Newbie questions - interruptions to time machine backups?

hi all.
i have just purchased an extrnal hdd and am using time machine to back up the 430ish gigs worth of data on my macbook pro. I am in something of a hurry [I have to go somewhere with this laptop and it's backed up about 11 gigs so far] and I would like some advice.
1. When it is backing up, can I continue saving files and working normally with applications such as Adobe Illustrator and Logic, or will this interrupt the process? I'd like to continue my work but don't want to stop the backup
2. When it is backing up, can I also transfer files manually onto the drive [such as a folder full of music?]
3. If the process is interrupted in any way, does it need to start again from scratch or will it 'remember' where it was up to?
Thank you very much for your help and time

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. No, it will remember.
TM is created to work seamlessly with your Mac, it shouldn't matter what you are doing. If disconnected or stopped TM will pick up where it left off.
-mj
Message was edited by: macjack

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Question re searching time machine backups

Per apple's info, if you do a search in the finder, then open time machine, you should be able to go back to each time and perform the search in that time period. However, when I search for file "X" in the finder and it shows up, then try to go back in time machine, the file does not come up in the search window at any other past time, even though I know it is there. This happens with any search that I do; yet, if I go back to the folder that I know contained the file, it IS in the folder for the time machine backups. Obviously, if I know the exact folder, this is no big deal, but if I am searching for a file, it is a problem.
Again, per apple's documents this is supposed to work. Thoughts?

I saw this document, and it suggests that spotlight should work:
Open a Finder window and type a search word or phrase in the search field in the upper-right corner.
Focus the search by choosing a search location in the location bar.
*_You can search your entire computer (This Mac) or the folder that was selected in the Finder when you started your search*_. New search results begin to appear after you select a location.
Refine the results by specifying search criteria.
Specifying criteria in a search window
Click the Time Machine icon in the Dock.
If Time Machine isn’t in the Dock, look for it in the Applications folder.
Use the arrows and the timeline along the right edge of your screen to browse through the Time Machine backups. Your search is performed in every window.
When you find the item you want to restore, select it and then click Restore.

Why can't I see a slideshow in a Time machine backup ?

I have created a slideshow which works fine, and shortly afterwards did a weekly backup using Time Machine.
I then made a small change to the slide show that changed the order (or rather the arrangement) of the pictures in the Sliding Panels themed slideshow. (annoyingly the change happened by simply un-ticking the 'show title slide' setting in slideshow settings). I want to return to the picture/panel arrangement that was in the original version, which happens to be better (I assume the selection is purely random) but when I look at the Backup in Time Machine I cannot see my slideshow, or any slideshow for that matter. So I have two questions:
1) Does Time Machine backup slideshows ?
2) If 'yes' how do I see them / restore them ?
(I have iphoto version 8.1.1 now, but this is because an automatic update has just kicked in. The slideshow was created using the previous version to this)
Thanks

Welcome to the Apple Discussions. You can use TM to restore individual photos/album or events or the entire library. When you restore the entire library you will get all books, slideshows, calendars, etc. that were there when the backup was made. You can also select to keep your existing library (depending on space available) in case the recovered library doesn't have everything you need.

Time Machine backup FROM multiple drives?

I'm in the process of choosing a new MacPro, someone on these forums recommended Digilloyd's Mac Performance Guide as a good place to get help setting up a new mac for speed. The simplified version of what he advocates is replacing the stock internal drive with an SSD drive, on which you put the OS, apps & home folder. He then recommends creating a 0-raid stripe from 3 other drives to separate & hold your data, then using the forth internal bay drive (or another 0-raid stripe of the leftover, slower portions of various partitions of the drives) for Time Machine.
My question is, can Time Machine backup both drives (boot & data raid-0) or would I have to choose one of them?
+The more I read, the more confused I get+.

OK, I've scanned through the various articles. My thoughts are still essentially the same, and that is just how effective the entire system is when using multiple partitions from several drives to combine into multiple RAIDs. In reality this is not speed effective if the RAIDs need to be accessed concurrently. A read/write head can only be in one place at a time meaning that when one partition on the drive is being accessed, the OS cannot concurrently access another partition on the same drive.
Essentially this is how I understand the configuration at a simplistic level. Let's suppose we have two hard drives that we'll call Drive A and Drive B. Each drive is partitioned into two equally sized volumes that we'll refer to as follows:
....................... *Drive A* ......................... *Drive B* ......
Volume................. 1 ..................................... 3 ............
Volume................. 2 ..................................... 4 ............
Now, we will make two RAID arrays. RAID A uses Volume 1 and Volume 3, and RAID B uses Volume 2 and Volume 4.
Suppose you want to copy data from RAID A to RAID B. In order to do this the OS must first copy data from RAID A before it can write the data to RAID B. However, if RAID A was created using two separate drives (say, Drive A and Drive B,) and RAID B was created using two separate drives (say, Drive C and Drive D,) then the OS can copy from RAID A while concurrently writing to RAID B. This is physically possible because two read/write heads are involved instead of one. Theoretically the second construct is going to be much faster than the first construct.
My second observation is with regard to the reliance on external storage. A 2nd or 3rd generation Mac Pro's SATA bus is capable of a data interface rate of 3.0 Gb/sec. Firewire 800 is capable of 800 Mb/sec. The MP's internal SATA bus can support data transfer rates nearly four times that of Firewire. A modern hard drive is capable of saturating the Firewire bus, but not the internal SATA bus. The higher interface rate of the SATA bus means it's much better suited for truly fast RAID arrays. This is not the case for the Firewire bus.
External Firewire arrays are better suited for storage that does not require frequent or fast access.
Now with all this said it makes more sense to fully understand what your overall storage needs are then consider suitable designs. One need not rely on complicated RAID arrays if they aren't required. The focus should be on data access, data storage, and backup needs.
Although it's nice being able to brag at the cocktail party about having a fast SSD for your boot drive, let's consider how often you even need to boot the computer. I put my computers to sleep when they aren't in use. I never boot the computer unless a software update requires it or the computer has crashed completely. I haven't had the latter occur very often - mainly when I'm experimenting. Literally days, weeks, or months may go by before I reboot the computer. So a fast SSD boot drive would be for me a hugh waste of money.
My 1st generation Mac Pro is set up for my needs. It has four 500 GB fast Hitachi enterprise level hard drives. I use enterprise level drives that cost more because the computer is always on, so I want drives that will be reliably working. I used to have four Maxtor 300 GB drives that lasted for four years before I replace them with the Hitachis. My setup has one drive partitioned into a startup volume and a Boot Camp volume. One drive is my 'scratch' drive used for different OS system versions and/or seed testing. Two drives are configured as a mirrored RAID and used as the primary backup for the boot volume. The boot volume is 450 GBs and the Windows volume is 50 GBs. There's no backup for the Windows volume at the present time. Backups are usually done in the late afternoon using a backup utility. Presently that utility is Synk Standard, but I've also used Synchronize! Pro X and Carbon Copy Cloner. Backups are done on a fixed schedule in the background so they are virtually transparent to me. I use a mirrored RAID for backup to provide redundancy. If one backup drive fails hopefully the other will still be usable to protect the backup. I also have one external Firewire drive that contains a clone of the startup volume. The clone is updated monthly by incremental backup. It's for security in the worst case scenario that both drives in the mirrored RAID were to fail simultaneously.
Now, my need for frequent and fast access to data such as might be needed for streaming music or video is non-existent, so my configuration is one that is well-suited to my needs. You'll note that it's both simple and practical while providing data backup that's doubly secure.

Clean install of Lion and Time Machine backups

Hi All,
I have a new MBP on it's way to be delivered to my house today, and my question is about Time Machine backups. I'd like to restore from my old MBP's Time Machine data, but I'm a little concerend because I've had some issues with Lion. Specifically, very slow at random times, spinning beach balls, etc. I didn't do a clean install of Lion, just the download/upgrade method, and from what I've read, that's caused some problems for people.
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OK, you're right. I wish Apple would get rid of the Applications Folder in the User Folder.
If you haven't read this yet:
How to use Migration assistant to transfer files from another Mac
I still believe you are relatively safe in not porting over trouble from your previous System.
What trouble are you having

Will Time Machine backup still exist after fresh install of Lion?

Hi all. I have a MacBook Pro and I've come to the conclusion that I need to do a fresh installation to solve several problems I've been having. My question involves my Time Machine backup. I have a complete, current backup on a USB drive.
After I do the fresh installation, rather than copy everything from the backup (and possibly bringing the problems with it) I would like to just selectively restore certain things. I know how to do all this.
The question I have is, after I set up my new system, what will happen if I activate Time Machine and point it to the same USB drive that has my current backup? Will it erase the backup, or will it create a new backup alongside the old one (there's plenty of room on the drive) or will it simply append the backup, treating it just like a new checkpoint in the incremental backup? I guess I'm hoping for the third option, because then I would be able to go back into Time Machine in case I forget something or want to copy something from my old system, even after I finish setting up the new one.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

When you erase a drive, it gets a new UUID (Universally Unique IDentifier). That's what OSX uses to keep track of drives, not their names. So it's treated as a different disk.
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However, if you restore things "piecemeal," there's no trail. Time Machine will make a new, full backup of the "new" drive. You can still see and restore from the "old" ones, via the procedure in #E3 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
But if you use the exact same short user names (home folder names), then you may be able to force Time Machine to "associate" the "new" drive with the old backups. See #B6 in the Troubleshooting article for instructions.

Does a Time Machine backup include the Apple_Boot Recovery HD?

I've done a Time Machine backup with the Apple_Boot Recover HD on my internal drive. (Mid 2011 MacBook Air - OS X version 10.7.2 - single user)
Two questions:
Did the Time Machine backup include the Apple_Boot Recovery HD?
If I subsequently need to restore the backup will Time Machine recreate the Apple_Boot Recovery HD on the internal drive?
Thanks in advance for your help,

If you run the command "diskutil list" in terminal, it will show if you have the rescue partition on your disk or not:-
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk2
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            499.2 GB   disk2s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot                         650.0 MB   disk2s3
if you see the "Apple_Boot 650.0 MB" then you have the rescue partition.
I have just restored my machine from a Time Machine backup, and the Apple_Boot partition has dissapeared.

HT201250 Hi, I hope this question won't seem too basic but if I want to use a new larger external drive for my time machine backups, will it do a new full backup the first time I plug it in and if so, do I really need all the old backups on my smaller ext

Hi, I hope this question won't seem too basic but if I want to use a new larger external drive for my time machine backups, will it do a new full backup the first time I plug it in and if so, do I really need all the old backups on my smaller external drive?

50maz wrote:
Hi, I hope this question won't seem too basic but if I want to use a new larger external drive for my time machine backups, will it do a new full backup the first time I plug it in
Yes, it will do a full backup.
and if so, do I really need all the old backups on my smaller external drive?
Only if you want to be able to go back in time to those previous Time Machine backups. When you plug in the new larger external drive, you will only be able to go back as far as the first day you plugged it in and ran the first Time Machine backup on it.

Initial Time machine backup was interrupted

I interrupted my initial Time Machine backup. How do I reinstate the initial backup?

Turn off TM, erase the external with Disk Utility, turn on TM and re-select the external HD.

Due to NAS issues, when I started a new time machine backup it did not have the old backups available. My question is do I need to delete them or will time machine automatically reclaim the space? Only one Sparse Bundle, same name.

Due to NAS issues, when I started a new time machine backup it did not have the old backups available. My question is do I need to delete them or will time machine automatically reclaim the space? There is only one sparse bundle but when I enter time machine I don't see my historic backups. I use a synology DS212 for my time machine. Started a new backup which is 218gb but it says 618 gb is occupied therefore it looks like 2 or 3 backups are still on the disk. Before my NAS issues the last backup was in 2014. As you can see there is a second sparse bundle from 2012. Not sure what that is.

This is an old message now, but what happened to me similarly was:
I had a major computer crash and through complicated pathways ended up reinstalling (Mavericks) as a new user (long story).
At least I had good Time Machine backups on an NAS drive (Synology DS212j), or so I thought - when I started Time Machine up again, the old backup file was gone, replaced by a new one using my "new computer" name. The old file was gone both by directly mounting the NAS drive and by clicking "Enter Time Machine".
It's like I had {OldShareName}.sparsebundle and then it was replaced by {NewShareName}.sparsebundle, all of the old info vanished.
(I have spent a week finding old files elsewhere and have completed a satisfactory self-restore. It pays to "archive" [my own variation of] as well as "back-up".)
My belief is that if this were a wired-netword-drive, e.g. plugged right into my iMac with a USB cable, then the old file would have remained.
But this is an NAS drive, connected directly to my Airport wireless router, and I don't know the significance of the fact that it stores its Time Machine backups as "sparsebundle" files rather than simply as plain(er) files.
As usual when things get complicated with computers (not just Apple computers) there was never a warning message. Something like "YOU'RE ABOUT TO DELETE A TIME MACHINE BACK-UP FILE!!!" would have made my life a lot simpler.
BTW, I did try a "restore from Time Machine" option the first thing I had my "new computer" (old hardware, 2009 iMac) up and running, using Migration Assistant, and it ran for many hours and then failed in the wee hours - what that has to do with anything I'm not sure.
I'm not sure that I have a question about this other than "why do these things happen to me?", but it's a warning. Apart from that I've been very happy with the stability and reliability (but not the cost or set-up complexity) of NAS vs. directly-cabled external drives.
Charles

Hard drive failure! New hard drive/Time machine backup/iPhone questions

Hello,
I have a 2011 MacBook Pro who's hard drive failed (rather acutely too, I do use disk utility to check it's health regularly) and I bought a replacement to install (SSD!). I have a bunch of questions but have only found partial answers in searches. Maybe it's best to list them:
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2. Say the OS X Recovery works, how do I use Time Machine to restore things like my iTunes library/iMessages/email/iPhoto library etc? In other words: just the data I can't get any other way (I hope it's not too corrupted). And/or should I use my iCloud backup on a few of these (iMessages/contacts)?
3. Do I need to set up the new OS X install with the same account names/home disk name etc. for the restored backup files to function?
4. Is this going to f'up iCloud or vice versa?
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6. How come Apple doesn't have a mobile theme for their website yet?
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Do you still have the original System Reinstall DVD set that came with your Mac?
If you created that Lion external drive you have from YOUR Mac, when Lion was installed on it, and it also contains a Recovery HD partition you can use that to boot to the Recovery HD and reinstall Lion on the new drive. And or Clone that external to the new internal drive you installed.
Right since your Mac came with Snow Leopard you can't use the Online Internet Recovery system to reinstall Lion, as your system didn't originally come with Lion, but you should still be able to boot to it to do diagnosic things like using Disk Utility, going to the Net to get help and even Restoring the system from a Time Machine backup. But you will get an error if you select Reinstall Mac OS X. The firmware update is usually applied with system updates.
If you created a New Time Machine Backup when any of the Download Only version of OS X were installed on your internal drive Time Machine, the system, Copies over the files needed to boot the system from that backup drive. If it was a care over backup from when Snow Leopard was installed is might or might not be bootable. Only way to tell is to connect it and at startup hold down the Option key to get the Boot selection screen, IE The Boot Manager screen, and see if it shows up as a Boot Source. If it does thenn it contains the files needed to get to the Mac OS X Utilities, IE the Recovery HD files.
What you should do is Boot the system from either the Time Machine backup, if it is bootable, or your External that has Lion on it, The Recovery HD if that drive contains a Recovery HD, or your Original Snow Leopard reinstall DVD that came with your Mac and then try to Restore from your Time Machine backup drive.
If that fails to restore your system properly then nyou should reinstall Snow Leopard and the iLife Apps from the Original Discs then upgrade to Mt Lion which will be in the Mac App Store under your Purchases area. Then maybe you can restore your files from that Time Machine backup.
scardanelli wrote:
I've had a bunch of issues with my computer (you can look at some of my other questions on these forums) which, to my mind anyway, seemed to be finally given a diagnosis when my HD crashed. It may be paranoia but there have been enough problems that I'd rather do a clean install to be on the safe side.
I have an early 2011, shipped with Snow Leopard.
I was under the impression that Time Machine can't be used as a boot drive and the OS X Recovery is a firmware update (on my computer) or hard wired in (on later computers). I might be wrong. I was planning on using the internet recovery, the HD failed right after I got some password protected files unencrypted and onto an external drive (was that necessary?) but wasn't sure if it's a problem if it installs Mavericks.
So Setup Assistant will configure my accounts the same and I don't need to worry about that? That's a relief.
Thanks for the lengthy response.

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Restoring from a time machine backup question

Hi!
I have done several time machine restores before (every occassion has been restoring to a fresh install of the OS) and have had no problems. But i have a question about what will happen in the following situation:
I plan to install Lion on my mac which has 2 hard drives: 1 has the OS, apps, and media cache; and the other just has raw footage and project files. My Time Machine disk backs up BOTH hard drives. What I am going to do is erase my OS hard drive and do a fresh install of Lion and then restore all my data and files to it using Time Machine (I always do a fresh install when changing OS because it eliminates problems and works fine when restoring from Time Machine). But my question is: what Time Machine will do about the secondary hard drive when it is restoring since I am not going to erase it? and the Time Machine has a back up of it.
Since I have done it before, I know what options Time Machine gives you when restoring, but they are irrelivent to this issue since I have files on both hard drives.
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soccomp wrote:
What I am going to do is erase my OS hard drive and do a fresh install of Lion and then restore all my data and files to it using Time Machine
Do you mean use Setup Assistant when your Mac boots up to transfer everything but OSX (via this window)?:
(That's the Snow Leopard version; the Lion version is a bit different.)
If so, that will transfer only from the backups of the OSX partition. Time Machine keeps the backups for each drive/partition separate, and only presents the ones with OSX on them here.
I always do a fresh install when changing OS because it eliminates problems
Such problems are fairly unusual. Most folks do just fine by simply upgrading "in place."
And unless you bought a Lion OSX USB thumb drive, or have another Snow Leopard bootable volume, you'll have a problem: you must use Snow Leopard to download Lion from the App Store, so you can't erase the drive first.

Installing OS X from Time Machine Backup. Questions

Hi. I have a quick question.
When you buy a new iMac, and you re-install/restore OS X from a Time Machine Backup taken from another machine, is EVERYTHING copied across?
What I mean is, will it restore the new machine into EXACTLY the same state as the old one? Will it carry across the same OS X version (10.6.2), all the Apps you had installed (and registered), every single detail?

Reuben Feffer wrote:
Thanks V.K.
What are Time Machines two restore options?
Here's the situation. I have a brand new 21.5-inch iMac that I would like to get exchanged, because it's faulty. I've put quite a lot of data on the new iMac and I have a Time Machine drive attached to it. It would save me A LOT of time if I could simply restore that data from the faulty 21.5-inch iMac to the properly-working 21.5-inch iMac. So, exact same hardware.
Tell me more about this Backup Utility on the Snow Leopard install DVD. If I perform a restore using that, will it re-install the Operating System, all the Fonts, Apps, EVERYTHING from my Time Machine backup?
yes, everything. but it should only be done on exact same hardware as i said. if you'll get a new mac which is exactly the same hardware as the faulty one then you can use it. to use it boot from the snow leopard install DVd and choose "restore system from backup" from the utilities menu. then just follow the instructions. this will wipe the hard drive and restore your whole system just as it was at the backup time.
if you get a different kind of mac then use setup assistant instead. that will keep your user data, apps, fonts etc but give you a fresh OS.
Message was edited by: V.K.

Stolen Time Machine Backup drive - security questions

Hi,
I had my Time Machine Backup drive stolen out of my bag at the airport. My question is, is there any security on the drive? i know its not encrypted, but i'm wondering if someone can plug the drive into another computer and have full access to all of my files w/o any need for password etc?
thanks,
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Yes is the short answer.
If you were using File Vault, I think your backups would be encrypted too, but I don't use File Vault so I don't know for certain.
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Newbie questions - interruptions to time machine backups?

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