Clone the Time Machine partition - is it worth it

I'm getting ready to start on a large Final Cut Studio project, so I'm reviewing my current backup situation. I have a question regarding my Time Machine partition, and if I should include it in my daily cloning styrategy.
My development iMac has a 1TB internal drive. Hooked to it via Firewire are 2 - 2TB drives. On one of those drives I have my TM partition. On the other drive I have a SuperDuper! partition, where I clone my iMac's internal drive daily at 4:30 am. This SuperDuper! partition is bootable for emergencies.
While in the process of setting up a new partition to contain my Final Cut Studio projects and assets, I've decided to allow Time Machine to backup these assets. However, I'm also going to use SuperDuper! to clone that FCS partition every day at my normal 4:30 am clone time. While I was setting this procedure up, I realized that I don't have a copy of the TM partition anywhere. This bothered me.
Do you TM experts feel that I should clone my TM partition every day, like I do with my internal iMac HD and my new FCS partition? What I'm unclear about is if my SuperDuper! cloned TM partition is viable in a recovery situation - i.e. I go to use TM, but I have a HD error in TM's partition. Can I re-point TM to the cloned TM partition and use it there for recovery?
I can easily add another 2TB Firewire drive to the mix if needed.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Pondini
I'm quite paranoid about backups (that's prudent, IMO ), but I wouldn't. Backing-up a backup usually isn't a great idea: the backed-up backup is now +twice removed+ from the originals: any problem on the first backup will be copied to (and perhaps magnified on) the copy.
That sounds extremely possible. However, I would never try to use the SD! TM backup for a wholesale restore, I would just use it to recover a critical file (like a DVD Studio project file) that I messed up, and for some reason, the normal TM backup is corrupt.
And your Time Machine backups (assuming they back up your whole OSX volume, at least), contain several hundred thousand files at a minimum; likely a million or more in your case. Depending on how smart SD is about hard links (at both the file and directory level), it might either take an extraordinarily long time to determine what's changed, or have rather nasty results.
Yes, close to 1.5M files. I know that since I've seen the SD! stats from my daily run. With the hard links, who knows?
I don't know about SuperDuper, but CarbonCopyCloner will not back up Time Machine backups in "file copy" mode, only block copy mode (ie, doing a complete replacement, not an update).
That's good to know about CCC. I did investigate it way back when I first got into Macs (way way back in 2007 ), but I went with SD! I should look at the spec sheet of CCC to see how it compares to SD!
You might want to check with SD; I understand they're quite responsive.
Yes they are. I'll post my question over there.
But if you do it, yes, you should be able to view and restore from the copy. You'll need the +*Browse Other Time Machine Disks,+* option, per #17 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
Thanks for that pointer, and your excellent FAQ.

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Malignant secondary boot device. When I plug in an external hard drive which has time machine in one partition and a secondary boot device in another, the secondary boot takes over and wipes existing files. How do I turn it off but keep the time machine

Please help new (senior) convert to Mac Pro (OS X). Am following the 'switching to a Mac' portable genius 2nd ed, and as it advised, I bought an external hard drive (a Mac My Word) and partitioned it with one partition for a secondary boot device and another for time machine. Book implied I needed both. Seemed to download OK but now when i plug in the external hard-drive it wants to reboot me fresh all over again. How do I keep the time machine partition going but have the secondary boot device only in case of emergencies? Do I 'eject' that partition- and if so how do I do it from outside the hard drive (I am not game to reattach it currently)

Launch the System Preferences application (under the Apple menu) and select the Startup Disk preference pane. Set your internal drive as the startup disk. Close the window.

Using the same external hard drive to host a Time Machine partition + a test recovery partition: no longer possible?

In 10.7, I used to have one external hard drive with two partitions:
1) a Time Machine partition that I used to back up my internal hard drive;
2) another partition that I used once a month as a target partition to test the restoration of my Time Machine backup (because having a backup is a good first step, but regularly making sure it could be usable for a full recovery in case of a failure of my internal hard drive is important as well).
After upgrading to 10.9, my first backup restoration test failed with the error message "An error occurred while adding a recovery system to the destination disk." I found the following discussion:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4370294
which suggests that I need to make sure my external hard drive is formated using GUID and/or that I need to install 10.7 on the target drive. I checked in the Disk Utility, and indeed my external hard drive is formatted using Apple Partition Map rather than GUID.
I also found the following KB article:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5911
which suggests that, to be able to install 10.9 on the external hard drive, I need to configure it to have only one partition.
Can anyone confirm that it is no longer possible to perform a backup recovery test on the same external hard drive as the one hosting the Time Machine partition? Do I now need a second external hard drive if I want to perform such a restoration test?
Thanks in advance for your insights.

Answering my own question: I managed to perform the restoration test on a second external hard drive. The trick was to make sure it was partitioned using GUID. I didn't even have to first install OS 10.9 on the second partition (I had an old restoration of 10.7 on there).

I have a 500 gb hard drive partitioned for files and time machine but when i connect it to my mac only the time machine one shows up

well as the title says i have a 500gb hard drive with 2 partitions one with time machine and one for files it worked perefectly until yesterday only the time machine partition appeared in finder, i checked disk utility and both partitions appeared but the one for files appeared in grey and when i press mount an error comes up.

The repair shop likely replaced a major circuit board on your MacBook Pro, so Time Machine thinks that you have a "new" computer and it wants to make a new complete backup of your Mac.
You are going to have to make a decision to either add another new Time Capsule....or USB drive to your existing Time Capsule....and in effect start over with a new backup of your Mac and then move forward again.
For "most" users, I think this is probably the best plan because you preserve all your old backups in case you need them at some point, and you start over again with a new Time Capsule so you have plenty of room for years of new backups.
Or, as you have mentioned, you have the option of erasing the Time Capsule drive and starting all over again. The upside is that you start over and have plenty of room for new backups. The downside is that you lose years of backups.
Another option....trying to manually delete old backups individually....is tricky business....and very time consuming. To get an idea of what is involved here, study this FAQ by Pondini, our resident Time Capsule and Time Machine expert on the Community Support area. In particular, study the pink box.
http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/12.html
Once you look through this, I think you may agree that this type of surgery is not for the faint of heart. I would suggest that you consider this only if one of the other options just cannot work for you.

Time Machine Partition Corrupted on External Hard drive

I have a external hard drive partitioned into 2 sections, one for storage and the other for time machine back up of my macbook original hard drive. One day the time machine partition stopped being recognized so I tried verifying and it told me it needed to be repaired. Now it says the disk cannot be repaired and to reformat my disk. I do not want to do this because I don't want to lose whats on the other partition and I have no where else to put the data. It won't allow me to just remove the time machine partition, when I try it comes back with "disk cannot be opened". I'm lost here, is there anything that I can do without reformating the whole external hard drive?
Oh and I'm fine with losing whatevers on my time machine back up

Erasing one partition should not affect another one; however, the drive has had at least one major malfunction already, and should be expected to have more. You should immediately back up all data to another drive, including the data on the non-backup partition of the problem drive. Then, and only then, you can try fixing the unmountable partition. If the drive ever malfunctions again, replace it.

Cannot resize Time Machine partition

Hello all,
I currently have a hard drive split into 2 partitions (both Mac OS Extended (Journaled)). One of the Time Machine partitions is far too big (for the backups it contains) and I want to reclaim some space as a regular data partition (for my windows PC). Unfortunately I can find no way to resize the existing partitions. There is no "corner to drag" in my disk utility. 617GB are free in the 697GB partition.

Time Machine likes to be the first partition, otherwise it will continually ask you where?
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/apple-in-the-enterprise/how-to-resize-a-live-pa rtition-in-snow-leopard-and-lion/#.
http://osxdaily.com/2009/11/20/resize-partitions-in-mac-os-x-with-disk-utility/

Time machine partition, need help here!! please help!!!!!!!

I have a 250gb western digital hard drive, and somehow when I start with time machine...the external hard drive will not be detected in windows computer. Although I have files and backups.backupb in my external hard drive, I am just wondering how can i be able to let the external hard drive to have 2 partition? and while adding another partition do i have to backup all my files first? will it erase the whole drive? I just want to have one partition that works in mac and windows, and one partition is with time machine!

See # 6 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum.
It details how to add a partition for +Time Machine+ to a disk that already has other data on it, but you can use the same procedure to add a Windoze partition to one that's already set up for Time Machine. Select +MS-DOS (FAT)+ for the Format of the partition you want to use with Windoze.
You should then copy the "other" files from the Time Machine partition to the new one (or even a third), since Time Machine will work best if it has it's own, exclusive partition. See #3 in the FAQ Tip. Also be sure you allow enough room in the +Time Machine+ partition (see #1 in the FAQ Tip.)

External HD Time Machine partition shows in Desktop but not in Finder

I have a External HardDisk with two partitions, one for Time Machine and other for Data.
Until now when I power on the disk two icons appear on my MacBook, one Orange with a USB logo for the Data partition and other Green with Time MAchine logo for the Time MAchine partition.
Suddenly when I power on in FInder I can see only the Data Partition. while in Desktop I can see both, but now the Time Machine Partition is orange with the USB logo (just like the Data partition).
On the other hand everytinhg seems to be workning, I can acces both partitions and Time Machine apparently works Ok, but don't know if something is happening in the background, and I have all my data in that Disk!!!!!

David Casillas wrote:
I can see and use both partitions, but in Finder under DEVICES only DATA partiton shows.
If a navigate in Finder to MacBook for example I can now see both partitions.
Excuse me if my explanation of the subject is not clear. Here is a screenshoot of what happens. In the left you can see the Finder window with just Data Partition, on the right Desktop with both.
If you haven't yet, from a Finder window's menubar, select +Finder > Preferences > Sidebar.+ Un-check the +External Disks+ checkbox, wait a moment, then check it again.
Try going to TM Preferences, de-selecting the drive (select "none"), waiting a moment, then re-selecting it.
Try deleting the file <your home folder>/Library/com.apple.Finder.plist and either relaunch the Finder (from the +Force Quit+ menu) or Restart.

Time Machine partition doesn't mount

Hi,
I partitioned from windows (BOOTCAMP) a hard drive that have a Time Machine partition along with a NTFS partition, so I could have three partitions on the disk. The surprise was that when I tried to back up the data from TIme Machine to my Mac, it doesn't appear anymore. I've installed Mavericks on another drive to see if OS X recognized the TIme Machine back up, but it doesn't, it only shows the NTFS partition. The other one (I supose is the time machine one, because the third partition is empty) appears unmounted on Disk Utilities. In windows I can see the Time Machine partition, so I think that partitioning on windows have caused some kind of damage to the partition table or something
I've googled a lot and this problem is quite similar to mine: http://superuser.com/questions/342876/adding-ntfs-partition-to-disk-in-windows-m akes-hfs-partition-on-same-disk-invis
When I run gdisk it says:
and disk util list:
I think the partition scheme shoudn't be fdisk.
Well, I don't know what to do from here, the drive where I have my personal data broke and this Time Machine backup could save me from losing my photos from the last two years.
Thank you, ask if you want more information, I think my explanation has not been very accurate but I'm not a native English speaker, sorry.
PS: Mac Mini mid 2011

And this is what I see on Windows:
It says HFS, although in OSX says ExFAT, and as you can see the size is different.
This is what I have...
Explaining a little more, the hard drive at the beggining (when everything works) had three partitions, I did four. Then I wanted to make another one and did a logic one accidentally (didn't know the maximum was four primary partitions). After realising that, I erased the logic one and the other two and kept "TimeMachine" and "2TB".

Resizing a Time Machine partition

Hi,
I have 3 partitions on my external HD and one of them is a Time Machine partition. I would like to erase the other two and use the entire HD as the Time Machine partition. I cannot do this using the Disk Utility because "You can't resize the partitions on this disk because it uses the Master Boot Record partition scheme".
Any suggestions?

Where is this partition? Are you removing it in order to enlarge an adjacent partition?
The tool for all of this is Disk Utility.
1. Open Disk Utility and select the drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list.
2. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window. You should see the graphical sizing window showing the existing partitions. A portion may appear as a blue rectangle representing the used space on a partition.
3. Select the partition you wish to remove by clicking in its space. Click on the Delete [-] button to remove the partition. Click on the Apply button. When the process is completed the partiton will be removed and a gray area will replace it.
4. Select the sizing gadget in the lower right corner of the remaining partition and drag it down to the bottom as far as it will go. Click on the Apply button. When completed the space will be added to the existing partition returning the drive to a single volume.

Deleted my Time Machine Partition.. HELP!!! How can I recover the partition

So it all started with a bad bootcamp install. I was trying things to recover and accidentally deleted the partition on my external for my time machine backups, now I can not access the disk and so on. Does anyone know a good program that will allow me to recover that partition and the data within?
If I can not recover this partition, I am in trouble. Because the bunk bootcamp setup made me have to reinstall OSX 10.5 so now I don't have my data or the back up... any help please?

After the save of all the Time Machine data, I tried the browse option, and as you said no go, since the files are just in a folder on the main HD, and aren't a true TM formatted drive.
From some searches here, there is no way to merge the backups folder with a current time machine which would be a great feature to add.
So I have all of the files from the old TM disk, not sure how intact they are, but my guess is they are intact since there was no writing to the drive only the partition information was deleted, not written to, but I guess that really means nothing in the grand scheme of things.
So how do I go about extracting the true data from the Time Machine? What should I look to do. I can't find any true data in there, just databases and oddly named files.
One good point to windows and PC's if you back up and or store data, you store the data itself, not a database with everything in it. So if you fail like me, you can extract the files themselves.

Limiting the Time Machine's Time Capsule space

Hi all,
So I've searched through numerous threads and can't seem to find a good answer for this. I'm fairly new to Mac BTW, with a late 2012 MBA running 10.8.3. I want to limit the space on my Time Capsule for the Time Machine to use. I've already tried this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq7mSizqUSI
Got to the end and it says my Time Machine Backup is out of 2TB (which is my Time Capsule size) instead of the 2GB I set the image file to. I also tried this and it wouldn't let me - it says whatever size I set it to is too small:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTaNMkmQUEk
So I guess the question is, is there a way to do this without having to repartition my Time Capsule? I have data on my Time Capsule, and as I understand it, I will lose this data if I partition it now...? Maybe that's not true? If it's not, than can someone tell me how?
Second question:
I recently had to restore from a backup because of an SSD failure (thankfully Apple replaced it under warranty). I restored earlier this week. I moved this old sparsebundle to a new folder on my Time Capsule. Then I backed up using a new sparsebundle using the trick in the first youtube link above (which, like I said, didn't work). My question is - why is this new backup smaller (26GB) than my old backup (29GB). I know for a fact that I haven't deleted 3GB worth of stuff in the last couple days or so, and have actually added files. Strange...?
Thanks for your help!

Hi.
The best Time Machine info outside Apple can be found here.
You cannot partition the Time Capsule's internal drive, but in Mountain Lion you should be able to limit the size of the sparsebundle containing your backups, and it is also possible to create a disk image on the Time Capsule's drive.
Pondini advises TM needs 2 to 3 times the size of the data to be backed up (2GB is definitely too small). But I have found that 1.5 times is enough for more than a year's worth of backup data. However, my strategy is to also maintain an Archive drive to which I move inactive files (like finished projects), and I keep a clone of that Archive drive separately from TM.
Thus, I use TM solely for the ability to restore my startup drive (some or all) if necessary, and "historical archives" are maintained separetly. I have a 500GB Time Capsule as backup for about 260GB of current data (everything on my startup dtive except Downloads folder).

HT201250 How do you set what the Time Machine window shows?

I just bought a Time Capsule and started using Time Machine. The window that appears when selecting "Enter Time Machine" shows the desktop, but not the Hard Drive. I want to see the contents of the HD, not the desktop.

erickfrombloomfield wrote:
I thought Time Machine made a clone of my boot drive.
TimeMachine copies your entire boot drive, but it's not a clone. Clones are near 100% exact copies of your boot partition.
TM every so often updates with a "state" representing a day, it only saves the changes between states so this way it's not making your external drive full in a couple of days.
You go through the "states" to pick the copy of the file you want to restore with or the entire drive.
So that is not true?
TimeMachine is not a clone.
Aclone is a exact image of your boot partition, just like you picked up all your software and placed it on another drive.
Clones can be updated, and now even save the "states" between clones, but then it's not a clone anymore as it's not a 100% copy, but a bootable clone + backup.
How can I make the Time Machine copy on the Time Capsule bootable?
You can't, a TimeMachine can only restore, not bootable although I hear it's possible to boot to restore only.
Or how can I make a clone on Time Capsule?
You don't. The softwre and technology is not compatbile.
If you want a clone be able to boot from it, and see everything on the drive like any other, then you need to use a new blank drive and Carbon Copy Cloner, then it's a option key bootable clone drive.
TM or TimeCapsule can't do this, it's a backup system, not a clone.
If you want to learn more about TM you can visit this site
http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html
I don't use TM at all, it's for newbies mostly. It takes a long time to restore with as it has to go through all the states to grab files.
Power and seasoned users use clones so they also can boot from them, make more clones or run the computer if the drive dies etc.etc.

Cannot open the Time Machine Preferences

I'm running into this new problem after upgrading a client MBP to 10.6.2.
I get an error message when trying to open the Time Machine Preferences:
The document "TimeMachine.prefPane" could not be opened. System Preferences cannot open files in the "Mac OS X Preference Pane" format.
Has anyone seen this?
I'm using Time Capsule for the backups. It is setup to extend a network with another Time Capsule.
Thanks

shellie619 wrote:
Time machine stopped working - my Mac is a problem in itself. I need to do a backup before I take my Mac to Apple to fix - so I try to go into Time Machine Preferences and I get the error message: You cannot open Time Machine preferences because it doesn't work on an Intel-based Mac. - ***???
Any suggestion please - I am down to the wire and need the backup today.
Hi, and welcome to the forums.
That's a new one. It sounds like something has been copied from a PPC Mac, or something's been corrupted so badly it looks like that's where it came from.
Can you do a +Back Up Now+ from the TM icon in your Menubar?
If, as you say, TM "stopped working," you'd have to figure out why and fix it, anyway.
Can you make a partition on your TM disk that's at least 10% larger than the data on your internal HD? if so, your best bet might be to download CarbonCopyCloner. It will make a full bootable "clone" of your entire system on a separate partition. It's donationware, available at: http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

I want to set up the Time Machine and I would love to use the Time Capsule but since I already have a wireless router I need suggestions on what other external disks Apple could recommend to use with the Time Machine and how to configure that disk

I want to set up the Time Machine and I would love to use the Time
Capsule but since I already have a wireless router I need suggestions on
what other
external disks Apple could recommend to use with the Time Machine and
how to configure that disk.
A complication that I need to resolve is the fact that I am using Vmware
Fusion to be able to use Windows on my Mac. Now it seems that Time
Machine is not backing up my files
on that virtual Windows without additional configuration and my question
is whether you can advise me here or whether this is only a matter for
the Fusion virtual machine.

If you want to use Time Capsule you can.. you simply bridge it and plug it into the existing router.. wireless can be either turned off or used to reinforce the existing wireless.. eg use 5ghz in the TC which is much faster than your 2.4ghz.
You can also use a NAS.. many brands available but the top brands are synology, qnap and netgear readynas series. These will all do Time Machine backups although how well always depends on Apple sticking to a standard. There are cheaper ones.. I bought a single disk zyxel which was rebadged and sold through my local supermarket. It actually works very well for TM at least on Snow Leopard. Major changes were made in Lion and again ML so do not instantly think it will work on later versions. I haven't tried it yet with those versions.
Any external drive can be plugged into the mac. Use the one with the fastest connection or cheapest price according to your budget. USB2 drives are cheap and plentiful. But no where near as fast as USB3 or FW800. So just pick whichever suits the ports on your Mac. Interesting Apple finally moved to USB3 on their latest computers.
TM should exclude the VM partition file.. it is useless backing it up from Mac OS side.. and will slow TM as it needs to backup that partition everyday for no purpose.. TM cannot see the files inside it to backup just the changes.
You need to backup windows from windows. Use MSbackup to external drive.. if you have pro or ultimate versions you can backup to network drive. But MSbackup is a dog.. at least until the latest version it cannot restore the partition without first loading windows. There are about a zillion backup software versions for windows.. look up reviews and buy one which works for you. I use a free one Macrium Reflect which does full disk backups and is easy to restore.. to do incremental backups though you have to pay for it.

Clone the Time Machine partition - is it worth it

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