Comments on: Beginning Mac: Time Machine

By: Kaitlyn French

Kaitlyn French — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 15:55:58 +0000

I took a photo i’m not proud of on photobooth that i’d rather nobody saw and I’ve deleted it and emptied my trash. This was maybe three weeks ago or more. I still have not set up time machine. If I set it up, will the photo be recovered? I would prefer it to stay deleted.

By: Stevey

Stevey — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 13:33:49 +0000

Hi people, I am a relatively new Mac user so you could call me a noob, tho I am fairly tech savvy so can find my way around day to day problems. I have a MacBook Pro with an intel 2.26 dual core, 2GB RAM, 160GB internal HDD and OSx SnowLeopard.

Due to having my HDD fail just a few months into having my new Mac I lost a lot of data as it wasnt backed up. I am now looking to start using time machine and carbon copy in conjunction with each other to avoid future problems of this nature.

I have bought a WD MyBook 1TB Ext HDD and partitioned into 1 x 200GB and 1 x 800GB partitions (The 200GB for carbon copy to use for a complete clone of my internal HDD and the larger 800GB for TimeMachine to use as it pleases till the space runs out)

The rest of my data (Pictures, vids, music etc.. is all stored on another 500GB HDD which is backed up independently via other methods)

I wanted to know a few things.. firstly how easy is it to backup the other external drive containing all my media using timemachine, is it simply a case of removing the media drive from the exclusions list? Also does timemachine compress the data very much? and are there any ways of checking the backup for corruptions / differences to the original data contained in my internal HDD.

Also there have been some issues noted with Mac OSX relating to system issues after downloading and installing system / software updates whilst running on battery power. In some forums people have aknowledged this problem to be as severe as causing systems to hang and refuse to boot = not good!! Would this apply to allowing timemachine to make backups on battery power? I am just being over paranoid and want to know these things as I never want to lose my data again and as im a new mac user and a timemachine virgin its kind of nice to know how the system works and the integrity of my backups etc…

I know this is a long rant but any replies are most welcome.

Many thanks guys,

Stevey R

By: anna

anna — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 13:49:08 +0000

I am backing up my entire harddrive right now with time machine.
the reason was actually to be able to delete my iphoto library for example, because my intern HD is full and my mac is getting lame.
will i loose my iphoto files or are they still in the backup? thanks!

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 05 May 2010 16:50:53 +0000

quick question please.
if i can’t currently fit all my files on my imac hard drive (ie, i keep all my photos on the external drive) then how do i go about backing everything up and in one go… how can i ensure that files i don’t set and forget in time machine will still be there if it continually backs-up the imac?

By: Amy

Amy — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:39:52 +0000

I have a LaCie external hardware drive and it was a reasonable price, this is where all of my time machine backups go, as well it holds all of my photo’s. It has a huge capacity. Time machine is great and with the external hard drive I will never lose a thing. Doesn’t matter what you own for a computer, it only makes sense to have an external hard drive for backing up your information.

By: Dagaza

Dagaza — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:23:11 +0000

If you want to set up Time Machine using a hard drive that isn’t made for Mac check here for a simple and tested method: http://www.dagaza.com/2010/03/setting-up-time-machine/

By: Tyler Munson

Tyler Munson — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:36:33 +0000

Here’s a new question on an old theme. I have 1 external drive that I use as an archive. I have a second external drive that I use for Time Machine. If I have Time Machine back up both my internal drive and my archive drive, and then I unplug my archive drive for a year, will Time Machine eventually write over the archive?

By: Lenya

Lenya — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:47:13 +0000

To answer an old question. You can use the Time Machine HDD for other backups as well. I do that for my Mac and the external iTunes HDD. You just have to make separate partitions on the HDD. 1 Partition for Time Machine, large enough for your backups and 1 partition for each extra archive. You can use the Disk Utility for that. Start Disk Utility, select the Partition tab etc. Just remember that partitioning will erase all previous data, so you have to make a new full backup.

By: David Field

David Field — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 00:54:43 +0000

It would be removed from the next backup. The files will still be present on one of the older backups until these old backups are over written.

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 00:40:03 +0000

So I have just gotten a 1-TB Western Digital MyBook, and am wondering now that I’ve backed up my files with Time Machine, if I were to delete a file on my MacBook Pro, would it be removed from the MyBook?

By: David Field

David Field — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:12:58 +0000

I have an external HDD which is backed up by TimeMachine. I can’t find where the setting is but I think when I originally attached the drive there was an option whether to allow time machine to back it up. It may have come up automatically.
Sorry not to be of any better help, but it is possible to have TimeMachine do it.

By: Dainis W. Michel

Dainis W. Michel — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:53:50 +0000

You know, I just went ahead and let Time Machine do its thing, but really, what I want is to be able to make space on my MacBook Pro HD. I make videos and I want to delete the source files, cuz my 120 Gig drive is jam packed full. I’ll be getting a new mac in a few months (since my laptop is close to 2 years old), and the whole “delete old files” checkbox makes me very nervous. What do you mean delete? Excuse me? Just save the most recent version of a file name, overwrite old files with the same filename, and allow me to delete stuff off my HD. Right now, I’m making manual backups, but that’s quite time consuming.

By: David Field

David Field — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:26:45 +0000

Yes, that’s right, but I don’t think you can use the TimeMachine HDD for anything but Timemachine. You would require an additional HDD for the archive.

The following backups are kept on the Time machine HDD:

Hourly backups for the past 24 hours
Daily backups for the past month
Weekly backups until your backup hard drive is full

So 1Tb would last a long time but your files would eventually be overwritten

By: squareart

squareart — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 06:45:30 +0000

Thanks David, so if I want to archive files – I need to make a copy of them myself before I delete them. My external is a Terabyte so I think I have space to do that.

By: David Field

David Field — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:44:11 +0000

Remember, It’s a backup of your existing hard drive , not an archive.

By: David Field

David Field — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:42:26 +0000

It will keep them for a while. It depends on the size of your backup hard drive as when it becomes full it starts to overwrite the older backups.

(Correct me if I’m wrong , anyone!)