Passport and Time Machine...when to detach Passport from Laptop

Do I need to keep my Passport attached to my MacBook Pro at all times, with Time Machine ON? Thought it was bad to keep Passport constantly attached in case of computer failure.

If you're physically near the external drive, it's not a bad idea to keep it plugged up when your machine is also plugged into mains. That way, you'll get hourly backups. When you're on battery, set Time Machine not to work when on battery power and keep the external drive disconnected.
It's not a bad thing to leave your TM external device plugged in most of the time - it save on the amount of sapce that local snapshots will 'take up' on your internal drive and backs up hourly. 90% of the time, I'm at my desk and have all of my TM drives connected to my MBP. The other 10% of the time, when I'm likely running on battery, I disconnect all devices. If your computer fails, your external drive is not likely to follow suit.
Good luck,
Clinton

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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.

I'm having a hard time setting up my external hard from with my AirPort Extreme and Time Machine Backups.

I have been using a Mac Mini with an external hard and Time Machine. I bought an Airport Extreme and have had problem setting up the hard drive using the USB port on the Airport Extreme. I also just recently bought a Mac Book Air and hope to have both computers back up to the external hard drive using Time Machine and Airport Extreme. I have been using the optical drive from the Mac mini to load programs into the Mac Book Air. I think I'm just getting confused in Finder. I am just not seeing the hard drive. I ended up plugging the hard drive back into the Mac Mini and that is work fine again. How do I setting the external hard drive up to the AirPort Extreme and use for both computers? Or at least to start with the Mac mini.

It's critical to understand that Time Machine (TM) stores backups differently between local and network drives. That would mean the TM backup on your locally attached USB hard drive will not be directly useable when it is connected to the AirPort Extreme Base Station (AEBS). There is a way to copy a local version to a network version, but it is not fool-proof. When you do connect this drive and point TM to it, TM will start a brand new backup, leaving your existing backup as is.
If your current backup is critical to you, you may want to consider getting a second USB drive to attach to the Extreme and use your existing one as a backup ... or use TM's multi-backup process to backup to more than one destination drive alternatively.
So, at this point, you may want to make a decision on how you want to go forward to help provide a solution for you.
To directly answer your question, when you go to select a destination for a Time Machine backup, the drive(s) that show up under "Backup Disks" are those that TM already recognizes and has backed up to. Those listed under "Available Disks" are drives (either local or on the network) that TM can back up to.

Cannot Find Photos on External Hard Drive Using iPhoto and Time Machine

Hi everyone,
This is my first time posting on this forum and am really hoping for some help! I have a 2006 PowerBook G4 that is running iPhoto and Time Machine, and I've used an external hard drive to backup everything on the computer via Time Machine. When I plug the external hard drive into my newer 2010 MacBook Pro, I follow this path to try to access the photos:
     External Hard Drive > Backups.backupd > PowerBook G4 12" > Latest > Macintosh HD > Users > Me > Pictures > iPhoto Library
When I click "iPhoto Library", I get the following message:
     "The iPhoto Library is a Time Machine backup, and so cannot be used as the main library. Relaunch iPhoto with <option> key held down to choose another   library."
So, I do as the error message says and I hold down the "option" key and iPhoto launches and says:
     What Photo Library do you want iPhoto to use?
In this case, I choose "Other Library..." and again follow this path:
     External Hard Drive > Backups.backupd > PowerBook G4 12" > Latest > Macintosh HD > Users > Me > Pictures > iPhoto Library
When I choose this, I again get the following message:
     The iPhoto Library is a Time Machine backup, and so cannot be used as the main library. Relaunch iPhoto with <option> key held down to choose another   library.
So as you can see, I'm feeling a bit like I'm chasing my tail in trying to open these photos. I did follow another user's advice and confirm that all photos are infact on the hard drive by using the "control" button and clicking "iPhoto Library" under the pictures folder, and choosing "Show Package Contents". All looks to be in tact in the "originals" folder when showing package contents, however, I just can't find a way to actually view the photos in iPhoto. I really don't want to import all the photos to my current MacBook Pro, because I'd like them to live on the external hard drive (which is formatted for Macs) so that I can browse the photos on the external drive, rather than housing it on my computer.
One other thing I tried was opening iPhoto on my MacBook Pro and going to File > Browse Backups... which essentially opens Time Machine and shows me the photos on my MacBook Pro but gives me no option to view them from my External Hard Drive.
Any super users out there willing to lend me some help?
Thanks!

The iPhoto Library is a Time Machine backup, and so cannot be used as the main library. Relaunch iPhoto with <option> key held down to choose another   library.
You can have an iPhoto library on an external drive and use it from different machines
and you can have a Time Machine backup
The two can not be on the same volume - and iPhoto can not access the TM backup - it must be restored to use it
LN

In regard to Time Machine. I have two accounts one is an admin account, the other is a standard user account. When I implement Time Machine when I am logged into the Admin account, is the standard user also backed up?

in regard to Time Machine.
I have two accounts on one Macbook Pro running OS 10.6.8. One account is an admin account, the other is a standard user account.
When I initially implemented Time Machine I was logged into the Admin account. I allowed Time Machine to erase the drive and backup the computer. Is the standard user account contents also backed up?
Also after I completed the Time Machine backup session, I turned off Time Machine and removed the portable hard drive. I plan to return in to Time Machine after being away from the portable hard drive for approximately a month. After a short interruption of approximately one month, when the Macbook Pro is reconnected and Time Machine is turned back on, will Time Machine create a new instance of a backup? WIll the back up contain the standard user account changes?

Time Machine backs up by default all the user accounts.
When you reconnect the backup drive after one month, Time Machine will do an incremental backup and it might take a while minutes to hours depending on how much has been changed. With a gap of a month, Time Machine will have to do a lengthier than normal survey of both drives to see what has changed, so it might take some time preparing for the backup. The backup will include everything that has changed since the previous one.

Using LaCie 1Tb Network drive and Time MAchine

I have read a number of thread here about issues with LaCie and Time Machine but cannot find the help I am looking for. I have a the Lacie device connected to my network and I have access through the Browser Administration utility to the drive, I believe I have set up the users and the shares correctly, and can connect to the share, but when i try to set up Time Machine it fails to recognize that the NAS drive is available, I am doing something wrong and it's probably very simple.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
John

Here's Apple's public statement at http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/timemachine.html for what devices work with TM.
[You can designate just about any HFS+ formatted FireWire or USB drive connected to a Mac as a Time Machine backup drive. Time Machine can also back up to another Mac running Leopard with Personal File Sharing, Leopard Server, or Xsan storage devices.]

Network drives and time machine with Lion

Since upgrading to Lion my MyBookWorld network drive is no longer working with time machine. The drive is recognised as being there by finder and time machine but when I try and connect to it as registered user there is a warning saying There was a problem connecting to the server "MyBookWorld.Local". This drive was working fine until I upgraded to lion. There is no new firmware from Wesern Digital for the disc. It looks like that will be the solution. does anyone have any idea when that may be forthcoming?

Please follow these instructions:
Lion: Connecting to legacy (pre-Lion) AFP services - and Mac OS X (server):
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3258472

IPhoto, iTunes, and Time Machine

I have a late 2009 Mac Mini running Mavericks. The Mini has a 200gb drive. Is it better to have iPhoto, iTunes and Time Machine on an external hard drive? I understand it doesn't matter where the location is as long as you have adequate drive space. That is not what I am asking. Another words, you have a separate external drives for EACH one. Does it make sense to have separate drives for iPhoto, iTunes and TM. All of these external drives plugged into the Mini. I am thinking of the recovery as well as if one drive crashes then you are not dead in water,
I am thinking this way because iPhoto alone can get fairly large as well as iTunes. It makes sense to me to have separate drives for each one. Anyone else have this type of setup at home?

Thanks for the response. I understand that I would need a backup of all three drives. However, I was asking if it is better to have your iPhoto and iTunes libraries on separate drives versus using 1 large drive to hold the data. The other point, iPhoto and iTunes can get fairly large in size over time. So, do you use 1 large external drive or use 2 separate drives. Obviously, I know that when a drive crashes, you may or may not be able to recover any data off of it. Obviously, I know that you need a backup of the drives in case of drive failure.
I would like to know if other Apple users have separate drives for iPhoto, iTunes and TM? If so, which manufacturer are you using?

External Boot drive and time machine?

Been away from the mac/s for awhile... Just recieved my new mac mini hooked up to an external drive, in this case a very nice mini stack V2 with 500GB and more importantly 7200RPM drive. When I first turned on Leopard I of course designated the external drive as my backup for time machine.
That done can I still use the external drive as a bootable drive? I want to gain the increase in performance from that hard drive by doing so.
If YES I just install my OS on to that drive and then once done select it as my boot drive in system preferences? Any help appreciated.

I'm not sure you would want to have a backup to the same drive you boot the system from, and Time Machine won't give you the option to select the same partition your boot copy of MacOS is in. You may be able to repartition the drive into two (or more) logical drives and do it that way, but realistically to get the best performance from the system you'd probably want to use the external not just as the boot drive, but also for data storage. That being so, you clearly wouldn't gain any real benefit backing up to the same drive even if you could do so, so you might perhaps instead designate the mini's internal drive for Time Machine use, or add a second external and designate that.

When using Time Machine, if I delete items from my computer, will they still be backed up to access later on my external hard drive? In other words, when time machine backs up again, will it delete the files from the back up?

When using Time Machine, if I delete items from my computer, will they still be backed up to access later on my external hard drive?
In other words, when time machine backs up again, will it delete the files from the back up that I have deleted from my computer?

No, I do not believe so. Time Machine would keep all those now-deleted files in previous backups, and as time goes by those backups might be deleted if you needed room, but it would still keep one backup from each day in last month, as well as one from each week forever, as long as you don't start running out of room, then just the oldest would be deleted to make room if needed.
I use a backup drive about double the size of my drive to be backed up, so I would guess it will never get to the point where deleted files being replaced by new ones being backed fill up that drive to the point where backups actually have to get deleted.

Total iMac failure! Please help. Problems with freezing, and time machine

My iMac has started to go crazy over the last week. It started crashing repeatedly, so much so that it could take me 10 tries just to get it going. I was able to run disk warrior and disk utility and neither of those came up with any issues. I took it into the apple store and they repaired permissions and cleared the cache and of course nothing happened while the mac was in the store.
When I came home I started trying to clear out excess files and organize to save space and memory. I downloaded cleanmymac as well as crucial.com's scanner as recommended by the mac genius. Unfortunately, that night after everything had been working fine, the computer started crashing all over again. I get lines through my screen, it locks up, things get distorted, etc.
In addition, I noticed today that all of my time machine backups have been deleted from my machine. The only one that exists is a huge one that was created the day after it was examined at the store. I have no idea how that happened as I have not touched the time machine settings. To make matters worse, the time machine will not even back up now. It says there isn't enough space. (There are 160GB available). Shouldn't it just be making incremental backups? All I am doing at this point is deleting files anyway!
If anyone has any suggestions at all, please offer them!!!

Hi, unfortunately it sounds as though your Mac needs the attentions of an Apple Service Technician.
You do not say how old your Mac is or if you have Applecare..
In any event I feel you will do best as I previously said -> Apple Service Technician.
Don't forget to L I S T all your issues/worries......L

RAIDS and Time Machine?

I want to get a Mac Pro with 4 500 GB HDs. I want to stripe two of the HDs together, and then stripe the other 2 together giving me two RAID 0's of 1 Terabyte each.
Then can I use Time Machine when it is released to backup the primary RAID to the secondary RAID.
Would this be a good solution?

Assuming your RAID setup is as follows:
Drive 1 and Drive 2 are Striped into a RAID 0 (Logical Disk 1)
Drive 3 and Drive 4 are Striped into a RAID 0 (Logical Disk 2)
Logical Disk 1 and Logical Disk 2 are Mirrored into a RAID 1
You can remove Logical Disk 2 from your Mirrored RAID array with no noticeable difference in your system. You could then use Drive 3 and Drive 4 separately or Re-Stripe them into a RAID 0 Logical Disk 2 which could then be used as the backup disk for Time Machine.
If your Logical Disk 1 RAID fails and it is mirrored with Logical Disk 2 all your data will be safe though running/existing exclusively on Logical Disk 2 until you replace the faulty drive in Logical Disk 1.
If your Logical Disk 1 RAID fails and it is not mirrored with Logical Disk 2 then you will lose all the data on Logical Disk 1 even though only one of the two drives failed.
If your Logical Disk 1 RAID fails and you have been using Logical Disk 2 as your Time Machine drive you will (in most circumstances) be able to replace the failed drive, recreate a Striped RAID 0 Logical Disk 1 from Drive 1 and Drive 2 and then use Time Machine to restore your files and applications. As I do not have the Leopard Preview I cannot tell you how this will work in practice but it is part of Time Machine's prerogative to aid in situations like this.
There is a caveat to keep in mind concerning Time Machine that may or may not affect you depending on how you use your computer. John Siracussa at ArsTechnica explains it very well so I'll just copy and paste from his recent article on Time Machine:
"There's still plenty of room for legitimate Time Machine criticism, however. While the hard link trees are a clever solution, given the constraints of HFS+, the strategy dictates a file-level granularity for all backups. In other words, if you change a single byte of a 500MB file, the entire 500MB file will be copied to the backup volume during the next Time Machine backup. Frequent modifications to large files will fill your backup volume very quickly."
"Worse, there does not appear to be a way to prioritize backup retention. When space runs out on the backup volume, presumably Time Machine will recycle old space. But if it does so based on date rather than (user-specified) "importance", a relatively unimportant change to a large file could necessitate the loss of hundreds of small files from the backup volume. Where once a small text file may have had an entire year's worth of revisions on the backup volume, now only the past month's revisions may exist due to the need to reclaim space for a few recently modified large files."
So just keep in mind that if you want Time Machine to keep a backup of your entire system throughout it's use you will in all likelihood need considerably more storage space than the amount available on the drive(s) Time Machine is monitoring.
-Berylium
Mac OS X (10.4.7)

FCP and Time Machine

I am a little confused as to why the Time Machine (when it is doing its hourly backup) slows down FCP when I am editing...
I am running a Mac Pro with 16Gb's of RAM, the video footage is always on a separate internal drive and Time Machine is set NOT to backup my applications folder..!!
Any feedback appreciated.
Cheers

When Time Machine kicks in, it will take some system resources.
To what extent I can't really say, as I don't use it.
My preference is to use Carbon Copy Cloner for backup. It can be used at any time manually or to a schedule of your own choosing. If you don't need hourly backups, it might be worth looking into. You can probably find it on versiontracker.com and the other Mac download sites.
Lots of folks also like SuperDuper which does much the same thing.

I backup to an external hdd with Time Machine, when it ran out of space it did not delete old backups, now my internal hdd says its full when before it had heaps of space. I have searched for extra files but cant find any. Can anyone help, please.

I backup to an external hdd with Time Machine, when it ran out of space it did not delete old backups, now my internal hdd says its full when before it had heaps of space. I have searched for extra files but cant find any. Can anyone help, please.

First, empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. Then reboot. That will temporarily free up some space.
To locate large files, you can use Spotlight as described here. That method may not find large folders that contain a lot of small files.
You can also use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one.
Proceed further only if the problem hasn't been solved.
ODS can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.
Back up all data now.
Install ODS in the Applications folder as usual.
Triple-click the line of text below to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C):sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. If you see a message that your username "is not in the sudoers file," then you're not logged in as an administrator.
I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means.
When you're done with ODS, quit it and also quit Terminal.

Can someone help with Iphoto 09 and Time Machine

I upgraded to ilife 09.....I am having problems between iphoto and time machine. All my photos are in iphoto but when I went to see if everything was ok in time machine all I find are blank windows no photos from iphotos are in there.
Everything was OK in iLife 08.....and now this problem.
Please help.
Terry

Terry
I don’t understand:
Browse backups...it worked...I did see all the photos in time machine.
doesn;t seem to tally with
After trying yours suggestion I than clicked on iphoto and opened time machine and it was empty.
The way to access photos in TM is via the Browse Backups command.
Regards
TD

HT201250 I cannot enter time machine when I press the icon to enter time machine

I cannot enter the time machine when I press the time machine icon. I press and nothing happens, so I'm not sure even if it is backing up at this point. When i go to my Tme Capsule it has the folder there for back-ups and the most recent, but no access from the icon. Help me Ben Kanobi you're my only hope!

Try the things in #E4 of Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Passport and Time Machine...when to detach Passport from Laptop

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