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The breakthrough in Time Machine isn't the ease of setting up the backup volume and making the snapshots, it's the UI for finding and retrieving files from the archive. There's never been anything like it before.

-jcr

ah but you can block folders & volumes from being backed up!

Oops, Reisinger blew it. You can indeed tell Time Machine to ignore whatever files and folders you want to. Just select Time Machine in System Preferences, and hit the "options" button. You get a list you can fill in of folders to ignore.

-jcr

But how was he supposed to know that the options for Time Machine were under Time Machine > Options? And they says Macs are easy...

Allowing you to Time Machine to a NAS or a network share would be the only improvement I'd want.

The developers I've talked to say that in the builds in which this worked, even on a fast all-N network, backing up to a network drive was excruciatingly slow. I hope it's something they can fix on the software side, but it's possible that it will just never be fast enough for reasonable use...

Slow? It could be that the initial backup is slow. Under Tiger,
I found that to be true using Backup to .mac at first. I backup settings and documents. They complete in not more than a minute each now.

I do a daily backup of 30 gigabytes to a USB connected auxiliary and it does take 2-5 minutes if there was a lot of incremental activity. The first time I did it was 30 minutes for a full backup.

Sure beats losing everything because I did not back up at all, which happened to me. Although it was only my 2nd hard drive failure since 1988.

I waited to just about a year ago to upgrade to Tiger. I will not wait that long for Leopard.

Why would anyone want a backup program that is customisable so it can ignore certain file types????

Does that not deafet the point of backing up??

Backups are exactly that - BACKUPS - and that includes backing up ALL file types.

I cannot understand the mentallity of some people!

petey: Who are you to say what people should and shouldn't back up? For example, what if I didn't want to back up my music using Time Machine, as all my music is also on my iPod and I could retrieve it easily enough from there if needed?

By "perfect", he must mean almost perfect because 9.5 ain't quite it. Then he criticizes the software for lacking a feature that in fact it doesn't lack. They really shouldn't allow people like this to have writing jobs.

Citsacras said, "But how was he supposed to know that the options for Time Machine were under Time Machine > Options? And they says Macs are easy..."

It's true. How to operate Time Machine is not genetically inherited by us humans. I guess that's why Apple PUT IT IN THE FREAKIN "WELCOME TO LEOPARD" MANUAL THAT CAME WITH YOUR DVD. It's on page 27 if you'd care to look.

"Click Options to select items you don't want to back up."

Really, Cit, if you want to complain about Macs I'm sure there are more valid points to bring up, if you look hard enough.

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As long as Time Machine doesn't allow the user to start a backup by choice, then it's worthless.

Obviously the way Time Machine works as released WAS FOR the use of a network drive or Air Disk.

For a MacBook Pro mobile user, where is the convenience and safety of HAVING to find a desk or go to your desk, and plug in a hard drive. As one currently needs to do. As such, Time Machine is no easier better than any backup application. Less so IMO. Because the user can't start a backup when needed or wants too. A user now just has to hope the backup start time is near when the drive is plugged in.

As it is now, Time Machine is designed for a non-mobile computer. A desktop, tethered to wires, usb cables firewire cables etc... A backup hard drive always plugged into the computer.

Time Machine is basically worthless in this implementation. One of the biggest reasons for a Mac user to upgrade to Leopard, is crippled.

Time Machine works flawlessly, but I have to disagree about the "beautiful interface". While intuitive, it kinda looks like a cheesy kid's wall mural from about 1975.

I don't think that Johnny Ive was brought in on this one...

sarcasm, guy - there's a lot of it here, and you'll learn to spot it over time

dork attack: run Leopard in only two easy steps!

1. throw PC in dumpster out back
2. buy mac and enjoy!

s long as Time Machine doesn't allow the user to start a backup by choice, then it's worthless.

Obviously the way Time Machine works as released WAS FOR the use of a network drive or Air Disk.

For a MacBook Pro mobile user, where is the convenience and safety of HAVING to find a desk or go to your desk, and plug in a hard drive. As one currently needs to do. As such, Time Machine is no easier better than any backup application. Less so IMO. Because the user can't start a backup when needed or wants too. A user now just has to hope the backup start time is near when the drive is plugged in.

As it is now, Time Machine is designed for a non-mobile computer. A desktop, tethered to wires, usb cables firewire cables etc... A backup hard drive always plugged into the computer.

Time Machine is basically worthless in this implementation. One of the biggest reasons for a Mac user to upgrade to Leopard, is crippled. —me

You, sir, are a moron, as is anyone who flatly labels something as "worthless" just because it doesn't meet your personal needs.

One thing I know for sure: Most home users do not back up their data—period. Time Machine is intended to be as automatic as possible because the alternative for its target audience is no backup at all.

Personally, I'm quite happy with my existing backup method and may not use Time Machine at all long-term, but Apple deserves alot of credit for making it easier than ever for their customers to protect themselves against catastrophic data loss.

re: I don't think that Johnny Ive was brought in on this one...

---

Johnny ive is an Idustrial Designer not an interface gui designer.

He designs hardware and how all the components fit in it.

thank you, petey, for the expository aside. btw, the tape is coming unwrapped from your glasses...

re:As long as Time Machine doesn't allow the user to start a backup by choice, then it's worthless.

Actually, Time Machine DOES allow the user to start a backup by choice! Right click the Time Machine icon in the dock and a list appears with a selection to backup now.

I will agree that TM is a great addition for people who never back up, , but if it's mostly meant to be used with a constantly connected drive, I absolutely will NOT be using it, ever.

Anybody who keeps their backup drive continuously connected is going to eventually have their ass handed to them. All it'll take is one power surge bigger than your surge protector can handle.

I have to agree that for laptop users having to find the USB/Firewire cable plug it in, wait, unplug it, go back to the living room...

well folks ain't going to do that every hour, let's just say.

Gives me another reason to be thrilled that I took out the optical drive in my PB G4 and put in a 180 Gig hard drive. (Optibay was the company, I think).

Of course it's not exactly a real backup option since a catastrophic fall or other accident would probably blow both drives, but for the non-accident basic "oops, what happened to that file?" it's going to be awesome to have two drives in my PowerBook.

(BTW, the optical drive still works great in a firewire enclosure that I pull out when needs be.)

WHOA! I just read in a post on AI that if you plug in the disk directly to the computer for the initial backup you can then attach it through airdisk and Time Machine will find it and make incremental backups...

I've been at a conference all weekend, so no Leopard. Can anyone check this and report?

Two features MUST be added ASAP:

1- Airport Extreme connected external drive backup
2- Encrypted backup

Actually, they were included in some developers builds, but they cut them off. Maybe they were still too much buggy to be released now, and they will come with 10.5.1.

I hope...

@ Bruce

Thanks Bruce, I was about to set Me right on the manual Time machine backup "problem" when i saw your reply. Hope he/she sees it.

@petey, there's plenty of files on your computer you don't want to backup. Caches and temporary files to name a couple. Hopefully Time Machine automatically ignores those.

Can anyone tell me if Time Machine backs up all drives or just the system drive?

Furthermore, how much space doe Time Machine backups use?

@JackH

Maybe this will give you an idea. My system drive is a RAID consisting of 2 250GB drives, and it currently has 218GB used. In Time Machine I have set about 30GB's worth of folders to be ignored for the backup, leaving around 190GB to be backed. My backup drive currently has 136GB out of 372GB used, and TS has been doing incremental backups to it for 2 days now. I'm assuming that the unaccounted for space is what TS automatically ignores, such as all system related files which are not backed up. I guess Apple figures that these files can be recovered from your install disk if need be.

This is my question:

My TM backup drive is an external Firewire drive connected to my Quad G5. I have a Macbook that I connect to the Quad via ethernet when it's on my desk. Can I use the FW drive on the Quad as a Time Machine backup for the Macbook via ethernet?

@Wingsy - yes you can.

have today installed Leopard...Time machine is running for its first back up and I'm happy, really happy!

I have to agree that although I do find Time Machine useful, and I have been using it, I am not going to keep it plugged in all the time. Even though I use a laptop I've been plugging my external at night and once Time Machine has done it's thing, I unplug the external and my MBP goes to sleep for the night. Is this the best method, no, but it works for me and my needs.

@Citsacras

The difference between a moron and a fool is that the moron can't help it. In the future, Citsacras should try commenting on something that he (I'm sure it's a he) has taken the time to learn about.

For the rest of us, if we want to know more about Time Machine, it's as simple as typing "Time Machine" in the little search box in the Help menu.

There's lots of good information there.

Whoever this guy is, he's an Apple hack! They are all over the internet ya know!
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com

Thanks, Wingsy.

Does anyone know if you can use Time Machine to restore your stuff to a different Mac?

It really is breathtaking.

How do you actually delete something though?

to delete an item entirely from Time Machine: find it in the Time Machine window, highlight it, and bring up the "Action Menu". There is an option in there to delete all copies from Time Machine.