Should I back up my EHD Time Machine before I install more internal RAM?

I am ready to install more RAM.  I currently have my Time Machine on an EHD.  Should I back up that before I do the installation?

You already have got a backup, so you do not need to make a backup of your backup drive.
Installing RAM on an iMac is very easy and it should not damage anything. See -> iMac: How to remove or install memory - Apple Support

Similar Messages

  • Time Capsule as external hard-drive, as back-up drive with Time Machine

    Two questions today:
    I understand that I can use the Time Capsule as an external hard-drive while using it as my back-up location, using Time Machine. It has been suggested that to do this, it is best to partition the Time Capsule to prevent the TM program from confusing the files it manages, the data files from the backed-up files. (I hope I got that right.) I believe I read in this forum that one can partition the TC after the fact, and not destroy any data on it. Is this possible? A clerk at the Apple Store in San Francisco told me that I would want to partition, but that it would require that I erase the TC. Which to believe?
    Secondly, how does TM create the back-ups? I have used SuperDuper and appreciated the difference in how (and what) it backs up. My example: my first back-up involved having an 80gb external drive attached to my computer and TM backed up both my HD and the External Drive. I then turned off the TM. Today I turned it on and allowed it to back-up every hour as it is designed to do, but without the 80gb External drive attached. When I checked the newer back-ups, they all showed the original configuration of HD and 80gb external drive.
    So for it's incremental back-ups, does TM back up new files and updated files without deleting missing files? Is it an additive process? Or does it at some point delete missing files from it's most recent back-up? Or since it recognized that it was backing-up two different drives, it will always keep them separate, maintaining one (80gb External drive), even as it backs-up and changes the other (the HD)?
    O.K. a third request. Has anyone published a manual on TM and/or TC with this level of understanding so we can make the most of it's 1 TB storage capacity?
    Thanks in advance, LeRoy

    LeroyHoward wrote: So, does this mean that TM never deletes a file?
    It will when it starts to run out of space and it should likely be the oldest deleted files first.
    As I understand it, as long as I have a multi-linked file icon on the TM, I have the original data. And everytime the TM backs-up, it recreates every multi-linked file icon on the previous back-up. Right? So, if you delete a file by mistake, you can go back and find it. But I see a contradiction here. If you delete it on your desktop, shouldn't it be deleted from the back-up of that desktop? We expect it to be on earlier back-ups, but not the most recent one right? So, eventually as the TM fills up and begins deleting earlier back-ups, that data will be lost.
    The newest timeline will not point/display the deleted file(s), but it still exists on the backup until the backup drive fills up and needs to erase deleted data.
    I'm trying to understand this aspect of the TC and TM, because we want to use it as both an external HD and as one of our back-ups. Any light you can shed on this will be greatly appreciated.
    Thanks, LeRoy
    Read Glenn's response to dedicating TC to TM backup and the difficulty in partitioning the TC HDD.
    Glenn Carter wrote:
    However, this is not an option for Time Capsule users as there is not an easy way of partitioning the Time Capsules’ internal had disk without elaborate effort. In this case, use the Time Capsule hard disk solely for Time Machine backups. Then attach an additional hard disk to the Time Capsules USB port and store additional files there. This added disk will still be available to all Macs that can access the Time Capsule.
    This works to share the files on the USB HDD attached to TC, but if you want this drive backed up by TM (and this drive is formatted HFS+), then it needs to remain plugged into the Mac directly for TM to back it up.

  • How do I make a back up on Time Machine before upgrading to Mountain Lion?

    A detailed process would be greatly appreciated. I've heard I should use time machine before upgrading to Mountain Lion for reasons I cannot remember.
    Thanks!

    Connect an external drive to your Mac. Open Disk Utility, it is in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder, and see if the external is formated Mac Extended (Journaled) and if it is not you can either use the Partition tab to Re-partition it as one partition and format it Mac Extended (Journaled) or you can use the Erase tab to Erase the drive and format it the Mac format. Name it anything you like.
    Once that is done close Disk Utility and open System Preferences and go to the Time Machine Applet. Once that is open, If OS X doesn't ask you if you want to use that external as a TM backup disk, select "SelectBackup Disk" and select that external as a place to store backups. Then move the slider from Off to On and then TM will start the process of making a backup of your system. Once it is finished I suggest you turn it back off.

  • Blurb Book in Lightroom 5 on my Mac disappeared after 3 days of work. Where can I find a backed up copy via Time Machine or anywhere else?

    Blurb Book in Lightroom 5 on my Mac disappeared after 3 days of work. Where can I find a backed up copy via Time Machine or anywhere else?

     
    Welcome to the WD Community.
    1) I assume I can  just hook the unit up via USB to my Mac and use iPartiion to reformat the drives, assuming each of the 4T drives will be seen by iPartition as a separate drive. That much seems straighforward.
    Yes, and in case you ipartition dont see the unit properly, you can use the disk utilities on your Mac and you will be able to reformat the unit to make it compatible with your system.
    2) Is my next step to reinstall the WD software and how do I do that? I've downloaded the Drive Utilities and Securities install apps - I assume I just run these with the drive still connected and that's all I need to do?
    Yes, just run the applications.
    3) What about the firmware update for Mac - when should I run that??
    Normally, firmware updates are released to fix any issues that you might encounter on the drive. the latest one was released on 9/24/2014 and it fixed an issue with the drive dropping off of the list after system wakes up from standby mode. 
    5) And what about the "My Book Live Duo Setup" app for Mac - is that for a completely different model? What's the difference between "My Book Live Duo" and "My Book Duo"? It's these little things that I find so confusing. 
    Those are different units. The MBL Duo is a NAS (Network attached system) and the My Book Duo is a DAS (Direct attached system)
    6) Lastly, when I have all the software installed, is that when I follow the procedure described in the Knowledge Base article ID 5724, "How to install a My Book Live or My Book Live Duo on Windows (8, 7, Vista, or XP) or Mac OSX for the first time"? Or is that procedure only for "My Book Live Duo" but not for "My Book Duo"?? 
    That procedure is for the network units, not for your drive.
     

  • My external hard drive is 'seen' by my iMac and I can go into the Finder and open files and folders. I am using the hard drive for Time Machine back up. However Time Machine says it can't find the drive. Same thing has happened with Final Cut Express.

    My new LaCie external hard drive is 'seen' by my iMac and I can go into the Finder and open files and folders. I am using the hard drive for Time Machine back up. However Time Machine says it can't find the drive.
    The same thing happened recently between Final Cut Express and my other LaCie external hard drive used as the Scratch disk. It fixed itself.
    I've run out of ideas. Help would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

    have you done some searches on FCPx and time machine? Is there a known issue with using a TM drive with FCPx? dunno but ...wait...I'll take 60 sec for you cause I'm just that kind of guy....   google...." fcpx time machine problem"  Frist page link 
    http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/fcpx-bug-best-practices-for-using-external-hard- drives-and-final-cut-pro-x/
           You cannot have time machine backups on your hard drive if you intend to use it in FCPX.
    booya!

  • Where can i find steps to back up iPhone to time machine?

    where can i find steps to back up iPhone to time machine?

    can't back up iPhone to time capsule?  only MACs?
    You can also back up to iCloud.
    See this support document for more details on backups:
    Back up and restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch using iCloud or iTunes - Apple Support

  • How do I back up iPhone to time machine?(I'm new)

    How do I back up iPhone to time machine?(I'm new)

    -Mayor- wrote:
    How do I back up iPhone to time machine?(I'm new)
    If you're new to this, I suggest you read the manual:
    http://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1565/en_US/iphone_user_guide.pdf

  • Having downloaded Mavericks to my IMac I now find Time Machine couldn't back up to the Time Machine HDD. I am using a WD 1TB independent Hard drive

    Having downloaded Mavericks to my IMac two weeks ago, I now find Time Machine couldn't back up to the Time Machine HDD. I am using a WD 1TB External Hard drive. I understand that a number of people have lost data since installing Mavericks on their Western Digital external drives. Has anyone any futher info.  Or is there a better way of backing up my computer. Thanks. Lee

    Check the More Like This section at the right particularly i upgraded my imac hard drive to a 2tb drive. how do i use time machine to get my computer back to normal?

  • I recently did a full reinstall from my time machine and now my MacBook pro won't back up to the time machine. It starts a full backup ignoring the original back up, can anyone help?

    I recently did a full reinstall from my time machine and now my MacBook pro won't back up to the time machine. It starts a full backup ignoring the original back up, can anyone help?

    Did you follow the instructions on the page linked below?
    OS X Yosemite: Recover your entire system

  • HT3275 EMERGENCY!!!!!!!!  NEED TO RETREIVE AN ACCIDENTALLY DELETED BACKUP! BACK UP FROM MY TIME MACHINE DRIVE????  In other words, I emptied out a folder on my main MAC to make space and the next subsequent backup backed up the EMPTY FOLDER and then delet

    EMERGENCY!!!!!!!!
    IS THERE ANY WAY TO RETREIVE AN ACCIDENTALLY DELETED BACK UP FROM MY TIME MACHINE DRIVE????
    In other words, I emptied out a folder on my main MAC to make space and the next subsequent backup backed up the EMPTY FOLDER and then deleted the "old backup" that actually contained the contents of the very important folder.
    Now only the emptied folder exists on my MAC and in the two backups on my Time machine backup drive.
    This was clearly a big mistake on my part not realizing that the "old backup" being deleted by Time Machine would include backed up files that I had no intention of getting rid of....
    What can I do now?
    Is DATA RETREIVAL even an option?
    I am sure that the Folder of files that I need are on the most recently deleted "OLD BACKUP" but how do I get to this, if even possible?????
    Super desperate situation here...
    M

    inna-help-me wrote:
    Is DATA RETREIVAL even an option?
    It may be possible to recover some of the data, if it hasn't been overwritten, but it won't be cheap or easy. 
    You've posted in the Time Capsule forum, but you mention a "backup drive."  If your backups are on a Time Capsule's internal HD, instead of an external HD, it's even worse.
    See Data Recovery.
    Good luck.

  • I get this error message when I try to back up my laptop:  Time machine could not complete the backup.  The backup disc image "/Volumes/Data/Lou Ann Buesing's Mac Book Pro. sparse bundle is already in use.  Anyone know how to fix it?

    I get this error message when I try to back up my laptop:
    ' Time machine could not complete the backup.  The backup disc image "/Volumes/Data/Lou Ann Buesing's Mac Book Pro. sparse bundle' is already in use. "
    Anyone know how to fix it?

    Reboot the TC.. Sometimes you need to reboot the whole network.
    This is what comes of Lion and then made worse in Mountain Lion of Apple not spending enough time to fix the bugs.
    Read C12 in pondini.
    http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
    C17 can be related I think.

  • My HD has been replaced and when backing up from my time machine the transferred got interrupted

    My HD has been replaced and when backing up from my time machine the transferred got interrupted. When Mac book booted only half the data. So I erased the hard drive to start again although I now can't restore from my time machine  as its saying not enough space on HD to restore. Please help coz I'm freaking out!

    I seriously doubt that you can do that. I've never heard of anyone doing something like this. I also strongly suspect that that windows software didn't preserve all the resource fork, ownership and hard links correctly.
    You are left with manual migration of your data back to your computer. this isn't as hard as you make it sound. You just need to copy you own stuff back. also use the following [post|http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=6185507] to migrate important parts of you user library, Mail, iphoto etc. You will have to reinstall your applications by hand.

  • New to Mac: Backing Up Applications (without Time Machine)

    I just got my first mac and I'm wondering if applications can be backed up or need to be reinstalled? I'm used to working with partitions in Windows and currently I only backup my data partitions -- I never backup my /Windows or my /Program Files because if I reinstalled Windows I'd need to reinstall the applications anyway (let's ignore Windows backup imaging programs for now).
    I've never been a fan of imaging programs for a lot of reasons. I'm in the process of trying Time Machine so I don't want to talk about that here because I'm trying to learn about backing up outside of time machine (even though it may be the best solution for many people).
    So on my mac I'm currently only backing up my home directory. If I go ahead and backup my /Applications directory, is this something that could be copied directly back from an external hard drive? If I were to reinstall OS X 10.6, could I then attach an external drive and just copy over the /Applications folder and have it work??? As everyone knows, in a Windows environment this is impossible, so I'm eager to see if this is one of the other things that make Mas flexible. It would be mind blowing for me to find out that re-installing photoshop on a Mac is just a copy and paste operation, whereas on the PC it's a production!
    And lastly, since there is no registry per se, where are application preferences stored on a Mac -- so I can back that up, too.
    Thank you!

    I think we've answered you query: I'm wondering if applications can be backed up or need to be reinstalled? The answer is yes they can be backed up and no they don't have to be reinstalled. That's accomplished by using cloning apps such as CCC or SD! Time Machine is a different animal and you've excluded it from the discussion. This is Macland and we use cloning apps to make bootable backups which meet all of our needs and eliminate any of what you also included in your OP.
    Peruse these for more details:
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106941
    http://www.bombich.com/mactips/image.html
    http://www.macmaps.com/upgradefaq.html
    http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html
    http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/installswupdates.html
    http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/backuprecovery.html
    Once you sort out this area, see:
    Switching from Windows to Mac OS X,
    Basic Tutorials on using a Mac,
    Mac 101: Mac Essentials,
    Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts,
    Anatomy of a Mac,
    MacTips, and
    Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Snow Leopard Edition.
    Additionally, *Texas Mac Man* recommends:
    Quick Assist.
    Welcome to the Switch To A Mac Guides,
    Take Control E-books, and
    A guide for switching to a Mac.

  • Can I back up computer with time machine on lion then reinstall snow leopard and restore from backup safely

    Can I back up computer with time machine on lion then reinstall snow leopard and restore from backup safely?

    If your machine came with Snow Leopard or earlier and you have your install disks, yes, you can reinstall SL. However, you will need to erase the entire hard drive so you will lose all your files. Also note that there are some apps (such as Mail) which can't be downgraded "automatically" such as with a restore from Time Machine. Here is some info on TM:
    http://pondini.org/TM/14.html

  • According to the Genius Bar, my HD is dying.  I need help with such things as making a boot disk, making sure back up is complete, etc.  I have a White early 2008 MacBook running 10.7.3.  It is backed up regularly with Time Machine to an external drive.

    I am not a real tech type person.  MAcBook white early 2008 running 10.7.3. I know I will need a boot disk to restart the computer after I have installed the new drive.  I have purchased a Hitachi 500 G, 7200 RPM to install.  The computer is backed up regularly using Time Machine to an external hard drive. I nned to know all the steps I need to do before physically changing the hardware.

    Do you have your original drive backed up? Is it still working? If so I'd buy an external enclosure and boot from that. Then format your new drive and use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your old drive to the new one.
    If you don't have a backup, I'd buy an external drive, use carbon copy cloner to do a backup, then install the new drive and clone back to it.

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