Time Machine and a Cloned StartUp Disk

I have a BootCamp partition on my startup disk that is painfully too small. In the next couple of hours I will have a 2 TB drive delivered to replace it. Splitting it in half between Mountain Lion and BootCamp/Windows, I have addressed any issues I thought would arise. I plan to clone the Mac partition of my current drive onto the new and just do a clean install of the BootCamp/Windows partition. Backups done, preparations taken care of, my final concern has come to mind...
Will Time Machine continue its incremental updating from a cloned drive?
In the past, any time I've changed computers the backup wasn't available. Other forums I've checked says that Time Machine allies itself with the MAC address of the computer it backs up. Some hinted that there's a paring with the drive it backs up as well. Is this true? I'm not changing Macs, I'm not even changing the data; I'm just changing the drive its on.
It's not a big deal if I lose the backup though I'd prefer not having to go through that initialization again. It just seems logical that Time Machine would view the clone same as the original. Any feedback?

I personally only have the Time Machine backup. The main advantage of the Time Machine backup is that it happens automatically every hour that the Mac is active, incrementally backing up files that changed. With a clone, it is only as up to date as the last time you performed a cloning run. The second advantage of Time Machine is that you can +go back in time+ to an earlier state, not just restore to the latest state. With a clone, all you have is the last backup.
The advantage of a clone is that you can boot from it. So if your hard drive fails, you can still use your iMac to wrap up necessary work before sending your iMac in for repair.
It you have two external hard drives, there would be nothing wrong with doing both. Make a clone about once a month and let Time Machine handle the up-to-the-last-hour backups.
If you had to choose one, I would use Time Machine.
It is remotely possible that your primary storage drive and your Time Machine drive will fail at the same time. So I do keep my most critical files (just the files) backed up to second separate storage location. I do that manually.

Similar Messages

  • How to use Time Machine with newly cloned source disk?

    I've got an iMac (10.6.8) which I'm using with a Time Capsule and Time Machine.
    Recently, the iMac's internal disk started to fail. Instead of going through the effort and expense of replacing it in a fairly old computer, I added an external FireWire disk, cloned the internal disk onto it using Carbon Copy Cloner, and then unmounted the internal disk. Now I'm running the exact same system off the external FireWire disk (with no obvious performance loss, I'm happy to say).
    When Time Machine saw the new disk, it started to prepare to copy everything on it. I don't know if it was going to treat it as a separate set of backups (like a separate computer), or treat it as a massive update to all the files on the same computer.
    Here's what I want to happen, in order of preference:
    (1) Get Time Machine to treat the new disk as the same filesystem as the old disk, and update only the files that have changed.
    (2) Have Time Machine start a new backup folder. The initial backup will be slow of course.
    (3) Time Machine treats the new filesystem as continuous with the old one, but with 300GB of sudden "changes" (because all the files are "different"). This is my least preferred option.
    Can anyone advise me as to what my options are, and to what Time Machine will do if left to its own devices?

    I think that the way that Time Machine works, you will either have to go with your option (3) [inefficient from the perspective of disk space usage] or simply erase the backup drive and start anew with a new Time Machine backup process [efficient from a space usage perspective but you lose all the verisoning info from previous backups].
    Time Machine will see the cloned drive as a physically different drive with lots of files that it has never backed up. I think the only way it could tell that they were the same files content wise as what you had backup up earlier would be to do a bit by bit comparison (which Time Machine does not do). I think Time Machine might look at some file meta data and there might be a way to spoof it so it thinks what you want it to think, but imagine the work required to do this for hundreds of thousands of files. Some disk clone software claims to try to do this and some have bit by bit cloning options, but Time machine will still see that external drive as a physically different (never backed up) drive from the internal one that it has backed up. It might be nice to have a Time Machine option so you could tell it what you want it to assume and do, but Time Machine has a fairly simple interface and doesn't present the user with such an option (to my knowledge).
    If it were me, I would buy a new Time Machine backup drive and use that to backup the external cloned drive (now your primary drive), while saving the original Time machine backup drive as an archive with all its versioning, which provides you with additional backup redundancy and history. After some time has passed, you could eventually decide to erase that (by then, older) Time Machine backup drive and use it for some other purpose.

  • Time Machine and mounted sparse bundle disk image - file by file backup?

    I think I had this system working in Leopard, but upon upgrade to Snow Leopard it seems to have broken. Does anyone have any idea how I can get Time Machine to back up the contents of a mounted sparse bundle disk image in real time - file by file within the disk image? For example, I have a 2GB sparse bundle disk image that i keep all of my bank statements/files/records in. It auto-mounts on boot and stays mounted. I use the disk image to keep it password-protected, so if I unmount it it is fairly safe. In Leopard, I would exclude the .sparseimage file from backup, but it would still backup the mounted image itself on a file-by-file basis, so I could enter Time Machine and explore the image folder by folder, file by file (say I deleted an old bank statement by mistake, I could go into time machine and recover as if it were a normal file/folder).
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    Thanks,

    I think you're trying to bypass the finder to mount the disk. Try this (I'll bold the key steps):
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    - Option A: If you directly use a hard disk (not wireless) that has the sparsebundle you want to open, *connect the disk* but don't double click on the sparsebundle.
    - Option B: If you are using wireless, this means use shift-command-k (or shift-apple-k), and if it says "Connect As..." in the upper right instead of disconnect, then use that button to *connect to that wireless drive*.
    - Confirm the sparsebundle shows in that folder before proceeding...
    - *Open Terminal* (Applications>Utilities>Terminal.app)
    - Type: *hdiutil attach -noverify* (<-- notice a *space " "* must be included after typing this here but *DON'T hit return* yet.)
    - *Drag the sparsebundle to the cursor in terminal*, and it should fill in something like /Volumes/HardDrive/COMPUTERNAME.sparsebundle for you. Now you can hit return, and the disk will mount.
    - After you are done browsing sparsebundle's mounted image, *eject the mounted disk* like you would any other disk (not the sparsebundle image itself, just the disk icon that appeared if you successfully mounted it).
    - Turn *Time Machine back on* in the System Preferences.
    Hope this helps.

  • Time Machine Fills up my startup Disk

    Hi all. I'm running Time Machine on 10.5.5. My startup disk has around 80 gigs free (out of 300 total). Problem: when I've been away from the computer for a while (overnight or a couple of hours) I will wake it up from sleep and see the warning that my startup disk is almost full. In fact, it will report 0k free. Then, as I begin to close apps and windows, all the space comes back. Sometimes all at once, sometimes 3 gigs first followed by the rest.
    I've tracked it down to Time Machine. If I have Time Machine turned off, this weirdness doesn't happen. When I turn it back on, it does. I do have a couple of really large virtual machines on the startup drive, but I have them excluded from Time Machine, if that has any bearing. Has anyone seen this before, or know of a fix?

    You need to see what it is exactly that is taking up the HD space.
    Running WhatSize or find in a terminal would help.
    The console logs might also be useful, especially those related to TM.
    You say you let it sleep when this happens. It might be a hibernation file.
    The hibernate file(s) are located in
    /var/vm
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    mine is:
    -rw------T 1 root wheel 4294967296 Dec 13 18:02 sleepimage
    it is about the same size as RAM
    However, I have read here that some have noticed several of these files.
    Maybe this is unrelated to your problem, I don't really know.
    Check out this article
    http://www.macworld.com/article/53471/2006/10/sleepmode.html

  • Using Time Machine Backup as a Startup Disk IT WOULD BE USEFUL FOR ME!!!

    I'd like to be able to connect my external hard drive with TIME MACHINE BACKUP on it to other computers when I am not at home and use it as a BOOTABLE DISK! I looked in disk utility and it said it was bootable, but when I started up my computer and held down the key to choose my startup disk, the so called "BOOTALBE" disk did not appear.
    Is it possible to boot up off of time machine backups without copying data???

    You can't - once posted in a particular discussions area, that is where it remains - unless a moderator moves it to the appropriate area, or a more appropriate area.
    You start here, and then narrow your choice down to the appropriate discussions area.
    http://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa?categoryID=1
    Since you are running Leopard, go to the Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard area, and below this category is a Time Machine discussions area.
    http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=235

  • Trying to link existing mac pro time machine backup to cloned startup drive

    Hi
    I have recently had to replace my startup drive on my Mac Pro as it was failing. I used SuperDuper! for this, and the clone is working fine as my new startup drive. I then went to run my next time machine backup (i backup to a time capsule), and time machine connected to the existing backup but wanted to backup everything as if backing up for the first time.
    So i did a bit of researching around, and found this hint:
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    which changes the UUID registered with time machine, from the old drive to the new drive, so that it thinks that it's the old drive and carries on where it left off. i followed the instructions in the hint carefully and everything seemed to go right (i had to copy fsaclctl from an old leopard backup as it is missing in snow leopard). but when i ran the next backup again time machine wanted to backup everything.
    towards the bottom of the hint, there is a comment about the UUID generated under snow leopard, as follows:
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    thanks
    nick

    chadnchady wrote:
    3. I am having troubles copying files(iphoto library) from my timemachine backup on to my imac.
    That's correct. Time Machine backups retain the original ownership and permissions. So one user doesn't have access to another user's data. Usually, that's a good thing.
    4. I don't need anything else except a few particular files, but everytime i try drag or copy it gives me the 'no privilege/permission error'.
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  • Time Machine and partitioned External HD

    I have an External Hitachi Easy Drive HD, 1 Terabyte, connected via USB to my Mac Mini, which I have partitioned. The smaller partition of 200GB is for a clone of my Mac Mini OS 10.5.8 and all contents, making it a bootable drive. The remainder space of 731 GB is for Time Machine storage. From my Mac Mini, I opened Time Machine and under preferences, change disk, and designated the Time Machine partition for the "use for backup". I have designated folders under "options", exclude; that are not to be in the Time Machine backup.
    I initiate Time Machine. It now backs up completely the whole Mac Mini 200 GB partition that is already on the External Hitachi HD and then adds to it the designated Time Machine partition as well as the Time Machine back up. They appear as two distinct folder with contents.
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    Euchre is correct, although I'm surprised it backed-up another partition on the same drive without sending you a warning message first.
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  • I have a western digital hard disk that I am using  with time machine and I wanted to do a recovery of my operating system but when I do it i'm not able to see my time machine savings because it needs a password to be activated what can I do ?

    How can I do the recovery of my mac mini with my western digital password protected hard disk (it's my timemachine) when I do the process of recovery everything goes well until I have to choose the date of a previous saving from which I can do the recovery nothing appears.

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

    I want to set up the Time Machine and I would love to use the Time
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  • My iPhoto app was  digressed back to 9.5, not sure how I did it.  I then went to time machine and restored it.  Now when i try to open it, I get a message that iPhoto is on a disk and locked tells me that I don't have permisson to unlock it.  Help ?

    My iPhoto app was digressed back to 9.5, not sure how I did it.  I went to time machine and restored. Now it wont accept my password.  tells me it is locked.  Can anyone help me?

    Run Repair Permissions in Disk Utility and see if that helps.
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  • HT201250 i am using for first time the time machine and an external hard drive because I want to erase my macbook and start from zero files. do i keep my files in the portable hard disk when I connect it again with the macbook or the time machine will era

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    Welcome to Apple Support Communities
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  • I have just upgraded to Mavericks and have been using Time Machine on an external disk with Snow Leopard.  Can I continue to backup with Time Machine on the same external disk or do I need a new disk since the operating system has changed?

    I have just upgraded to Mavericks and have been using Time Machine on an external disk with Snow Leopard.  Can I continue to backup with Time Machine on the same external disk or do I need a new disk since the operating system has changed?

    Hi there,
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  • HT201514 I upgraded to OS Mountain Lion. I checked on mt Time machine and found that I had to go to Time Machine, select Disk, and found the only options were to either "Cancel" or "Remove Disk". It appears my Time Machine is no longer working since the u

    I upgraded to Mountain Lion and now I'm having trouble with Time Machine. It appears that since the upgrade Time Machine is not recognizing the external hard drive. When I go to Time Machine and select Disk for the current HD I am left with one of two options: "cancel" or "remove Disk." I am worried that I will loss my backups.

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  • External disk for Time Machine and Aperture Vaults

    I'm planning on buying an external HD for backups with Time Machine and I will also be using it for Vaults in Aperture.
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  • Recently my MacBookPro locked up on startup. Could not get past a certain point of progress bar. I had upgraded to Yosemite few weeks back, with no issues. I ended up doing a Recovery with Time Machine and I got all my apps, photos, documents, etc. back o

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