![]() (For instructions, seeĮasy Mac Backups.) You must store the duplicate on its own drive or partition in order for it to be bootable. For instance, if you also want a bootable duplicate of your hard disk, you can use any of numerous programs to create one separately. ![]() Use Time Machine and Then Some In many cases, Time Machine will do the trick if you add just one element. However, I recommend using Time Machine alone in only a few circumstances: if you have more than one external hard drive on which Time Machine can store its backups and you can keep one of them safely offsite at all times if you don’t mind the thought of spending several hours restoring a backup in the event of serious problems or if you have two or more Macs running Leopard, so you can quickly switch to another computer in the event that your main hard drive fails. Use Time Machine Only If you haven’t been backing up your data at all, clearly Time Machine is a lot better than your previous plan. Given Time Machine’s talents and drawbacks, most Leopard users fall into one of three categories: those people for whom Time Machine can serve as a sole backup, those who should use Time Machine along with other backup methods, and those who should avoid Time Machine altogether. If you’re really serious about protecting important data, it’s best to include some sort of off-site backup-for example, using an online backup service or storing a bootable duplicate at your sister’s house-in your plan. Likewise, disasters like fires and floods won’t spare your backup drive. After all, someone who breaks into your office and steals your Mac will probably pick up the hard drive sitting next to it, too. (That said, you can manually mount a Time Machine disk image and use the Finder to copy a single file if you wish.)ĭoesn’t Include Off-Site Protection In addition to those specific problems, Time Machine may provide you with a false sense of security. In other words, Apple expects you to restart using your Leopard Install DVD and completely restore your disk if you want to recover even a single file. Files that were already encrypted, such as FileVault disk images, do remain so in your backup-which brings us to our next point.ĭoesn’t Work Well with FileVault Time Machine backs up FileVault-encrypted user folders only when you’re logged out-and does not permit file-by-file restoration of your FileVault data using the Time Machine program. If you can’t guarantee the security of that disk and you work with confidential files, you should think twice before using Time Machine. If you have tons of data and only a modest amount of storage space, Time Machine may not be for you.ĭoesn’t Use Encryption Anyone with physical access to your Time Machine backup disk will be able to read all your files. The net result is that you see your files as they appeared at many points in the past, though not all points in the past.ĭoesn’t Use AirPort Disks If you have a hard drive attached to your AirPort Extreme Base Station-or for that matter, any network-attached storage (NAS) device except the Time Capsule-Time Machine won’t recognize it.ĭoesn’t Compress Files Time Machine requires a significant amount of disk space, and although it doesn’t store duplicate copies of identical files, it doesn’t compress your files either. Only at that point does the program begin purging files from your oldest weekly backups. Even after a month, it preserves the first backup of each week until your disk is nearly full. You can count on it to keep the first backup of any given day for an entire month. Time Machine keeps all of the day’s backups for 24 hours, but then it begins to delete older versions to save space. Travel through Time: Click on the up and down arrows or use the timeline on the right to zoom back in time to an earlier version of a folder. That way, your disk doesn’t fill up with multiple copies of files that haven’t changed. Using a bit of Unix magic known as hard links, Time Machine can store just one copy of a file or folder but make it appear to be in several places at once. But to some extent that’s an illusion Time Machine copies to your backup disk only those files and folders that are different from the ones in your previous backup. If you look through the folders on your backup disk, you’ll see what looks like a complete copy of all your files for each of numerous backup sessions. Effortlessly Produces Many Backups With each hourly backup, Time Machine takes what amounts to a snapshot of your entire system at that moment.
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