Can TIME MACHINE turn on external HD only as needed for data transfer?

Can the TIME MACHINE control turning an external HD on only when backing up instead of leaving the HD running full time? I have a LaCie 500 gig usb HD and currently unmount it and turn off the drive each evening and remount it the next day. Is there any harm in this? Also am I foolish to worry about leaving the drive running perpetually?

The problem is that if your LaCie is a Porsche 500 GB USB drive of the most recent generation, il will NOT sleep, whatever the settings in the Energy Saver Pref Pane.
LaCie Tech confirmed me just yesterday that their most recent production of Porsche drives had a new controller chip that allowed faster transfers and had lower seek time than the previous generation, but lacked the possibility of responding to the sleep command of the computer.
A friend of mine has a LaCie Porsche 500GB USB drive that is a mere 4 months old and that indeed goes to sleep when the computer does, or when he shuts it down, or when he merely ejects the drive. The Porsche that I bought last week doesn't. If it's ON, it spins! The only way to stop it from spinning is with the power button in the rear of the case.
I really wonder why it has to be so.
BimBam

Similar Messages

Can time machine make an external HD bootable?

Hi,
I'm not really familiar with Time Machine, and I really want to make a copy of my HD onto an external HD, so I can boot off of it in the case that my computer goes haywire. Can Time Machine make my external HD bootable? Or, would one of those other programs (CCC or SuperDuper) be better suited for the task?
Thanks!
-Dan

use Superduper or CCCloner for that. Time Machine backups are not bootable. You can create a bootable drive from a TM backup but it's a lengthy process. You need to boot from the install DVD and use the system restore utility from the utilities menu. plus you'd need an extra external drive.

HT201250 Can time machine back up external hard drives too?

I'm new to Time Machine. Can I set it up to back up both my internal HD and an external HD?
Thanks,
Carol

Yes but it's poor advice by Apple for the reason hardware fails just as often as software, if you drop that drive, you have ruined all your backups at the same time.
If you get malware, you have just infected all your backups at the same time.
Apple created TimeMachine and didnt provide a Windows version, in my opinion it's to trap as much as your data as possible so you can't decide to later to switch to a Windows PC without a great deal of pain and effort.
So the more drives you backup with Apple's TimeMachine the more data is trapped in it when the hardware or software fails.
The best advice is to have a multiple backup system and match each piece of hardware with two of it's own seperate hardware backups.
So if you have a boot drive, you need two external backups of it.
If you have a storage drive for extra space, then you need two more drives as backup of that.
Drives are cheap, data is not.
If you drop the only backup, get a power surge, or a criminal breaks in or a fire and it's dead or gone, or get malware, you won't know until it's already infected the first backup restored that it's still on the loose and need ot take stronger measures, your going to wish you had the second backup safe and sound someplace.
Most commonly used backup methods

HT201250 Can time machine back up external drives to external drives?

I was wondering if I can use Time Machine to back up external drives. I know it backs up just my Mac, but need to know if
it will back up an external drive to an external drive.

Open your Time Machine drive. Open the Backups.backupdb folder therein. Open the Computer Name (e.g., Adam Smith's iMac) folder. Open any folder there whose name contains a date later than when you attached your (other) external drive. You should see a list of folders representing the drives that are being backed-up. One is typically Macintosh HD, your internal hard drive. There should be one for your other external drive.

Can Time Machine backup to external HD on Tiger?

I have a Tiger server that I use for mail/web... I also have a couple of external HD attached to my Leopard Mac that I use for time machine backups for several computers in my house. I would like to move these external drives to my server (running Tiger server) and continue to use TM for backups.
Is there any way to get TM to backup to drives mounted on a Tiger Server?
Thanks
RPR

Does not work. I tried moving the drive with a TM backup already on it (already configured as a backup drive). I then mounted it on the machine to do the backup but it was not available to select as a time machine backup.

Can Time Machine back up external hard drives?

I have an older Mac Mini with a fairly small hard drive -- I think it's 80G. Most of my data needs to live on a separate 250G external hard drive . I would like to use my brand new 1TB hard drive to back up both the 80G Mini HD and the 250G external hard drive.
Is this possible?

Thanks. I had my suspicions about that, but I'm glad to hear it's an easy fix.
And special thanks for the quick answer. It came so fast, I think I felt wind blowing over my keyboard.
Jack

How to restore from Time Machine onto an external drive

Hi all,
I am a backup freak, and I don't feel entirely safe with Time Machine taking care of backing up my system unless I can test every now and then that I would be able to do a full restore. I've had problems in the past with .Mac/MobileMe's Backup.app, which would not be able to restore from an otherwise apparently successful backup, for one reason or another.
So, is there a way to test a full restore from Time Machine onto an external hard drive?
Thanks for your advice

Allamistakeo wrote:
Hi all,
I am a backup freak, and I don't feel entirely safe with Time Machine taking care of backing up my system unless I can test every now and then that I would be able to do a full restore. I've had problems in the past with .Mac/MobileMe's Backup.app, which would not be able to restore from an otherwise apparently successful backup, for one reason or another.
So, is there a way to test a full restore from Time Machine onto an external hard drive?
of course. connect an external, boot from the snow leopard DVD and choose "restore system from backup" from the utilities menu. follow the instructions and choose the external drive as the restore destination. make sure it's properly formatted. it should be formatted mac os extended with GUID partition scheme.
also, you might want to consider doing secondary backups in addition to TM by making a bootable clone on another external drive. use CCCloner or Superduper for such backups.
Thanks for your advice

Can time machine restore in new HDD?

if i backup my mac os in an external hdd with time machine and then ill change my mac hdd, can time machine restore my os in new hdd?(for example by Recovery Disk Assistant)

Naming it the same tends to make things easier. Time Machine can backup your entire OS as long as you haven't excluded anything in System Preferences/Time Machine/Options.
Another option is to make a bootable clone. You should have more than one backup on 2 different drives since hard drives do fail.
Clone - Carbon Copy Cloner (Often recommended as it has more features than some others)
Clone – Data Backup
Clone – Deja Vu
Clone - SuperDuper
Clone - Synk
Clone Software – 6 Applications Tested

How can I restore my data from iCal? I didn't make any backup, but I use time machine with an external HD. I deleted iCal when I deleted my gmail account. I have tried to restore, but I can only restore the iCal software and not the data.

How can I restore my data from iCal? I didn't make any backup, but I use time machine with an external HD. I deleted iCal when I deleted my gmail account. I have tried to restore, but I can only restore the iCal software and not the data.

So what is your question?
If you forgot your encryption password:
Warning: Make sure it's a password you will remember or write it down for safekeeping. If you encrypt an iPhone backup in iTunes and forget your password, you can't restore from backup and your data will be unrecoverable.
If you can't remember the password and want to start again, you must perform a full software restore and chooseset up as a new device when iTunes prompts you to select the backup from which to restore.
The above comes from here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946

Can I use a Time Machine as an External "Wireless" Drive ONLY ?

Can Time machine be used as a Wireless External Drive on the Wi-FI?
I do not want to use the Automatic backup (Time Machine) feature, but wish to access it as a WAN drive at home for data dumping of other computers.
Thanks!!!!

If you mean "Time Capsule," the answer is yes.

Does / can Time Machine cause external HD to lock up?

Pardon my ignorance on the matter here, but although I'm a longtime Mac-user, I've only just recently started using Time Machine.
I bought myself a dedicated 1TB external hard drive for the purpose and have left all Time Machine settings on default.
Most of the time it backs up everything fine, but lately I've had some weird experiences. It's happened on two occasions so far.
What happens is Time Machine appears to be backing up, according the rotating clock/arrow in my menubar, but if I do something which involves calling up this external hard disk into Finder view, it will lock up that application. By that what I mean is if I have a document open and I hit "Save As" and I get the window asking me where on my computer I want to save it. Obviously that window is a window to the Finder and it would ordinarily show me my own computer's directory structure, as well as giving me access to the directory structure on the external hard drive.
This "locking up" also occurs if I go into my Finder, which is behaving normally at this point, and I then attempt to click on the external hard drive showing in the sidebar of a Finder window to view that hard drive's contents. If I do that, then my entire Finder locks up.
And by locking up, I mean, I get the spinning beachball, and I can't do anything more from there. I can still Cmb-tab into other apps and use those, so long as I don't do anything with them that involves calling up or accessing that external hard drive.
The only way to get those locked up apps back is to literally pull the plug on the external hard drive, killing all power to it, and then plugging it back in. After a few seconds, the locked up apps come back to life and I get a standard pop-up window saying that the disk was not properly ejected, etc.
Once I've plugged the external drive back in, then everything goes back to normal, and the hard drive runs fine, as if nothing had ever happened.
Now I don't know who is at fault here: software or hardware? Time machine or the external hard drive?
With my experience of failing hard drives, they either work or they don't work. Very rarely do they "sometimes" work. And in those cases, there is usually an accompany "clicking" sound in the hard drive, indicating something's screwy.
I'm hearing none of that. The external hard drive is absolutely quiet.
Has anyone else had similar experiences? Any ideas as to who is at fault? Software or hardware?

Brett Archibald wrote:
Once I've plugged the external drive back in, then everything goes back to normal, and the hard drive runs fine, as if nothing had ever happened.
Now I don't know who is at fault here: software or hardware? Time machine or the external hard drive?
With my experience of failing hard drives, they either work or they don't work. Very rarely do they "sometimes" work.
That's not the case anymore. Many problems reported here (slow backups, failing backups, drives dismounting unexpectedly) turn out to be external drive (or their power supply) problems. And if the problem is electrical, not mechanical, they don't make any unusual noise.
In such cases, unfortunately, the only way to tell if a drive is failing is to rule everything else out.
It does sound like you may have directory damage on the TM drive (which of course can be caused by an improper disconnection). When this happens, can you cancel the backup instead?
I'd suggest starting with a +*Repair Disk+* (not permissions) on the TM drive, via Disk Utility.
If that doesn't help, do your backups seem to be of reasonable size, and take a reasonable amount of time? If not, that may be a contributor, if not the actual cause. Try the things in #D2 and/or D4 as appropriate, of the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip* at the top of this forum.
If still no help, copy and post the +Time Machine Buddy+ messages here (see #A1 in the same Tip), along with details of your setup, especially the TM drive (make, USB/Firewire, separate power supply or not, direct connection or not).

My iphoto library disappeared. i am trying to restore my library from time machine -- from an external drive -- but everytime it tries to copy my library it tells me it can't do it because i don't have access to my iphoto library??!!! help!!

My iphoto library inexplicably disappeared! i am panicked but i do back up by time machine to an external drive and also to JustCloud. I am trying to restore my iphoto library from a back up on feb 28, 2014 and it says it's copying but then gives me a message that it can't do it because i "don't have authorization to access iphoto library"?! what does this mean? i really want to get my library back on my mac. Also if anyone knows why this happened or where my photos might be on my computer, i'd appreciate help with that, too.

Thank you Terence for your help. I was able to restore my backup from my time machine ext drive to a new 1tb seagate ext drive. so i felt sort of ok. but yesterday that older ext drive i used for time machine wouldn't open! i called applecare and they trouble shooted with me and said it's probably a goner and data is probably corrupted. it's only a few years old and i'm very careful with it. my husband accidentally dropped my new drive last night -- i know, unbelievable, i was SO upset, poor guy -- but I'm so stressed with all of this. i have 10 years of photos and videos. so now i only have the one newer drive with a backup. i have to buy another one today to backup again so i at least have two backups. i tried to delete a ton of files last night to free up the 30 gb of space i need to get my full library back on my mac. i have 90gb free and deleted 7 years worth of photos i had on picasa that were in my "pictures" folder and also a ton or random photos and videos i had in that same pictures folder and thought that would give me the 30 gb but it hardly freed up any space at all! do you know why that is? all of this stuff is really a pain and really stressful. thank god i did have a backup in the first place but now i am panicked the one i have left will somehow crash. especially after my husband dropped the drive lastnight! it didn't fall far and fell onto a wood floor and seems fine, but after my older ext drive crashed yesterday -- and i lost my entire iphoto library a fewweeks ago off my mac -- i feel cursed. any answers you have would be great. thank you.

Can time machine be used to back up one external drive to another external drive?

I use the photography program Lightroom to organize and develop digital photos. All my photos are stored on my iMac internal drive. The internal drive is almost full so I want to move my photos to a new external drive. At present, I have an external drive devoted to backing up my iMac using time machine. I have no need to change this arrangement. I would like to use a new external drive to serve as the primary location for my pictures, which I will move from the internal drive. Then I would like to backup that drive to a third external back up drive. Can time machine be used to automatically back up the second drive to the third drive as well as for continuing to provide ongoing backups to my internal drive as it is currently doing?
Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Jeffery t wrote:
Thanks for the links, but I don't see in the pondini links, the scenario I am asking about.
Time Machine can easily back up multiple internal and/or directly-connected external drives and partitions simultaneously (but Time Machine cannotback up data that's on a network).
From the first link.
Jeffery t wrote:
... Please note that my iMac internal drive is backing up to external drive number 1 using time machine. I want my pictures on external drive two and those backed up to external drive three. So are you saying that if I have 500 GB of pictures on drive number 2, I will need a third drive that is at least 1 TB?
the confusion starts in your above statement...
There should be Only One Time Machine Drive.

I am out of space on my Macbook Air and have a Time Machine Backup. I want to complete reset my mac, but wonder if I can pick and choose what I restore to my computer? Can I also use my time machine backup and external storage as well?

I am out of space on my Macbook Air and have a Time Machine Backup. I want to complete reset my mac, but wonder if I can pick and choose what I restore to my computer? Can I also use my time machine backup as external storage as well for the files I don't need everyday?

If you are using "Restore from Time Machine Backup" option from OS X Recovery, you can only choose from the broad categories presented.
... Can I also use my time machine backup as external storage as well for the files I don't need everyday?
To be clear, if you are asking if you can use the volume containing your Time Machine backup to store additional, non-Time Machine files, the short answer is yes.
It's not a good idea though, since the Time Machine backup will eventually fill all available space, after which it begins to remove old, "expired" backups to make room for newer ones. The presence of additional files doesn't change that fact, and Time Machine will not erase them, but you will encounter a dilemma should you want to store additional files on that volume when there is no remaining space. You will have to make room for them on your own, by deleting existing files. Furthermore, since Time Machine cannot back up its own volume, those additional files will not be backed up by Time Machine.
The easy solution for what you describe is to purchase additional external storage. External USB hard disk drives have become very inexpensive; about $55 will buy a perfectly suitable 1 TB drive.
You can also choose to replace your MacBook Air's internal storage with a larger capacity one. Look for a suitable replacement from OWC / MacSales:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Air-Retina
That gets a little more expensive but it is the optimum solution.

Can I go back to Time Machine on my External Hard Drive?

I have been using an OWC 1TB External Hard Drive for my Time Machine backups. The OWC stopped working, so I sent it back to them to fix. Turns out it was the case and all my information is ok. They are shipping it back.
Meanwhile I backed it up on Time Machine on another external in case my laptop went down.
Now that I am getting back my original, can I pick up where I left off or do I have back it up all over again?
For the future, can you back up two Time Machines in case this happens again?
I am sure i am not the first to face this situation.

can I pick up {with Time Machine} where I left off or do I have back it up all over again?
You should be able to continue where you left off.
For the future, can you back up two Time Machines in case this happens again?
Yes, but you'll have to change Time Machine's settings to switch from one disk to the other and back.

Can TIME MACHINE turn on external HD only as needed for data transfer?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for