB of my internal because that 5 GB is Mac OS X itself and Time Machine does not back that up because it is not bootable?

I really like Time Machine so far and would really like to understand it more. Thanks in advance for any replies.

 

[TheCaptain1129]

Time Machine will continue to make backups even when your hard drive is full, but it will start deleting the older backups automatically. Your hard drive will eventually fill up no matter how big or small the applications that you install are as long as you continue to make some sort of changes to your internal hard drive which you will surely do. What I would recommend if you want to save some space on your hard drive to use as a regular external hard drive and not let time machine just fill it up is to partition it and just use one partition for time machine and one for anything else. I hope that was clear enough. I'm not sure about your other question, but you are right that time machine backups are not bootable.

 

[Dark Void]

hmm, well if i'm using a 1tb external for my 500gb internal, what should my time machine partition be on the external as far as space?

i already partitioned the whole 1tb drive as 1 partition called "backup."

 

[TheCaptain1129]

The partition would just be needed if you wanted to use the hard drive as something other than with time machine. The bigger the partition means the more backups you will keep, or "the farther back in time you can go" when you want to recover an older file. If you did want to partition it you could do something like 800 GB for time machine and 200 GB for the other partition. I wouldn't go below 750 GB on the time machine partition though. It would just depend on what you were going to keep on the other other partition. If you want to use it as just for time machine that completely fine too. It's just personal preference.

 

[Dark Void]

The partition would just be needed if you wanted to use the hard drive as something other than with time machine. The bigger the partition means the more backups you will keep, or "the farther back in time you can go" when you want to recover an older file. If you did want to partition it you could do something like 800 GB for time machine and 200 GB for the other partition. I wouldn't go below 750 GB on the time machine partition though. It would just depend on what you were going to keep on the other other partition. If you want to use it as just for time machine that completely fine too. It's just personal preference.

Fair enough, I originally intended for the entire drive to be for Time Machine. However, this has be a bit confused...

If Time Machine deletes older backups when your external drive starts to become full, wouldn't you essentially lose your data that you backed up first? I know it would be difficult for me to fill up a 1 TB external that is solely dedicated to Time Machine with only a 500 GB internal, I would have to add large applications or files each day, back them up, and then delete them off of the internal.

However, the initial backup that I did yesterday covered some of my major applications such as Photoshop and Bridge, but wouldn't I technically lose that backup if the external drive becomes full, as they were a part of the first (and oldest) backup?

 

[awer25]

Fair enough, I originally intended for the entire drive to be for Time Machine. However, this has be a bit confused...

If Time Machine deletes older backups when your external drive starts to become full, wouldn't you essentially lose your data that you backed up first? I know it would be difficult for me to fill up a 1 TB external that is solely dedicated to Time Machine with only a 500 GB internal, I would have to add large applications or files each day, back them up, and then delete them off of the internal.

However, the initial backup that I did yesterday covered some of my major applications such as Photoshop and Bridge, but wouldn't I technically lose that backup if the external drive becomes full, as they were a part of the first (and oldest) backup?

It keeps track of it chronologically. Your first backup has Photoshop. The next 10 backups are just incremental and much smaller. Then, the drive becomes full and deletes backup #1. Since Photoshop is "tagged" in all your backups, even the most recent, it won't delete it.

TM gives you the ability to do a full restore from any point in time that's saved - which means it will keep ALL data for any restore point that's still available.

 

[Dark Void]

It keeps track of it chronologically. Your first backup has Photoshop. The next 10 backups are just incremental and much smaller. Then, the drive becomes full and deletes backup #1. Since Photoshop is "tagged" in all your backups, even the most recent, it won't delete it.

TM gives you the ability to do a full restore from any point in time that's saved - which means it will keep ALL data for any restore point that's still available.

ah, i see. thanks for the info!

I am thinking about splitting my drive 50/50 and devoting 500gb to time machine and 500gb to carbon copy cloner for a bootable backup, to back up my 500gb internal twice. (same drive though of course)

thoughts on that, anyone?