Time Machine and Sharing a Laptop

My wife and I each have a MacBookPro. Recently, I bought a new one, so now my old one is our spare. We would like to use it as a spare for each of us, so we can quickly backup our stuff to the spare computer while our main one is in for repairs.
We both use Time Machine. When I recently bought my new laptop, I restored the content from the Time Machine backup from my old machine and it worked like a charm. But I don't think I can keep jumping back and forth between machines, restoring the data from the TM backup, because that seems to break the connection with the old machine.
Here's what I'd like to do: I would like to set up 2 users on the spare laptop: one for me and one for my wife. When one of us needs to move from the main computer to the spare one, I would like to restore that person's data to that user on the spare computer. Then when it's time to switch back, I would like to backup the spare computer data and restore it to the main computer.
Is this possible?

Paul Seymour1 wrote:
Is this possible?
Sure. I think what you need is Carbon Copy Cloner. You don't want to use it to "clone" anything. You want to use it to "synchronize" your home directories. Just run it once to synchronize data on the main and the spare. If you need to use the spare, run it again on the spare to update. When you want to use the main one again, run it on the main one to get the changes from the spare.
I haven't actually tried this myself, but I plan to in the near future. It seems like exactly what you want to do.

Similar Messages

Leopard, Vista, Time Machine, and Shared on a single disk

A friend of mine recently bought one of the new Mac Pros and I'm helping him set it up.
Here's what I want to do and I've been having considerable trouble getting this to work.
My friend got a single terabyte hard drive and I want to partition it into four partitions- one for Leopard, one for Vista, one for Time Machine, and one for Sharing files (FAT 32).
I found out the long way that Boot Camp will not let you install Vista if you already have several partitions on your hard drive.
Here's what I have done so far.
1. Erased the drive and installed a fresh installation of Leopard
2. Run Boot Camp to install Vista (this worked fine and I was able to boot into both operating systems)
3. Booted from OS X install disk and used disk utility to create two new partitions from the HSF formated Leopard drive
My problem is that creating these new partitions deactivated the Vista Partition. The windows partition still shows up in Disk Utility as it did before but when I hold down option to try booting into Windows, Vista no longer shows up. The Mac Works fine as does the Time Machine and Shared partitions.
Could someone please help me to get Vista working again. I hope I won't have to reinstall everything to make this work but if that's the only way, could someone at least tell me how to accomplish my original goal with the computer setup?

VaatiKaiba wrote:
I'm going to install Windows on my Mac soon (for dev purposes, I love Leopard!), but was just wondering something. When I install Vista, will Time Machine backup the Windows partition of the HD?
No but wait ...
If not, can I backup the Windows partition using a Windows program? Also, can I back them up onto the same disc, or will that confuse Mac OS if it has to look back for a backup?
Even better there is a program that will make an image of your Windows partition from OS-X!
It's called Winclone and the latest version supports both NTFS and FAT32.
Get it here - it's free.
You should not backup a program onto the same HD. When the HD fails, you lose the backup as well as the original.
Backup your Windows partition to your TM drive. It's a perfect match.
http://www.twocanoes.com/winclone/
Thanks!

HT4356 I have an older HP connected to the usb port of my Time Machine, and have it shared. I want to print from my iPhone on the network, but it can not be found in airport? How do I make this work?

I have an older HP connected to the usb port of my Time Machine, and have it shared. I want to print from my iPhone on the network, but it can not be found in airport? How do I make this work?

AirPrint printers connected to the USB port of the Apple AirPort Base Station or Time Capsules are not supported with AirPrint.
Read through this for information about Airprint printers and how to use them:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4356

How to store photo's on external drive and still use Time Machine and secondary back up plan

So, My Macbook Pro is now going on 4 years old and I've accumulated around 15,000 photos in iPhoto now. I would like to move everything (or at least everything older than 12 months) onto a portable external drive, but i'm not sure the best way to do this and still keep a good back up plan. My current process is the following -- I have external HD same size as my current internal drive on the MBP, which is formatted that i use Time Machine. I also have a paid subscription to Crash Plan online cloud back up that is connected to my laptop drive (CrashPlan is constant and easy, so I just USB plug in MBP to EHD a few times a month and that's it). If I were to move most of my picture/video's/important docs to an external drive, how would I back that up with Time Machine, and if I did, how would I back up my laptop drive with Time Machine also, and what drive would I assign my Crash Plan online account too? Cant seem to wrap my brain around the easiest and best method. (In short, I want most pics/video's stored off the laptop so that my HD is not consumed; but still easy to access if needed, and easy to back up) Also driving this need for a solution is the fact i would like my next lap top to be an Macbook Air, which I know I can't keep my current set up would not work. Any thoughts are appreciated.

if your internal drive has 250 GB and the external drive with the iPhoto library as well, your TimeMachine should have at least 1 TB.
I have read over some of CrashPlans support docs and it sounds like it will be able to back up and restore the iPhoto library, and as long as you restore the entire library and not single photos, it will save and restore all metadata as well.
I studied their documents to. They are saying they can backup any filetype. And they are saying the iPhoto libraries or Aperture libraries will be backed up automatically, when they are in in the Pictures folder, because the Home folder will be backed up.
On their screenshot you can see, that the libraries are backed up as a nested set of folders, and not as a package. That let's me doubt that the dependencies within the package will be treated correctly. To restore from the backup they recommend to restore the set of nested folders. What I could not find anywhere in the documentation is any information on the filesystem they are storing the backup on. If it is not Apple's MacOS Extended (Journaled, not case sensitive) the restored library may be corrupted, because the internal links in the databases may not work. Try to find out something about the filesystem on the backup servers, before you entrust your iPhoto library to that servers.

Time machine and MySQL

I am a time machine and a MySQL user and want my MySQL databases backed up by time machine. Currently, the databases are not backed up because they are owned by root (there is a red x on the folder in TM). In addition, this is probably not what I want to backup. MySQL generates binary logs that are useful for backups and I can direct it to put them in a shared folder, but I do not know how to direct it to set their permissions so that they are world readable. A file does appear there in the TM when I look at the file that contains the binary logs, so I assume that I could restore from it, right?
Is this all I need? Oh, I also have a snapshot of the files as they were right before I started the binary log.
Are there better solutions?

You could export all the mysql databases with mysqldump then let time machine back up the resulting file:
<pre style="border: 1px solid #ddd; padding-left: .75ex; padding-top: .25em; padding-bottom: .25em; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em; margin-left: 1ex; max-width: 60ex; overflow: auto; font-size: 10px; font-family: Monaco, 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; color: #444; background: #eee; line-height: normal">mysqldump -A -uYourUser -pYourPassword > mysql_all-databases.sql</pre>
Cole

Partitioning an External 320gb drive for use with Time Machine and...

I want to be able to use my Western Digital 320GB external drive for use with Time Machine and to use as extra storage space on both my Mac and when I boot into Windows Vista.
Is this possible?
I was playing around in Disk Utility and would I partition the part I want to use for Time Machine with the Mac OS Journaled, and whatever I want as space for windows, use a MS - DOS format?
Has anyone done this before?
Cheers-

Unless you are using 64 bit version of MSWindows (64 bit XP/Vista), it won't be able to handle a disk with GUID partition table (GPT). Disks with Apple Partition Map (APM) or GUID partition table are the only ones that Time Machine will work with (not MBR disks). Note also that the MBR/APM/GPT are at the DISK level and not the partition level, so don't mix the format with partitioning scheme. Time Machine disks are meant to live in the Mac universe (for now, anyway) and sharing with the MSWindows 32-bit universe is not possible.
See http://img87.imageshack.us/my.php?image=macpcdiskdd06sv8.png for some additional background.

External drive for Time Machine and Firewire Hub

Just got a new iMac. My old iMac G5 was running 10.4.11 so no Time Machine. On the new iMac I am running 10.5.6 I find I have questions about how to go about making best use of this new facility available to me. Since my new iMac has only one firewire port (FW 800) I also need an additional port here.
My thoughts are to use an external drive connected with FW 800 as a Time Machine backup and use the (usually) extra FW 800 port to extend the FW 800 and I find I can get a dual interface drive with both FW 800 and FW 400, so I could use the FW 400 for FW 400 devices like other FW 400 drives and my video camera.
Currently I use SuperDuper to make clone backups of my HD on a weekly basis (I use 2 drives for this on a rotating basis). I plan to continue that in addition to the facility offered by Time Machine (on a separate drive).
My questions are...
Is it a good idea to use the extra FW 800 or 400 port on an external to connect other drives to use for clone BUs?
If that is a good idea...
What brand and size of drive to use for the Time Machine BU (FW 400/800 sharing)
A. Maxtor?
(I have several OneTouch II and OneTouch III that I use for clones, I have been using them for a few years without problem. I seem to remember reading about some problems with Maxtor, have I just been lucky?)
B. Newertech MiniStack v3 from OWC MacSales?
C. OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro™?
If the OWC Mercury Eltite is a good choice...
Is a 750 GB large enough?
Is it worth it to get the 1TB Enterprise 7200RPM?
Any other suggestions?
Andy

i needed 3 drives in total so went with my 2nd choice of buying external enclosures and then hard drives,
at the end it cost me much much less so i endded up buy another as a spare,
so currently using 4 NexStart combo enclosure each one fitted with a 500gb hard drive,
i got one connected to my G5 and 3 connected by FW400 to my imac through a daisy chain,
for time machines it doesnt matter about speed so you dont need to use up the FW800 Port,
FW400 will be fine,
before this i had a USB2 WD Book and was using that with time machine and never had a problem through USB,
i always connect to a port i hardly use as i wont ever need to keep taking it off if i had to connect my camera to it for example....

I would like to set up a homegroup with a new Macbook Pro and 2 Windows PCs. The PCs are wired to an Airport Time Machine and the Mac is wireless. All computers have internet through the Airport Time Machine.

I would like to set up a homegroup with a new Macbook Pro and 2 Windows PCs. The PCs are wired to an Airport Time Machine and the Mac is wireless. All computers have internet through the Airport Time Machine.

The method for setting up file sharing is described here:
http://homepage.mac.com/rfwilmut/notes/sharing.html

Has anyone had had success with Time Machine and Airport Express 6th gen?

For the last six months I have attempted to use the Time Machine product to provide first level backup for my two MacBook Airs and iMac. Tryed a number of powered USB drives, tryed all of the current 10.8, 10.9 OSX software. The Time Machine product seems to work for about a month to six weeks and then fails with message about the file integrity or access problems. In all cases I can acess files on the drive and the only application that struugles with the AE usb drive is Time Machine.
You would think that if it works for a month it should work for a year?
I have purchased Carbon Copy Cloner and it seems to function without a problem and I think that I am probably better off with a once a day clone than a Time Machine with data integrity problems.
Has anyone had long term success with Time Machine and AE sixth gen?

You are connecting a USB hard disk to the new 802.11ac AirPort Extreme, not an Express, correct? If so, it works fine with both bus powered and self-powered drive enclosures, and I have no immediate explanation for what's going on.
You would think that if it works for a month it should work for a year?
Yes, besides the passage of time the only thing that is changing is the amount of available space on the backup volume, which could be a factor. Are you using separate drives for each Mac, or are they all being backed up to the same drive? If it's only one drive, is it partitioned or are they all sharing a single partition?
Are you sharing backup volumes with other, non-Time Machine files? That shouldn't cause the problem, but it's not a good idea.
What errors are being logged in system.log? Filter for backupd to find all Time-Machine related entries.

Time Machine and External Hard Drive

I have a 1T external hard drive and Time Machine has backed up my entire Powerbook G4 laptop on it. I would like to free up space on my laptop by deleting some things that I want to save on the external drive, but don't need on the laptop, how can I do this? Every time I try to delete something from the laptop, it simultaneously disappears from the external drive. Please help!
Also, I keep reading about partitioning - what is this and how do I do it?

Hi
I think the point to address is that an intrinsic part of "backing up" is that you always have two copies of something. One original, and one if you lose the original, either if you accidentally delete it, or the hard drive crashes, etc. What you want to do is backup a file through Time Machine, and then delete the original - which is NOT a sensible backup procedure (because now you still have only one copy of your file).
That aside, Time Machine is designed to be a continuous backup of your system at any point in time. So if, last week, you had a certain file A on your main drive, but you deleted it yesterday, you can check in Time Machine and you'll see it in last week's backups but not in any you made today. You should always use the Time Machine interface to do this - don't go into the backup folder yourself and try to look around (and certainly don't delete anything you find there), since that will be misleading.
If you did want to delete ALL copies of a certain file from your backup, you should go into the Time Machine interface, locate a point in time where that file exists, highlight the file and go to the Action (gear) menu in Finder and choose "Delete all backups of this file".
It seems that what you actually need to do is make an archive of files you don't need on a regular basis (which can then get deleted from your main drive). Burn them to a CD or DVD, or copy them to another hard drive, but don't delete them from the Time Machine backups (better safe than sorry).
Partitioning is a way to convert a physical drive or other storage device into one or more logical volumes, so that the Finder sees them, and displays them, as separate drives. So you could have a single external drive, but create three separate partitions (using Disk Utility) which mount as three separate drives. Under Mac Help, search for "partitions" - there are several useful documents there.
Matt
Matt

Difference Time Machine and Back-up

What is the difference between Time Machine and Back-up to .mac or?

Time Machine.. backup software on your Mac computer. (Only 10.5 and after seeing you list 10.4)
Time Capsule.. hardware device which is an Apple Airport Extreme plus a hard disk wrapped into a bit bigger box than the AEBS. Dumb as a board.. it is a router with hard disk hanging off. Entirely unsuitable as external storaage as it has no backup method for itself. It is a target for Time Machine, so Mac Laptops can back up wirelessly.
TownMouse33 wrote:
I want to store pictures on an external hard drive. They told me in the Apple store I could do this on time machine.
I am not sure if the Apple Store folk told you the wrong thing misunderstanding you.. but you cannot use Time Machine as a store. It is backup and files inside it are not usable.
Moving your iPhoto library to the TC is also a really bad idea. If you simply want to store raw photos.. which is a good idea btw.. as iPhoto kind of consumes them, yes, you can put them on the TC.. but use another location, external drive to back them up. In fact do it the other way around.. use the external drive to store them and stick to TC to work as backup since that is what it is designed for.

HT201250 Can I partition my external hard drive and use one partion for time machine and the other one for data that i may want to use in different computers?

I have this doubt. I've just bought an external drive, especifically a Seagate GoFlex Desk 3 tb.
I want to know if it is recomendable to make a partion exclusively for time machine and let another one so I can put there music, photos, videos, etc that I should need to use or copy to another computer.
May half and half, 1.5 tb for time machine and 1.5 tb for data.
I have an internal hard drive of 500 GB (499.25 GB) in my macbook pro.
Any recommendation?

As I said, yes. Be sure your Time Machine partition has at least 1 TB for backups.
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to two (2). Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

Can I have two Time Capsules in the same network, use one as Time Machine and other to expand network?

I need to purchase a divice to expand my Wi-fi network. I was looking at the AirPort Extreme, but a friend has a brand new Time Capsule for sale. So, for the same price of the AirPort Extreme, I´m getting the Time Capsule.
I already own one and using it as Time Machine and wireless router. If I decide to purchase another TC would it have any conflict with the one that I already have?
Is it possible to use one as Time Machine and wireless router and the other to just expand network and storage only (not as Time Machine)?

If I decide to purchase another TC would it have any conflict with the one that I already have?
No
Is it possible to use one as Time Machine and wireless router and the other to just expand network and storage only (not as Time Machine)?
Yes. The important thing to remember is that the "extending" Time Capsule must be located where it can receive a strong wireless signal from your "main" Time Capsule.

Can I use my external HD for Time Machine and still use it for storage?

I have a 1TB external HD and my computer has yet to arrive. I was planning on backing it up via Time Machine and I'm wondering if my external HD will still be useable as a storage device once I pair it with Time Machine.
There's no way the backup will take up the full 1TB of space, so I'm hoping it doesn't just go to waste >.<

If you really only want backups of the current contents, don't use Time Machine.
It's designed to keep copies of things you've changed or deleted for as long as possible. This allows you an excellent chance to recover a previous version of something you changed or deleted in error.
It also allows you to revert your entire system to the exact state it was in at the time of any previous backup, even if that's a different version of OSX. It's rare, but if an OSX update, or installation of a kernel extension or 3rd-party app makes a huge mess, it's much easier and more reliable than rebuilding everything.
You might want to review the [Time Machine Tutorial|http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/#timemachinebasics] and perhaps browse [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum). See #1 there for size considerations.
For alternatives, see Kappy's post on [Basic Backup|http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=12366915#12366915].

I'm using Time Machine and a LaCie external drive to backup. I also have a 8 GB LaCie flash drive I want to use for small jobs. If I plug the LaCie flash drive in, is my Mac going to think it is the LaCie external drive and start trying to backup?

I'm using Time Machine and a LaCie external drive to backup. I also have a 8 GB LaCie flash drive I want to use for small jobs. If I plug the LaCie flash drive in, is my Mac going to think it is the LaCie external drive and start trying to backup?

no.

Time Machine and Sharing a Laptop

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