TimeMachine or other?

Currently I have been using SmartBackup to backup only specified folders (no apps), and it works great. However I'm getting another large drive for full backup and am thinking of using TimeMachine (or CCC) for the entire main system drive as well as another internal drive (I have 4 internals). Does TM serve as a bootable drive as well, i.e. if my main drive dies, can I run from the TM drive? Do you find TM or CCC (or SuperDuper) to be best for backing up entire drives, and why? Thanks.

TM cannot make bootable backups. It's an incremental archival backup system. If you prefer having bootable backups then use appropriate backup software:
1. Retrospect Desktop (Commercial - not yet universal binary)
2. Synchronize! Pro X (Commercial)
3. Synk (Backup, Standard, or Pro)
4. Deja Vu (Shareware)
5. Carbon Copy Cloner (Donationware)
6. SuperDuper! (Commercial)
7. Intego Personal Backup (Commercial)
8. Data Backup (Commercial)
9. SilverKeeper 2.0 (Freeware)
10. MimMac (Commercial)
11. Tri-Backup (Commercial)
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
Although you can restore a TM backup as part of reinstalling OS X the TM backup itself is not a functioning and bootable system. Because TM is an incremental archival backup system each backup adds to the existing backup (files are not continuously overwritten.) Hence a TM backup drive needs to be much larger than the drive it backs up - at least twice the capacity.

Similar Messages

TimeMachine and other programs

Hi
When TimeMachine is backing up some times other programs will not open?
Any ideas

Hi
Sorry but I forgot to say that it is backing up to a LaCie external hard drive.
Thanks

Does TimeCapsule work better with TimeMachine then other brands harddrives?

I have been having problems getting Time Machine to work since I've been using it for over a year and a half. It will work at times and then stop. When I talked to someone at the Genius Bar they made it sound like using a Time Capsule wouldn't cause all the problems that my western digital has been giving me. Is that true? I don't want to go out and spend $300 - $500 and then find out that that doesn't work either.
Does a Time Capsule have to be wireless or can it connect over ethernet? I am not sure if where I work has wireless capabilities. I think they just stick with DSL.
Thanks

See http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9737456#9737456

TimeMachine Backup (of localhost) takes forever

I have a problem with TimeMachine on my 10.6.2 Server I don't understand. Basically, the backup takes forever, it's currently at "Stopping Backup..." since almost an hour.
I have a Nehalem Mac Pro with a 640 GB "main" disk and two 1TB disks as mirrored RAID. The system is installed on the main disk, so this is my startup disk, only 150GB is used, the rest is free space.
On the RAID I store daily backups (good old Linux rsync style with a loooot of hardlinks) from different network machines which can be accessed through SMB. The server has only an Apache and MySQL running, no Mail or Proxy or other fancy stuff.
TimeMachine is configured to *ignore the RAID disks* and only backup the main disk, and the backups went smoothly before I added the RAID. Now whenever TM starts, I see a process "sharePoints_backup" in Activity Monitor, eating up to 4 GB of RAM! And, as mentioned, backups take forever. On the Backup disk, there are only backups of the startup disk, so indeed it does not backup the RAID disks.
I suspect that the server calculates the backup for the RAID also, which it shouldn't to my understanding. How can I prevent this? Or is it something else?

This other thread solved this problem:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11198756
Seems to be a bug in ServerBackup, it does not respect exclusion paths set by TimeMachine.

I currently have Lion, when I upgrade to Mountain Lion, all my apps, music, videos and other files will be erased?

I currently have Lion, when I upgrade to Mountain Lion, all my apps, music, videos and other files will be erased?

Lion dropped application support for PowerPC. An OS may drop or change what to use to open a file, not the file.
Of course CCC is what many have used for 10 yrs now and it is or will be $20 like SuperDuper - commercial.
Always use something like those in addition to or instead of TimeMachine.

Mountain Lion: When I start apps, they start behind other apps

When I start an app (like Safari, Mail, Terminal or other app), its window appears behind another app. Why is that? How can i fix it?

Lion dropped application support for PowerPC. An OS may drop or change what to use to open a file, not the file.
Of course CCC is what many have used for 10 yrs now and it is or will be $20 like SuperDuper - commercial.
Always use something like those in addition to or instead of TimeMachine.

Timemachine backup to Ext HD on Mac Mini

If I use the mac mini to run my home wireless network (no other router) and have an external HD connected via Firewire 800 to the mini, will other timemachine on other Macs be able to see the ext HD and its partitions on the mini as a target disk for wireless backup?

Yes.

Time Machine warning message every other day?

I used to use a Time Capsule to with Time Machine for my backups. However, the next 6 months I will be traveling. In order to ensure that all my data is secure, I bought an external hard drive. I'm going to use this HDD for manual backups with Time Machine. However, I'm the kind of person who will forget to do this regularly.
Now does Time Machine give a warning if you haven't made a backup in 10 days. However, I would like to change these number of days from 10 to 2, just to be sure I won't lose any data.
Is this possible?
Thanks in advance!

W92 wrote:
Now does Time Machine give a warning if you haven't made a backup in 10 days. However, I would like to change these number of days from 10 to 2, just to be sure I won't lose any data.
Is this possible?
No, unfortunately. Many of us have asked for that, to no avail so far.
By all means, add your voice here: http://www.apple.com/feedback/timemachine.html

Disk space leak under 10.5.2 with TimeMachine

I installed Leopard Server on a mac mini to see if I could use it to TimeMachine backup my laptop. However, I discovered that while time machine is running even just locally, it steadily eats about 8 megs a minute from the free disk space as reported by df -k. Rebooting frees up the missing space, then the cycle starts again.
I ran lsof/df -k in a 5 minute loop to measure the disk consumption, with and without TimeMachine running, and you can see the quickly plotted results at:
http://norm.meatclown.com/~lamont/TimeMachineLeaksMemory.png (bytes free vs time)
It takes about 100 hours of moderate usage for my 50 or so gigs free to be taken.
I ran without TimeMachine for much less time, and that dip at the end was me burning a CD and copying a large file, but by then it was pretty clear that disabling TimeMachine solved my problem.
During both runs, I was running a consistent set of Firefox, Thunderbird and iTerm. And iTunes sometimes.

I failed to mention that the time machine destination was a firewire attached external drive. I also zoomed in a bit on the graph to show the more interesting segment as well as the fact that the loss happens in steps every hour.
nothing in the found files reported via "du /" changed between each of those steps, which is why I think it's a file being held open by TimeMachine.

Time Machine won't back up. Starts of REALLY SLOW, and the errors out.

I've been having a hard time getting time machine to back up. To start off I'll give you my specs and what I have done.
iMac
OS 10.6.6
2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB 667 DDR@ SDRAM
320 GB HD
All software updates are current. I am trying to back up to an external Western Digital 1 GB drive connected by USB2. I have formatted the external drive, and set a single partition on that drive from the Disc Utility. I have run disk repair on both the external and local hard drive. I have run disk repair permission on the local drive. I have restarted, after every time. I have done everything listed above multiple times, and have done them all in kinda different orders each time.
My thought is that the issue may not be with the hard drives, but maybe a file its trying to back up. When it starts out for the first time, it tells me that it needs to back up over 100 GB of data. It gets about halfway done, and then errors out. When I try to start it again, it tells me that it needs to backup around 50 GB of data. And this time, its REALLY slow. Like bytes slow, not Mega bytes, or even kilobytes. Bytes. 36 bites backed up, 120 bytes backed up. 2 Kilobytes backed up. SLOW SLOW SLOW.
Then it picks up, and usually gets up to 120 MB, and then gives me this error message "The Backup was not performed because an error occurred while copying files to the backup disk. - The problem may be temporary. Try again later to back up. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk."
Its a pretty generic message, and gives me no help in trying to figure out what the problem is. I've been trying again for almost 3 days now, and nothing is working. Is there an error log file that I can go find that would help me a little more?

woody24 wrote:
"The Backup was not performed because an error occurred while copying files to the backup disk. - The problem may be temporary. Try again later to back up. If the problem persists, use Disk Utility to repair your backup disk."
See #C3 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
Its a pretty generic message, and gives me no help in trying to figure out what the problem is. I've been trying again for almost 3 days now, and nothing is working. Is there an error log file that I can go find that would help me a little more?
Tell Apple about the inadequacy of that message: http://www.apple.com/feedback/timemachine.html

Slow Macbook after updating to Yosemite 10.10.3

Please see the below report from EtreCheck in regards to this.
Thanks.
Problem description:
Macbook Pro has been running very slowly since updating to Yosemite 10.10.3 (I think thats it) to the point where it has been basically unusable.
There seems to be spikes as to when the Macbook runs most slowly.
Have re-installed OS X a number of times and even restored the Macbook to a point before updating Yosemite to 10.10.3 via TimeMachine.
Other things i have done include:
- Reducing the number of things Spotlight searches for - I have a notification thats says ‘Optimising Your Mac - Performance and Battery life will be affected until completed’ which has been there for over a week now. I had read on some forums this was to do with Spotlight re-indexing, however when checking to find a progress bar there does not appear to be one which suggest Spotlight re-indexing is not the issue.
- Removing unecessary widgets, mail and calendar accounts (Issues with Calendar Agent were showing up in Console)
- Ran EtreCheck and removed a number of .plist files that seemed be an issue. It appears from this report that one still remins for CleanMyMac2 (which I know causes issues). Tried to delete this file but it won't allow me.
There a few others but I’ve been trying so many things Ive lost track.
If someone could help it would be much appreciated.
EtreCheck version: 2.2 (132)
Report generated 4/23/15, 11:13 AM
Download EtreCheck from http://etresoft.com/etrecheck
Click the [Click for support] links for help with non-Apple products.
Click the [Click for details] links for more information about that line.
Hardware Information: ℹ️
    MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2011) (Verified)
    MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro8,1
    1 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU: 2-core
    4 GB RAM Upgradeable
        BANK 0/DIMM0
            2 GB DDR3 1333 MHz ok
        BANK 1/DIMM0
            2 GB DDR3 1333 MHz ok
    Bluetooth: Old - Handoff/Airdrop2 not supported
    Wireless: en1: 802.11 a/b/g/n
    Battery: Health = Normal - Cycle count = 514 - SN = 9G152003GD3MA
Video Information: ℹ️
    Intel HD Graphics 3000
        Color LCD 1280 x 800
        S24B150 1920 x 1080 @ 60 Hz
System Software: ℹ️
    OS X 10.10.3 (14D136) - Time since boot: 2:52:26
Disk Information: ℹ️
    TOSHIBA MK5065GSXF disk1 : (500.11 GB)
        EFI (disk1s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB
        Macintosh HD (disk1s2) / : 249.00 GB (157.38 GB free)
        Recovery HD (disk1s3) <not mounted> [Recovery]: 650 MB
        BOOTCAMP (disk1s4) /Volumes/BOOTCAMP : 250.25 GB (209.45 GB free)
    OPTIARC DVD RW AD-5970H
USB Information: ℹ️
    Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)
    Western Digital My Passport 0748 2 TB
        EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB
        Boot OS X (disk0s3) <not mounted> : 134 MB
        SW CAPRICORN (disk2) /Volumes/SW CAPRICORN : 2.00 TB (1.34 TB free)
            Encrypted AES-XTS Unlocked
            Core Storage: disk0s2 2.00 TB Online
    Apple Inc. BRCM2070 Hub
        Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
    Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
    Apple, Inc. Keyboard Hub
        Apple Inc. Apple Keyboard
    Canon MX300 series
    Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver
Thunderbolt Information: ℹ️
    Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus
Gatekeeper: ℹ️
    Mac App Store and identified developers
Kernel Extensions: ℹ️
        /System/Library/Extensions
    [not loaded]    com.seagate.driver.PowSecDriverCore (5.1.1) [Click for support]
        /System/Library/Extensions/Seagate Storage Driver.kext/Contents/PlugIns
    [not loaded]    com.seagate.driver.PowSecLeafDriver_10_4 (5.1.1) [Click for support]
    [not loaded]    com.seagate.driver.PowSecLeafDriver_10_5 (5.1.1) [Click for support]
    [not loaded]    com.seagate.driver.SeagateDriveIcons (5.1.1) [Click for support]
Startup Items: ℹ️
    HWNetMgr: Path: /Library/StartupItems/HWNetMgr
    HWPortDetect: Path: /Library/StartupItems/HWPortDetect
    Startup items are obsolete in OS X Yosemite
Launch Agents: ℹ️
    [loaded]    com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist [Click for support]
Launch Daemons: ℹ️
    [loaded]    com.adobe.fpsaud.plist [Click for support]
    [loaded]    com.macpaw.CleanMyMac2.Agent.plist [Click for support]
    [loaded]    com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist [Click for support]
    [loaded]    com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist [Click for support]
    [loaded]    com.oracle.java.JavaUpdateHelper.plist [Click for support]
User Launch Agents: ℹ️
    [loaded]    com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist [Click for support]
    [loaded]    com.facebook.videochat.[redacted].plist [Click for support]
    [failed]    com.macpaw.CleanMyMac2Helper.diskSpaceWatcher.plist [Click for support] [Click for details]
    [failed]    com.macpaw.CleanMyMac2Helper.scheduledScan.plist [Click for support] [Click for details]
    [failed]    com.macpaw.CleanMyMac2Helper.trashWatcher.plist [Click for support] [Click for details]
    [loaded]    com.zimbra.desktop.plist [Click for support]
User Login Items: ℹ️
    RescueTime    Application (/Applications/RescueTime.app)
Internet Plug-ins: ℹ️
    FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 17.0.0.169 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]
    Default Browser: Version: 600 - SDK 10.10
    AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: Version: 11.0.10 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]
    AdobePDFViewer: Version: 11.0.10 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]
    Flash Player: Version: 17.0.0.169 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]
    QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3
    SharePointBrowserPlugin: Version: 14.4.9 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]
    Silverlight: Version: 4.1.10329.0 [Click for support]
    MeetingJoinPlugin: Version: Unknown - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]
    JavaAppletPlugin: Version: Java 8 Update 31 Check version
User internet Plug-ins: ℹ️
    CitrixOnlineWebDeploymentPlugin: Version: 1.0.105 [Click for support]
3rd Party Preference Panes: ℹ️
    Flash Player [Click for support]
    Java [Click for support]
Time Machine: ℹ️
    Mobile backups: ON
    Auto backup: YES
    Volumes being backed up:
        Macintosh HD: Disk size: 249.00 GB Disk used: 91.62 GB
    Destinations:
        My Passport for Mac [Local]
        Total size: 2.00 TB
        Total number of backups: 58
        Oldest backup: 2013-10-16 08:20:22 +0000
        Last backup: 2015-04-22 05:11:39 +0000
        Size of backup disk: Excellent
            Backup size 2.00 TB > (Disk size 249.00 GB X 3)
Top Processes by CPU: ℹ️
         9%    WindowServer
         5%    com.apple.WebKit.WebContent(4)
         3%    Safari
         1%    fontd
         1%    mdworker(13)
Top Processes by Memory: ℹ️
    515 MB    kernel_task
    410 MB    com.apple.WebKit.WebContent(4)
    156 MB    mdworker(13)
    90 MB    CalendarAgent
    86 MB    backupd
Virtual Memory Information: ℹ️
    49 MB    Free RAM
    3.95 GB    Used RAM
    28 MB    Swap Used
Diagnostics Information: ℹ️
    Apr 23, 2015, 08:19:33 AM    Self test - passed
    Apr 22, 2015, 08:58:02 AM    /Users/rd1/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/SyncServicesAgent_2015-04-22-085802_[ redacted].crash
    Apr 23, 2015, 08:35:33 AM    /Users/rd1/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/RescueTime_2015-04-23-083533_[redacte d].crash

I see you have used Clean My Mac. If you search these forums you will find that running apps like this can cause problems. Start with this link:
Re: Re: 3 GBs used, no apps running.
Startup Items: ℹ️
    HWNetMgr: Path: /Library/StartupItems/HWNetMgr
    HWPortDetect: Path: /Library/StartupItems/HWPortDetect
    Startup items are obsolete in OS X Yosemite
Go to your main Library folder > Startup Items and remove the items in red.
Macintosh HD Root folders
Applications
Library > Startup Items
System
Users

Can't get new backup past the starting gate

After fouling up my first backup since upgrading to Snow Leopard (http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=12245539#12245539), I've reset TM (twice) and reformatted my backup drive (with a single pass of zeroes). But, I cannot get the backup to proceed beyond either about 40 or 400 MB out of 105 GB. Last night, it quickly got to about 382 MB and then sat there for over 5 hours and 30 minutes with absolutely no additional progress. That was my first attempt after reformatting the backup drive. Not being real sure that I had reset TM (deleting the plist file from root/library/preferences), I did that tonight, deleted the backupsdb folder on the backup drive (I don't think I emptied the trash, however) and tried again. This time it stopped at 39 MB for 45 minutes before I told it to stop. It's still trying to stop now. I'm going to have to go to the Activity Manager again to stop it and then I'll be unable to eject the backup drive. I'll have to shutdown and then the computer won't completely shutdown. I'll have to force it.
Any idea what's going wrong here?

rdosh wrote:
Now the question is: What is the issue with eSATA and TM?
TM backups to an external HD via eSata are not supported: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15139.html
Why is a mystery -- perhaps they just didn't think of it.
You might want to request an enhancement here: http://www.apple.com/feedback/timemachine.html

Repeated External HD Failure - Please Please Please Help.

I am running a 2012 Mac Pro with Mountain Lion.
I have now had 3 external HD failures by it ejecting itself and never mounting back again.
All 3 External HD's have been used for my archiving my photo's and Lightroom Catalogs.
My current set up is running 3 HD's at once via a USB Hub, (1) Photo HD, (2) Back Up HD and (3) Time Machine HD. All 3 HD's are the same brand and model.
My Backup and Time Machine HD's are all fine and have never been a problem.
My Photo HD has failed 3 times. It ejects on it's own accord and then never mounts again. I do back up the files to my Backup drive so I have only lost a few days work, but WHY is it this same drive set up continues to eject and then never mount again. As it has happened 3 times, each time I have had to put in a brand new drive back in, I am totally confused and completely fed up with it all. Why is it only my photo drive that fails and dismounts.
I have backup my HD to my Backup drive and also to Crash Plan so not data has been lost, but WHY is it happening and to the same drive set up only.
If anyone has any suggestions why this is happening and better still a way to resolve it I would be eternally grateful as I am now worried about losing my photo work.
Regards
Matt

Wow. This sounds nasty. I don't want to lose photos either, so even though I don't have any ideas on the root cause, maybe I can help to make sure your photos are safe.
I also have a Mac Pro - it is the tower machine, right - not a laptop MacBookPro.
You are using an external USB hub? Why? Do you not have enough ports on the machine itself. My machine is fairly old, but it certainly has enough ports for this many external disks.
Why are you using USB disks? Macs tend to like Firewire better, which is what I use almost exclusively.
How many disks do you have inside the computer? Are all 4 internal disk bays full? If not, I'd suggest adding an internal disk for the master copy of your photos. It is faster than an external disk anyway, and likely more reliable.
I recently just purchased a USB3 card for my Mac Pro. Your's may already have USB3 ports. I'm using a 1-TB USB3 disk for my manual backup. I copy the photos from the master to this drive manually, so I know exactly what is on it. Then I keep this very small drive at another location. This is my backup of backups, so even if the Timemachine or other backups fail, I know I have the majority of my photos safe.
I'll follow up a bit more once I know more about your configuration.

How do I transfer my boot disc data to a new disc and have the new disc become the boot disc?

My original 500 Gb boot drive is full (~800 Mb available). I purchased a 1 Tb drive and installed it (no problems). Now I want to transfer everything on my original boot disc to the new drive and have the new drive become the boot disc. I would then wipe the original disc and use it for data backup.
Can I simply copy all the contents of the original disc to the new disc (this seems too easy...)? I am in that process, now, but am feeling insecure about it. I do have Time Capsule. However, when I went into it to restore to the new disc it wouldn't perform the task - maybe I am overlooking something...
Suggestions are welcome!
Thanks
Jim

No, the system won't 'copy' but you can clone it.
http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-HowToClone-backup.html
http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-HowToClone.html
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
You could also copy or clone /Users to the new drive and leave the system where it is and free up most of the file space being used. OS X only needs 100GB. That way all the data is on the new drive.
And I think you want to add CCC along with TimeMachine to your backup strategy.
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427
http://www.apple.com/support/timemachine/

Missing a calendar in iCal after syncing with MobileMe....

i am having some problems with iCal ...i am missing one my Calendars in iCal and wasn't sure how to get it back. I downloaded the calendars file and calendar.plist from my Time Machine backup...the missing calendar showed up at first, but it seemed to disappear right away (i assume after syncing with MobileMe.) Not sure what would be the easiest way to bring it back.......

It's possible to restore from Time Machine, though it's a slightly complicated process. Please follow very carefully the steps described here:
http://www.wilmut.webspace.virginmedia.com/notes/timemachine.html

TimeMachine or other?

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