Mixing 10.4 and 10.5 with Time Machine--not a good idea (?)

I'm planning on installing 10.5 (aka Leopard) in a separate partition to tweak and trial it until its ready for prime time for me (for one thing the new X11 isn't fully up to speed and that's a show stopper for my business use of Leopard).
It occurred to me that since Time Machine (TM) works off file system events in Leopard, it'd be wrong do most of my work in 10.4, occasionally using 10.5 and expect TM to record the changes made whilst working under 10.4.
It seems to me that TM will only "see" changes made under 10.5, not changes made under 10.4. If right (and I can't see why it'd be wrong), you can't mix 10.4, 10.5 and TM and get "sane" backups.
It'd follow, then that I should hold off using TM until running exclusively 10.5--?
Comments welcome. (No flames to Apple please!)
(PS: For techs--I'm simplifying the issue here I know! Trying to write something that's makes halfway sense for others too.)

I believe those paragraphs on their own say that under Tiger, if an application stops "listening" to fs events for a long period of time as the fs events aren't logged and the application has to figure it out for itself, but this is a different time-frame and mechanism that I think TM works off. If you read on, the article will point out that a difference in Leopard is that there is now a log that can be scanned, which I imagine is what TM works off. However, that's only in Leopard, AFAIK.
What is being asked here is a bit more subtle (again, AFAICT!)-- does Leopard know of or learn changes that happened whilst it wasn't in control of the file system and go on to save these?
These can't come from the fs events directly, since there is no mechanism for Tiger to send these to a dormant Leopard that I've read of. There is apparently no fs event log in Tiger, so it can't come from that either. So my guess was that either (a) they'd just be missed or (b) the overall "last time/date modified" or someother file-system-as-a-whole time stamp or checksum is being used to identify that things weren't as they were last TM looked at that filesystem, therefore something must have happened in its absence. This seemed an open question to me... hence my question.
I agree it'd be easiest to just run a few simple tests. I just might wait until I get Leopard and do it myself...!
I wrote the post below before you wrote and forgot to post it, but for the **** of it here's what I wrote:
Maybe I'll have to wait until I installed Leopard and run a few simple tests myself (like the one I posted earlier). In the meantime if anyone does run a test, let us know the result!
gnaegi: I'm aware of how TM stores the data, but thanks for the link. It uses a variant on the hard-link sync approach used by rsync. I was more concerned how TM detects changes in its absence. So as far as I can tell the file system event tracking log file is only in Leopard (Note: the file system events are in Tiger, but AFAIK, not the file sytem event log file; I would like to think that TM works off the log file, not the raw events as Spotlight does. Certainly reading between the lines in Ars article would supports this idea. To my reading anyway )

Similar Messages

Time Machine spends hours partially backing up and then fails with "Time Machine couldn't complete the backup due to a network problem." Tried suggestions I've seen on the forum.

Time Machine spends hours partially backing up and then fails with "Time Machine couldn't complete the backup due to a network problem." I've tried various suggestions I've seen on the forum but nothing has worked. TIme Machine worked fine for the last two years and just suddenly started having this problem every time. The only thing that was a little different is that the computer was off for a week while on vacation and then I added a large amount (20 GB) of photos. Now the requested backup size is 82GB, which is large, and process proceeds very slowly for 2-3 hours before failing with the message mentioned. I have more than enough available backup storage space for it. Before failing, Time Machine has backed up no more than 12GB or so of the backup. It fails during different files each time.
I've turned off the computer sleep feature, and I've checked that the NAS is set to never automatically power down. I normally backup over Wi-Fi, but I've also tried connecting to Ethernet and it still has the same problem. It's odd because I also have a MacBook Pro that is still backing up fine to the same NAS using the MacBook's Time Machine.
I am using an iMac with OS X 10.6.8 and an Iomega StorCenter ix2-200 NAS.
I have system logs that I can share if helpful. The logged messages vary a bit from run to run, but here are some messages that I've been seeing:
I always get this message near the beginning of the backup:
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
I've gotten this messsage a number of times:
Bulk setting Spotlight attributes failed.
One Day
Stopping backupd to allow ejection of backup destination disk!
Another day
1/7/12 10:44:20 AM
mDNSResponder[18]
PenaltyTimeForServer: PenaltyTime negative -112916, (server penaltyTime -1132397006, timenow -1132284090) resetting the penalty
1/7/12 10:46:37 AM
kernel
ASP_TCP Disconnect: triggering reconnect by bumping reconnTrigger from curr value 0 on so 0x1106be94
1/7/12 10:46:37 AM
kernel
AFP_VFS afpfs_DoReconnect started /Volumes/TimeMachine prevTrigger 0 currTrigger 1
Another Day
1/6/12 8:03:22 AM
Google Chrome[164]
Cannot find function pointer CMPluginInFactory for factory 3487BB5A-3E66-11D5-A64E-003065B300BC in CFBundle/CFPlugIn 0x16f99e20 </Users/smarmer/Library/Contextual Menu Items/Google Notifier Quick Add CM Plugin.plugin> (not loaded)
1/6/12 8:04:02 AM
com.apple.backupd[193]
Copied 7.5 GB of 67.0 GB, 8866 of 8866 items
1/6/12 8:06:58 AM
/System/Library/CoreServices/CCacheServer.app/Contents/MacOS/CCacheServer[1013]
No valid tickets, timing out
1/6/12 8:29:44 AM
mDNSResponder[19]
PenaltyTimeForServer: PenaltyTime negative -148702, (server penaltyTime 2056822773, timenow 2056971475) resetting the penalty
1/6/12 8:59:22 AM
kernel
ASP_TCP Disconnect: triggering reconnect by bumping reconnTrigger from curr value 0 on so 0xa5ac380
1/6/12 8:59:22 AM
kernel
AFP_VFS afpfs_DoReconnect started /Volumes/TimeMachine prevTrigger 0 currTrigger 1
1/6/12 8:59:22 AM
kernel
AFP_VFS afpfs_DoReconnect: doing reconnect on /Volumes/TimeMachine
1/6/12 8:59:22 AM
kernel
AFP_VFS afpfs_DoReconnect: soft mounted and hidden volume so do not notify KEA for /Volumes/TimeMachine
1/6/12 8:59:22 AM
kernel
AFP_VFS afpfs_DoReconnect: Max reconnect time: 30 secs, Connect timeout: 15 secs for /Volumes/TimeMachine
1/6/12 8:59:22 AM
kernel
AFP_VFS afpfs_DoReconnect: connect to the server /Volumes/TimeMachine
1/6/12 8:59:22 AM
kernel
ASP_TCP asp_SetTCPQoS: sock_settclassopt got error 57
Another day
1/5/12 3:48:55 PM
mdworker[2128]
CFPropertyListCreateFromXMLData(): Old-style plist parser: missing semicolon in dictionary.
1/5/12 4:24:54 PM
mDNSResponder[19]
PenaltyTimeForServer: PenaltyTime negative -42698, (server penaltyTime 1148718961, timenow 1148761659) resetting the penalty
1/5/12 4:29:58 PM
com.apple.backupd[2074]
Copied 586.4 MB of 67.0 GB, 9891 of 9891 items
1/5/12 4:39:00 PM
kernel
ASP_TCP Disconnect: triggering reconnect by bumping reconnTrigger from curr value 0 on so 0xa1c0380

bokon0n wrote:
1/11/12 8:53:30 AM
com.apple.backupd[1169]
Warning: Destination /Volumes/TimeMachine does not support TM Lock Stealing
1/11/12 8:53:30 AM
com.apple.backupd[1169]
Warning: Destination /Volumes/TimeMachine does not support Server Reply Cache
Those indicate that your NAS is not fully compatible with Snow Leopard.
1/11/12 8:53:35 AM
kernel
jnl: disk2s2: replay_journal: from: 67182592 to: 78680064 (joffset 0xa7b8000)
1/11/12 8:53:39 AM
kernel
jnl: disk2s2: examining extra transactions starting @ 78680064 / 0x4b09000
1/11/12 8:53:39 AM
kernel
jnl: disk2s2: Extra txn replay stopped @ 79056896 / 0x4b65000
1/11/12 8:53:49 AM
kernel
jnl: disk2s2: journal replay done.
1/11/12 8:53:49 AM
fseventsd[41]
event logs in /Volumes/Time Machine/.fseventsd out of sync with volume. destroying old logs. (253512 14 253512)
1/11/12 8:53:50 AM
kernel
hfs: Removed 1 orphaned / unlinked files and 0 directories
That looks like a problem was found with the file system (data) on the TM disk. I don't know the details, but OSX tried to recover it from the journal, and found extra data on the drive. Likely a result of the incompatibility mentioned above.
1/11/12 9:47:40 AM
com.apple.backupd[1169]
Bulk setting Spotlight attributes failed.
That's a problem writing to the NAS drive.
But the backup continued after all this.
1/11/12 1:25:07 PM
kernel
ASP_TCP Disconnect: triggering reconnect by bumping reconnTrigger from curr value 0 on so 0x9d00b44
Something caused a disconnect. Can't tell from the log what it was.
I doubt it's a problem with something in OSX being damaged or corrupted, but reinstalling OSX isn't a major hassle, so might be worth a try.
To be incompatible with Snow Leopard, this NAS must be at least a couple of years old. It may be beginning to fail.
Contact the maker. See if there's an update to make it compatible with Snow Leopard. If so, that might fix it.
If not, or if that doesn't fix it, see if they have any diagnostics that will shed any light.

I bought a new mac and i migrate with time machine...but the backup was a little bit old and weren't save the latest modify i made in my website.. is it possible take the uploded site in iweb? sorry but i don't speak english very well.

I bought a new mac and i migrate with time machine...but the backup was a little bit old and weren't save the latest modify i made in my website.. is it possible take the uploded site in iweb? sorry but i don't speak english very well

But what can I cut and paste? the html code or image and text directly?
depend on which template you used.
if you use iweb photos page template then you need to search for my photos page solutions in this forum.
@ot: cut and paste from the online version
@rw: You can drag an image from the website to the Desktop
have your try your methods in iweb photos page?

Suppose I have two identical laptops loaded with my current time machine back up. I take one on a trip and update it with time machine but leave it. I come back w time machine HD and connect the home laptop, will it just update or start over from scratch?

Suppose I have two identical laptops loaded with my current time machine back up. I take one on a trip and update it with time machine but leave it behind. I come back with the time machine HD and connect it to the home laptop, will it just update or start over from scratch? is there a way to make it just update it?

You might have better luck using a clone.
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
Commonly Used Backup Methods

Can I do a fresh install of os x to new SSD and restore applications with time machine?

I am upgrading to a new ssd. I have my current system backed up with time machine. Can I install/format (extended journaled) and then recover my time-machine stored application to my new ssd?

"BTW, you should NEVER use the Finder to copy items from TimeMachine. Use the TimeMachine application to recover files and applications."
I don't know how to use the finder to copy files. I am assuming I will be propted to use the TimeMachine application as a part of the clean install from snow leopard ( I am not upgrading to lion as of yet...). I will have my mac os x disk, time machine partition on a seperate external hard drive, BlacX 2.5/3.5 HDD usb docking station and new blank crucial m4 ssd at my avail. save for my wits...

Sharing a single iphoto library and backing up with time machine

Alright,
I want to share my iPhoto library between several users on my Mac. I have found an Apple article that explains how to set up a disk image to store the iPhoto library in. This article is at
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1198
However, implementing as described in this article has a very painful disadvantage described below:
I back up Mac's my hard drive to an external disk using Time Machine. Once I've created a disk image to hold my iphoto library, time machine will now back up the entire iphotolibrary.dmg file each time I've added or changed any photos. Now I have a lot of photos, and my iphoto library takes up 27GB even when put on a sparse-disk-image. So that means that each time I add or change even just one photo, time machine has to write a >27 GB file to the external hard drive which contains my backup. Obviously this is a problem and will fill up even my 1.5TB drive pretty quickly if this continues.
I came up with an idea on how to solve this. I decided that I'd exclude the disk image that contains the common iPhoto library from the time machine backup and create a second library in the home directory of one of the users on my machine. Then each time that I added or edited photos I'd use a syncing application to sync the iPhoto library on the disk image and the iPhoto library in the user's directory. This way the iPhoto library in the user's directory would be backed up incrementally by Time Machine in the normal way, and Time Machine wouldn't fill up the backup disk with huge disk image files that have only changed slightly.
The problem with my new approach is that the snycing program that I'm using (Synk by Decimus Software) has some difficulty syncing the packaged directories like that used for iPhoto libraries. I get all sorts of conflicts and I'm worried that the file syncs will be unreliable and lead to instabilities and data loss.
An ideal solution would be exclude the disk image file from the Time Machine backup and then add the mounted disk image to the backup. I think that Time Machine would then correctly leave the large 27GB file alone and only do incremental backups of my iPhoto library. But I can't see any way to add mounted disk images to the Time Machine backup.
Thanks in advance for any help that any of you can provide.

This is a little more simple that all that.
For iPhoto 09 (version 8.0.2) and later:
If you want the other user to have the same access to the library as you: to be able to add, edit, organise, keyword etc.
Quit iPhoto in both accounts. Move the Library to the Users / Shared Folder
(You can also use an external HD set to ignore permissions, a Disk Image or even partition your Hard Disk.)
In each account in turn: Double click on the Library to open it. (You may be asked to repair the Library Permissions.) From that point on, this will be the default library location. Both accounts will have full access to the library, in fact, both accounts will 'own' it.
However, there is a catch with this system and it is a significant one. iPhoto is not a multi-user app., it does not have the code to negotiate two users simultaneously writing to the database, and trying will cause db corruption. So only one user at a time, and back up, back up back up.
No need for dmgs at all. No need for Syncing software.
Note: No Syncing software can run on an iPhoto Library. Period. There is none that can parse the Library database. Attempting to sync two Libraries will lead to damage to at least one of them.
Regards
TD

Errors with Time Machine (not completing backup, and needing to erase the ".inProgress" package)

I have in a previous discussion been talking about errors with my Time Machine backup. The errors were with a problem with Indexing a file, it fails and stops the whole backup. Each time it attemps another backup, it fills my ".inProgress" package with a (nearly) whole backup, filling my Time Machine hard drive, and thus errasing my previous good backups. The error occurs after about 95% completion.
In my last post of a similar disscussion, the problem was indexing the Preference Pane files and this caused the whole backup to fail. This was my last post there: (below in some additional info of my situation)
I did exclude the MobileMe.prefPane. And I got:
12/16/11 9:24:50.468 PM com.apple.backupd: Starting standard backup
12/16/11 9:24:50.556 PM com.apple.backupd: Backing up to: /Volumes/3 TB GoFlex Drive/Backups.backupdb
12/16/11 9:25:14.418 PM com.apple.backupd: Waiting for index to be ready (101)
12/16/11 9:27:02.366 PM com.apple.backupd: Deep event scan at path:/ reason:must scan subdirs|
12/16/11 9:27:02.366 PM com.apple.backupd: Finished scan
12/16/11 9:33:37.119 PM com.apple.backupd: Deep event scan at path:/Volumes/Mac OS Lion GM reason:must scan subdirs|
12/16/11 9:33:37.119 PM com.apple.backupd: Finished scan
12/16/11 9:36:15.650 PM com.apple.backupd: 758.92 GB required (including padding), 830.32 GB available
12/16/11 10:25:14.873 PM com.apple.backupd: Copied 22.8 GB of 630.5 GB, 782749 of 2357620 items
12/16/11 11:25:15.335 PM com.apple.backupd: Copied 86.6 GB of 630.5 GB, 1167675 of 2357620 items
12/17/11 12:25:16.227 AM com.apple.backupd: Copied 152.2 GB of 630.5 GB, 1393795 of 2357620 items
Dec 17 01:25:16 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copied 305.2 GB of 630.5 GB, 1413946 of 2357620 items
Dec 17 02:25:16 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copied 457.1 GB of 630.5 GB, 1419190 of 2357620 items
Dec 17 03:19:07 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copied 1736865 files (568.3 GB) from volume Macintosh HD.
Dec 17 03:25:16 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copied 572.1 GB of 630.5 GB, 1848939 of 2357620 items
Dec 17 03:40:33 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Indexing a file failed. Returned 200 for: /Volumes/Mac OS Lion GM/System/Library/PreferencePanes/Mouse.prefPane, /Volumes/3 TB GoFlex Drive/Backups.backupdb/Tom iMac/2011-12-14-171406.inProgress/7DB524DD-EFB9-42A6-8A21-0A2A312EDA6D/Mac OS Lion GM/System/Library/PreferencePanes/Mouse.prefPane
Dec 17 03:40:33 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Aborting backup because indexing a file failed.
Dec 17 03:40:33 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Stopping backup.
Dec 17 03:40:33 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copied 2164998 files (581.1 GB) from volume Mac OS Lion GM.
Dec 17 03:40:33 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Copy stage failed with error:11
Dec 17 03:40:50 Thomas-P-Kellys-iMac com.apple.backupd[99858]: Backup failed with error: 11
This time it was the Mouse.prefPane that caused the error. I'd like to exclude the entire PreferencePanes directory.
This was my error message this time:
I just realized this was on my small Developers partition. Perhaps there is an error with the build, OR an error with the initial restore. I'd like to perhaps exclude the entire /Volumes/Mac OS Lion GM. I expect that Time Machine is working fine with my main partition and the error happens when it's almost done with the Mac OS Lion GM partition.
The problem now is that I only have 265 GB of 3 TB available on my Time Machine HDD. If attempt another backup, it'll surely erase about 410 GB of my past saved backups. I've already lost 6 months, and I only have two months left of backups. I need to erase the ".inProgress" package again. That'll take time, and it's impossible to do from this main partition, even at root access. This ".inProgress" has a total of two (nearly) full backups; it didn't cleanup the first full backup attempt while starting the second,perhaps it would have had it finished. But I fear even if I exclude the whole "Mac OS Lion GM" partition, It'll create a third full backup before cleanup and erase ~400 GB of previous good backups. Then, I'll have a total of 4 (nearly) full backups! 3 TB is just enough without any past backups.
Maybe I'll just copy my documentations of my 'errasing the ".inProgress" package' last time (from the Mac OS Lion GM partition) and do a full restore of just that partition. Thus erasing the errors all together. If it doesn't fix the errors then this could be a bug in the build that doesn't allow Time Machine to work. I've always included this partition in Time Machine before, even with other Lion builds, so I suspect that it was an error in the initial restore. (I may be answering my own questions, and that the inital restore (of the small partition) is the problem, and I just need to re-restore the small partition)
Again, I'm going to have to erase the ".inProgress" file to regain 1.53 TB of space before proceeding.
Also, I gave myself permission to read the ".Backup.345781513.887697.log", the log that was created last night when I first started Time Machine this last time. It was interesting, but didn't show the error I could see from the console.
Right now, mds and mdworker appear to be going crazy even after I just now turned off Time Machine. I think I'll let it go for the rest of the night. Then I'll work on erasing the ".inProgress" package from the other partition boot up.
That was my entire last post. To add some information, I have two OS X partitons, both Mac OS X Lion. One is my large main partition, the other is one I don't mind testing with. I recently replaced my internal hard drive in my iMac and restored from Time Machine both partitions. This appeared to go smoothly. But I have yet to create a single successful Time Machine backup since. At first it was doing a Full Backup, which I didn't like, but now it just aborts around 95% completion. Each, time, it tries it fills the Time Machine hard drive with duplicate (nearly) full backups errasing my older good backups. I would like to erase the ".inProgress" file to save space.
My main question in this new discussion is does anyone know of a good way of erasing the ".inProgress" file? This is so I can preseerve my previous backups. ACLs and other permissions seem to make it impossible to erase from this startup partition, the one I'm running Time Machine from. Even at root level, if I give myself permission to change permissions or delete a file, it'll say Operation not Permitted instead of Permission Denied. I have been able to delete this ".inProgress" package before when booting from the other partition, but with great difficulty. I have had much help from another Member in this Support Community when it comes to solving my Time Machine problems. I think I have found the problem (indexing files in my small OS X partition), as stated in my copy& pasted post above, but I really need to delete this inProgress package first to save space before continuing!

Pondini wrote:
Gator TPK wrote:
Now I'll have to fix the small partition? How's the best way to do this? There could be thousands of files that won't index fine.
See if there's anything you haven't done, that applies, in the pink box of #C3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting
Otherwise, since most (or all?) of the indexing errors are in OSX, you might want to just reinstall it. Something may have gone wrong sometime, that damaged those files.
I reviewed #C3 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting and I have already done most of those things. I have just learned something new though:
When I included my Main OS X partition again, I got an indexing error for the first time for that partition. I might be interesting to note that the _spotlight process was running, and it's running again (the magnifying glass has a dot and it generically says "Indexing Tom's iMac"). mdworker, mds and backupd processes really are working hard, one moment they used over 500% of my CPU. It's nice to know for once quad core is good for something other than video encoding. (Now if they could just get the Finder to do more than 100.1%, only 1 thread is doing 100%, I'd like to see file size calculations 8 times quicker!)
I never got an indexing error once in the past 2 weeks for that large Mac OS X v10.7.2 main volume, and it had appeared to finish that partition backup before running into problems with my smaller test partition. Also, I had just updated the smaller test partition with a later build of Mac OS X. But It appears that the beta builds are clearly not the problem. I thought I could just restore again (from the December 4th backup) the small partition and both would be fine.
I'll finish reviewing all the suggestions on Time Machine - Troubleshooting and go from there. Hopefully, the _spotlight indexing simutaniously was the only problem. It's strange that the indexing hasn't happened since the original restore last week untill I finally got a good clean complete partial Time Machine backup. Why would the first Time Machine backup trigger indexing again?
For now, I'm going to exclude the Main Partition again, and let another good backup run. And try your suggestions. (And wait till mds, mdworker, etc. to finish!)
I have the logs of the first two sucsessful backups and the last two failed backups from the last 3 hours, if that would help.?

Can I install a 1 terabite hard drive and update it with time machine?

What would I need to do? I have a 250 gig hard drive now, I would like to install a 1 terabite. Would I need to install the os then update it with the time machine backup to have everything that I have now? I have a MacBook Pro 13 inch with OSX Snow leapord. I had gotten this notebook mid summer of 2010. Any comment would be appreicated.

Right now, I have a 320 gig hhd that I use for my time machine backup, I recently backed up my notebook, if I decide to upgrade the hhd to a 1 tera, I will get another 1 terahhd for time machine backup. I just wanted to know if I could change the hhd, install the os and instead of installing all the drivers, music, movies that I purchased, if time machine backup would do that for me. Thank you for your comment OGELTHORPE!

Backing up separated Boot and User drives with Time Machine

I'll be making the jump to Leopard soon and was wondering how messed up Time Machine will be on my G5 which has a 74GB Raptor Boot drive that houses all applications and a 160GB drive (internal) that houses my User directory. Will TM automatically back up the Boot AND User drive or will I have to do anything special? Come to think of it, I wonder if I'm going to have to do anything different just to set it up the same way it is now, but in Leopard. I was planning on doing a complete fresh install....hmmm....

He he he... That will be a very good question. TM should backup ALL files on BOTH internal HARD DRIVES(grinding teeth here) and expect to take about a day's worth for the initial backup. I upgraded and TM just won't backup the users folder on the first hd that has all the users and apps, while the second houses all of the movies documents, music, photos. I decided to make TM shut down and leave it off. However, all of the leopard features work very very very very very very very very...very very well for my G5(Dual core 2.5GHz, 4GB RAM, 2x 250GB HD, and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 graphics card with a 30' display). Spaces works like we breathe, the general apps run at almost twice the speed (running Mathematica 6 while rendering video with Final Cut Pro 4 while surfing the internet). Ok probably not twice the speed, but it is certainly faster than Tiger. Also you have more room (up to 16 spaces). Just make sure that you have a spare internal hard drive to replace, just incase.

Confused - Using Time Capsule as External HD and Using TC With Time Machine

Hello,
I've been using my Time Capsule for about a month now and I am very pleased. I have only been using it as an external hard drive as I wasn't really worried about backing EVERYTHING up. Yesterday my macbook's internal drive messed up and after reinstalling all my apps I've decided that running Time Machine would be a good idea.
So, I currently have 120 GBs of stuff on my 500 GB Time Capsule. Can I simply create a folder on the Time Capsule and set Time Machine to make backups to that folder? Also, is there a way I can limit how much space Time Machine will take up without partitioning the drive?
Thanks in advance,
Josh.

time machine will make a sparse bundle in your TC - so no need to make a folder.
"Also, is there a way I can limit how much space Time Machine will take up without partitioning the drive? "
no, you can not limit the space, and you can not partition the TC drive unless you physically take it out of the box, put it in a firewire enclosure, partition, than put it all back.
for this reason, i use superduper for my backups.

Restore from server with Time Machine not possible

I am not able to do a Restore with the Recovery Drive and the Option "Restore from Time Machine Backup". If i try to connect to the appropriate Backup Drive on my Server Running Server Version 4 on OS X 10.10.1 i continue to have "With the connection to the Server a problem occurred, contact your System Administrator".
Any hints:
Recovery drive on iMac to be Recovered: OS X 10.10
on Server:
OS X 10.10.1 with Server Version 4 and Time Machine turned on.
Any hints?

I try this:
1. Detach Backup Drive from Server (in my Case Lacie 4 Big)
2. Mount the Drive with Disk Utility and the dmg file to the iMac to be restored
3. Start restore
i know if this worked in 1h 15min

Problem using a WD hard Drive with Time Machine

A couple weeks ago I bought a 1TB Western Digital "Elements" Hard Drive and configured it with Time Machine on my MacBook Pro (running Mountain Lion OSX version 10.8.3). The drive was working fine until last night, when it was in the process of backing up and it got the following error:
Time Machine Error
Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder.
Now whenever I try to unlock the drive, it freezes up like this:
I've tried restarting the computer and reconnecting the drive several times, and it always gets stuck in the same place. I know my password is correct, because I've tried incorrect ones, and it shakes and rejects them like it should. It's only when I enter the correct password that it freezes.
I went into the disk utility to try to verify the disk, but it gave me these two popups:
I notice it says the drive is almost full, though last night it was somewhere around a third full. I don't know what to make of that.
I had to eject the disk and reconnect it before I could try to repair it. When I did try to repair it, it worked for several minutes, then gave me this:
I notice here that the disk utility looks to have ejected the disk when it couldn't repair it. After that, I don't know what to try.
The one thing I did differently last night that may have contributed to the problem was that before I got the initial Time Machine error, I added a couple of folders to the WD drive and backed up some pictures and music manually. Does Time Machine not work if you have other things on the external drive you're using?
At any rate, I'd rather not erase the drive and start over. Is there anything else I can do at this point? Thanks.

Sounds like your drive may be failing. Test it on another system first, but if the problem persists, get it replaced under warranty.

How to backup only the system with time machine?

Hi,
I have an external disk, seagate, that I used to backup working files from an older Mac.... I got a new Mac mini and would like to backup the system.
I don't want to erase these old files. Is it possible to only backup the system OS and installed software, with Time Machine I don't know if you would call this a bootable disk or the hard drive needs to be blank?

You should have a separate partition (or disk) for Time machine or it may at some point overwrite your other files because it makes hourly updated backups so it needs more and more room.

Help with Time Machine Backups not working..

Let me preface this by saying I have spent the last day scouring the internet for solutions to my problem. I have tried every option that I have run across and have had no luck in resolving my problem. As a last resort, I'm turning here in hopes that you can be of help.
I have a 2012 Macbook Pro running Moutain Lion. I use an external HD for my time machine backups. I am having an issue with Time Machine not functioning. The initial error message I receive when I attempt to use TM to backup is: "Time machine couldn't coplete the backup to Rick's backup disk". "Unable to complete backup. an error occurred while creating the backup folder".
I searched the forums and net and found several things to do to try and resolve this issue. My computer will freeze out and not let me erase, or re-partition the the hard drive, so I switched it over to an older macbook of my girlfriends and am successfully able to erase, and re-partition the drive (using disk utility) as suggested by several forum postings I have read. I am able to run disk verify and disk repair and both say the disk is "ok" with no issues. The moment the erase and partition is done, her computer prompts a message : "Would you like to use this disk for Time Machine Backups" which tells me it is working properly. When I move it back to my macbook pro and attempt to run TM backup, it will now work and copy about 10g of my 120g before shutting down with this error message:
"Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "Rick's Backup Disk". An error occurred while copying files. The problem may be temporary. If the problem persists, use disk utility to repair your backup disk."
If i attempt to re-run TM at that point, I get the original error message:
"Time machine couldn't coplete the backup to Rick's backup disk". "Unable to complete backup. an error occurred while creating the backup folder".
If I move the TM back to my Girlfriends computer and attempt to run TM, it will function properly and backup her entire harddrive. When I erase and try again on mine, I always end up back with the same issues. It's clearly something in my macbook that is screwing it up. Can anyone please offer some help! I'd be much appreciative.

rcury4 wrote:
"Time machine couldn't coplete the backup to Rick's backup disk". "Unable to complete backup. an error occurred while creating the backup folder".
See #C10 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting
"Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "Rick's Backup Disk". An error occurred while copying files. The problem may be temporary. If the problem persists, use disk utility to repair your backup disk."
Not one of Apple's more informative messages.
There's a problem with a file on your system. See #C3 in the above link. It will show you how to locate the message(s) that describe the problem, then help you fix it. If that doesn't help, post back with details, including all the messages, what you've done, and the results.

10.7 Mail and exchange issues after time machine restore

Hey all,
Trying to figure out what the problem is with mail
Background
- was running 10.7.1
- had mail configured with exchange no issues what so ever.
- hard drive failed and I restored with time machine using the recovery hd partition in Lion
- mail started having issues
Issues
- mail doesn't push over. It check on the default 5 minute increment
- mail stop working
- folders don't update
- have to restart mail
- mail redownloads all the message again
what i have tired
- disk utility - single user mode
- removing the mail folder ~/Library/Mail
- removing the mail preferences in ~/Library/Preferences
- recreating all mail account by deleting the above. Works for a bit then has the same issue the longer mail is open.
any help would be appreciated.
thanks

looks like others are having the similar issue but not the solution for me so far
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15823404#15823404

Mixing 10.4 and 10.5 with Time Machine--not a good idea (?)

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