Can i do work on my mac while it is backing up with time machine?

can i do work on my mac while it is backing up with time machine?

Doing backups should have hardly any impact on the Mac itself.. so if by work you mean typing a document or working with photos or something local it will have very little impact.. it is only internet connection that will be affected..
And incremental backups that are usually small should be over in a minute or two.. even by wireless. If your backups are huge each time.. there is something being backed up that should not be.. eg a parallels virtual disk. Or a local drop box. Where small changes internally to a file of very large size makes the TM do another whole backup.

Similar Messages

  • Time machine - external not large enough - now I can't access preferences to just select certain items to back up with time machine

    How do I access preferences when restarting my external hard drive?  When I tried the first time to use Time Machine it failed because the external hard drive was too small.  When I ejected and restarted Time Machine I am not now able to access preferences to select only certain files for Time Machine to back up.  How do I access preferences to change the back up to selected files instead of the whole hard drive to the external drive?

    I'm not sure I've got the right answer,  but always willing to help out a fellow Portlander.  You should be able to set your preferences for Time Machine by going to the apple symbol on your upper left screen, selecting "System Preferences" in the drop down menu,  and then selecting Time Machine icon in the window that opens.  In the bottom right of the preference window,  "Options" allows you to select what is included or excluded in the backup by using the + and - buttons at the bottom of the display.  Clicking plus will open a finder window and allow you to select and add files.  Note also that you can check "Show Time Machine in Menu Bar" which will then display the icon on the top right side of your screen by the volume and date and time.  Clicking on the icon once it's displayed takes you to the Time Machine preference window directly.
    Hope that helps.
    David

  • HT201250 What do you do if your mac crashes as while you're backing up using time machine?

    What do you do if your mac crashes as while you're backing up using time machine?

    It could be right, how is the drive connected... interface wise?
    Open Console in Applications>Utilities & see if there are any clues or repeating messages when this is going on.

  • The first time I connected my new My Passport portable hard drive to my Mac, the message asking if I want to use the drive to back up with Time Machine did not appear.  What is the next step?

    The first time I connected my new My Passport portable hard drive to my MacBook Pro, the message asking if I want to use the drive to back up with Time Machine did not appear.  I would like to set it up to do this.  What would my next step be?

    Drive Partition and Format
    1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
    2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
    3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
    4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
    5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
    6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
    Open Time Machine preferences to select this drive for use as the backup drive. Turn on Time Machine.

  • I just fix my macbook air because it was kernel panic. They changed the hard drive. I could not back up with Time Machine, because it did not work and I had over Adobe creative suite 5 design premium student. But I finished my studies last year and I'd li

    I just fix my macbook air because it was kernel panic. They changed the hard drive. I could not back up with Time Machine, because it did not work and I had over Adobe creative suite 5 design premium student. But I finished my studies last year and I'd like to know how to get the serial number for me to reinstall Adobe creative suite 5 design premium when I am no longer study because I would still like the used? It is not fair if I do anymore because I really need.

    You can download Creative Suite 5 here:
    Other downloads
    To deal with the issue of the serial number and using it again, you'll have to use Web Chat. Here's a link:
    Adobe ID, sign in, and account help
    See the bottom of the page for a link

  • Kernel Panic while backing up with Time Machine - now everything is GONE!

    I got a kernel panic while i tried to back up with Time Machine....when i shut down the computer, and restarted it (with the external still plugged in, and on), it came up with an error message that said
    "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer."
    And my three options were to "Initialize...", "Ignore", or "Eject"...
    I didn't hit either of those buttons, i was trying to contact apple for support only to find out that i am just a week past my minimum 90 day telephone support, so i am trying to scrape up enough to order the APP immediately.
    However, in the meantime, everything on my external harddrive is gone...Disk Utility doesn't even see that there was once a Partition on that drive, and thus, it is not showing up on my desktop, and there is no information to be recovered...everything is gone.
    This is kind of ironic because i was just reading an article about how people are losing their info on their User account after having the Guest Accounts enabled....logged into guest, and back out of guest...
    I am a part of one of those statistics because i do NOT have the Guest account enabled at all...
    Can anybody else help me with this?

    where can i find the panic.log?
    I did a spotlight search with no results.
    I checked /Library/Logs, and didn't see a panic.log
    I also checked ~/Library/Logs and didn't find a panic.log either....i was unable to find anything related to a kernel panic log, or anything.
    Could you point me in the right direction for this please? Could it be that i had a kernal panic, and it did not record the log?
    So what can i do to correct this?
    Disk Warrior didn't detect the drive, and zapping the PRAM didn't correct it either.
    I keep getting the error message i posted previously.
    I even tried to plug the drive into my old 15" PowerBook G4 running 10.4 tiger to see if i could see the drive appear on the desktop, and i also got the same error there as well.
    If i go into Disk Utility, into Partition, i have to create a Partition. There is absolutely nothing on the drive at all. Everything is gone because of a kernal panic - which happened when i was trying to use Time Machine to back up the drive.
    I'm 1/2 afraid to do anything at the moment because i want to figure out what happened to the data i lost on my Time Machine backup drive, and how to get it back...at the same time, i'm afraid of losing all my information on my computer as well since people are having issues with the so called Guest Account issue that wipes everybody's user account's information.
    Is there another scenario for this, could it be not just Guest Accounts deleting a users home folder, but also kernal panics related to Time Machine, which end up erasing your entire Time Machine backup drive too?
    Apple really needs a fix for this and should somehow reward us with something for the unprofessionalism in their own technology.
    Message was edited by: tool

  • I have had a series of Macs.  They have been backed up with Time Machine. I am trying to restore TM backup files from the older Macs using my new MacBook Pro.  No go.  What do I do ?

    I have had a series of Macs.  They have been backed up with Time Machine. I am trying to restore TM backup files from the older Macs using my new MacBook Pro.  No go.  What do I do ?

    I am trying to restore TM backup files from the older Macs using my new MacBook Pro.  No go.
    Migration Assistant (Finder > Applications > Utilities > Migration Assistant) is the tool that you would use to restore backups from older Macs to another Mac.
    Details are here:   http://pondini.org/OSX/MigrateLion.html   The same info applies for Mavericks and Yosemite.   If you are saying that this is a "no go".....where are you getting stuck?  What error messages do you see?

  • How can I check and see that my photos are being backed up by time machine?

    How can I check and see that my photos are being backed up by time machine?

    http://pondini.org/TM/8.html

  • I can't back up with time machine to WD my book live

    I can't back up with time machine to WD My Book Live home network disk. I get this error : The network backup disk does not support the required AFP features.

    This is more a network problem than a disk error..
    Reboot.. the network.. restart in correct order.. modem router /TC.. clients with 2min gap.
    If you have trouble reset TM and redo it.
    See A4.. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

  • I replaced the original hdd in my early 2008 iMac.  I can't move my files that were backed up with Time Machine to my new hdd using Migration Assistant.  When prompted to select the "from drive", the ext. hhd does not appears as a selection. Please help!!

    I replaced the original hdd in my early 2008 iMac.  I can't move my files that were backed up with Time Machine to my new hdd using Migration Assistant.  When prompted to select the "from drive", the ext. hhd does not appears as a selection. Please help!!

    I'd recommend staring over, Pondini has created an excellent guide on how to use Setup Assistant. I'd recommend begin reading Pondini Setup Assistant tips where he talks about "Second Chance." Assuming your Time Machine backup is sound the restore  should be very smooth.
    Roger

  • Back up with time machine can't finish, because volume with sparse bundle already seems to be in use

    I have problems with time machine. The message I got (in Dutch) is "Het schijfkopiebestand '/Volumes/Back up schijf/iMac van Gerard.sparsebundle' dat voor de reservekopie wordt gebruikt, is al in gebruik." The sparsebundle seems to be in use so Time machine can't finsh back up process. Any idea what I should do to fix this? I'm using time machine over a wireless netwerk, backing up on a NAS form Lacie, connected to the netwerk via airport extreme. Ik normally works well.
    regards,
    Gerard

    http://pondini.org/TM/C12.html

  • HT201250 Can I back up with time machine AND store additional files on the same external drive?

    I just bought an external drive to move and archive some files off my iMac to free up some space. I'm being asked if I want to use the drive to back up files with Time Machine. Can I use this drive to do both? (Back up with TM AND store other files?
    Your input is appreciated.

    Technically you can but it is not a very good idea at all. The reason it is a flawed idea is if the HD fails (not really if but when) you will have defeated the whole idea of backup. A failure means you will lose the data files you stored on it and it's backup! A good backup plan has at least 2 forms of backup because backups can fail too. I would strongly recommend getting at least one additional external HD and use it for storing the data files you wanted off the internal HD and use the second for a Time Machine backup drive.
    Personally I have 3 external HD's attached to my computer. Disk 1 is my Time Machine backup, Disk 2 is a Bootable Clone of my internal HD and Disk 3 stores my music, photography and movie libraries.
    Please read these articles, they will discuss different backup strategies and I think you will see that each suggest redundant backups.
    Backup Plan I
    Backup Plan II
    Backup Plan III

  • Can't back up with Time Machine.

    Hi, Im having troble with time machine. When I tried to back up today this error occured.
    The problem may be temporary. Try again later to back up. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk.
    Repaired back up with both Disk Utility & Drive Genius. Disk seems to be working fine. But, it won't back up.
    Any help will be appreciated.

    This is more a network problem than a disk error..
    Reboot.. the network.. restart in correct order.. modem router /TC.. clients with 2min gap.
    If you have trouble reset TM and redo it.
    See A4.. http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

  • Can I keep working on my mac while Time Machine does its first back up?

    Just wanting to double check before I do anything I am sorry about. I am getting ready to do my first Time Machine back-up. I have my documents all backed up with an on line service, but feel like I need to back up the whole system (better safe than sorry) and will back up to an external hard drive. I have plenty of space as I have about 60GB to back up on a 320GB drive. I know after the first backup it will only back up changes or additions to my mac and I will probably not notice anything, but is there anything I should be watching out for during this first time?
    Thank you
    laverne's mom

    Thanks for your quick response. I expect it will take a while for it to complete. It took a little more than two days for just the documents to be backed up. I'll give it a good long time before I panic.

  • Can I retrieve Mac files backed-up with Time Machine to a PC?

    Hello,
    I have been using Time Machine to back up my MacBook Pro to an external hard disc.  Now my MacBook has broken and I'm in Ghana with no access to repairs in the foreseeable future.  Can I retrieve the backed-up files from my Mac to a PC?  If so, do I have to upload everyting on the external hard disc to the PC or is there a way to select inidividual files for retrieval?  My fear is that everything will be erased once I connect the external disc to a computer it has not 'seen' before.  Would be grateful for answers and advice.  - Fiafromgullspång

    There is no way to restore your TM backup to a PC.
    You need to be able to run Setup Assistant or Migration Assistant to restore your TM Backup.
    Back-in-Time or Backuploupe will give you access to your TM Backups but still require a Mac to run.

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