Understand Time Machine Backups

Hi,
I have a question regarding the access or user rights of time machine backups:
- having a backup on a external usb drive --> is everyone (e.g. other user on other mac) able to copy data out of the time machine volume?
Assuming I backup my user folder "sam" user ID 506 from my old imac ... and I plan it to restore (manually from finder) or via mig. assistant to my new macbook to user "samhome" -> is this possile?
Are there any right restrictions?
Thanks
Sam

See Pondini's TM FAQs.
iMac (27-inch Mid 2011), OS X Mavericks (10.9.4), SL & ML, G4 450 MP w/Leopard, 9.2.2

Similar Messages

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.

Can I exclude places.sqlite from time machine backup?

Hi,
Just looking at the time machine backup and raised a question about the repeated backup of places.sqlite in "~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/xxxxxxxx.default/", I am wondering if I can exclude this file from my backup or even exclude Profiles from my backup?
What would this affect my backup? Are these all essentials?
I have looked into this page and understand what places.sqlite does. However, what don't know is if this file is missing, does Firefox produce one automatically?
Or say, if each of my places.sqlite in the prevoius backups was like 90MB, how much size would them really take in the storage?

Alvyn wrote:
Thus, I am thinking if this "places.sqlite" thing is there every hour putting around 100MB to my time capsule, quickly my time capsule will be depleted.
No, that's very small.
Is there any way to do something like trimming time points from time capsule?
Under normal circumstances, you shouldn't have to. TM automatically "thins" (deletes) backups every time it does a new backup, on the following schedule:
"Hourly" backups after 24 hours (except the first of the day, which is a "Daily" backup).
"Daily" backups after a month (except the first of each week, which is a "Weekly" backup.)
"Weekly" backups are kept until TM needs the space for new backups; then one or more of the oldest weeklies will be deleted.
So after a month, even if you do an hourly backup every day, and that 100 mb file is changed and backed-up +*every time+* (not real likely), you'd have 54 backups (1 per day plus 24). That would take a total of 5.4 GB, small potatoes on any TM drive, and really not worth worrying about.
But if you want, you could delete all the backups of it. See #12 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum.

Time Machine: Backup folder changing size when connected to different computers

Can someone please help me wrap my head around why the size of my Time Machine backup folder changes when connected to different computers? I tried to be as thorough as possible. Thanks in advance for taking the time to read this.
I made a backup of my one laptop (MacBook Pro running 10.6.8) before installing Mavericks. The backup folder size is 258.56 GB and it is on a 1TB WD external. There are no other computers backed up in this folder.
Last night, I tried to copy the backup folder to another 1TB WD external and ran into the “you can’t do that” message. After some researching, I came across articles explaining how Time Machine handles HDs and, in order for me to copy my backup folder, the drive I want to copy the folder to needs to have the “Ignore ownership on this volume” deselected.
Okay, so here is my situation: I have the “Ignore ownership on this volume” deselected and journaling is correct on the drive I want to copy the backup folder to. So I can continue working on my laptop, I want to use a different computer to copy the backup folder from one HD to the other. The problem I’m having is each computer I own is showing me a different backup folder size O.o.
(1) The computer I want to use – a Power Mac G5 Quad running 10.4.11 (non intel) – is showing a backup folder size of 592.7 MB, but the HD shows there is 258 GB being used. When I drag copy, I only get a 592.7 MB backup folder. For some reason, the backup folder is the only folder acting this way. I compared other folders from the same and different externals and all the sizes match up perfectly no matter the computer they were connected to. How is this possible?
(2) My second option - Mac Pro (early 2009) running 10.9.4 – is showing a 256.15 GB backup folder size. Very close, but not 258.56 GB.
(3) My last option is to use the computer I’m trying to stay away from, the MacBook Pro running 10.6.8. This is the computer I backed up and is showing me the correct folder size = 258.56GB. As I mentioned, I'd like to work on my laptop while copying the backup folder using one of my other computers.
I am able to drag and drop from each computer, but the folder size depends on the computer I’m using. I don’t understand why I can't do a simple drag and drop of a 258 GB folder.
Many thanks!!

The directory files that you are seeing are not real. They are links to the actual backup files that are stored in a hidden directory on the drive. If you were to look at the same drive on a pc, you would see the folders and you would a list files that are in the folders but the files would all be 0 byte files and Windows will tell you the file is empty because there is nothing there but a link which Windows does not understand.
So the point is you can't just copy the backupd files. The best solution that I know of (and maybe someone else will chime in) for copying them is to mirror the drive with something like Carbon Copy or some other program.
See this site for more information about time machine and how it works: http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html

Time Capsule as central storage in addition to Time Machine backups?

I have been using a MacBook and just recently bought my wife the new aluminum MacBook to replace our old PC Desktop. I am considering buying the 1TB Time Capsule as well. I understand it can backup both machines via Time Machine.
My question:
I have iTunes & iPhoto databases on my MacBook which I modify, edit, and use routinely. Can I set Capsule up so that I can continue to house those databases on my laptop, but any changes sync with centrally stored databases on Capsule that my wife can access through iPhoto and iTunes on her new MacBook. She wouldn't be doing any editing or updating to either, other than use for viewing or syncing her iPod, etc.
Is this within Capsule's capabilities or is is it like my current Time Machine External HD that can only be used for Time Machine backups?
Thank you, any help would be much appreciated before I decide whether or not to make this purchase.

I don't want to discourage you from getting a Time Capsule (TC), but from my experience its primary purpose is to be the target of Time Machine backups. It can also perform as a NAS device, but it does not seem to be well suited as a media server. Sharing a single iTunes or iPhoto Library is, in my opinion, not something I would recommend, especially when streaming iTunes during Time Machine (default: once per hour) backups are running. Also you won't be able to stream the iTunes content from the TC to a media extender, like the AppleTV.
However, there's a lot of opinions out there on this topic. Here are just a few articles to get you started:
o Apple Discussions Topic : Time capsule as a media server
o Engadget: Time Capsule: everything you wanted to know
o theAppleBlog: Using Time Capsule as a Media Drive

I want to use two separate Lion Time Machine backups and use them to create two separate profiles on one new computer

This is something I need to do temporarily but I must do it.
I have an iMac 27 (end of year 2009) I5. It has 1 TB internal and I want to replace it with a 2 TB internal.
I have time machine backups on an external hard drive that has been connected via Firewire.
I have another iMac (my son's)Imac 24 Intel Core 2 Duo that has it's own separate Time machine backup to it's own separate firewire connected external drive. Both machines are completely up to date with the latest version of Lion and all other necessary software updates.
When the internal hardrive is replaced - I want to use my latest time machine backup to create one profile on the imac and then use my son's latest time machine back up for a second profile. The end goal being to have everything from my current set up ie: apps, documents, itunes, etc existing in one profile and everything in my son's current set up existing in the other profile. We can both be administrators for the time being as well. I should note even though we both have some of the same apps, we both also have other apps that the other does not.
My profile will be using about 900 gigs of total space.
My son's profile will be using about 250 gigs of total space.
This is temporary until the new iMac is released. Then I will want to transfer my profile to that leaving my son's intact on the iMac 27 I5.
I realize that during the temporary period that Time Machine will be making backups of this entire two profile setup, which I am now understanding as I write this will create a new issue for me when I want to transfer only my profile to the new computer as well. But one bridge to cross at a time, I guess.
I need to do this because we must bring his current computer to my father - as his iMac G5 is inoperable. We have been doing this round robin hand me down in our family since IMac DV special edition :-)
Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated. And any other suggestions as well.
Thanks very much.

Hey Shootist000, Thanks for the replies. First off, I am actually okay if we both have each other applications so I am not concerned about that. It is still unclear from what you have said as to whether I can in fact, use these two separte time machine backup to create two separate profiles on the new hard drive. If that in fact can be done, then - will it create two copies of the apps we both have in the ROOT of the drive as well as placing all the ones we each have separately?
And reading your second reply, makes me think that maybe the partition is the way to go to begin with and then down the road - after I am in the new iMac, I could reformat the iMac 27 with only one partion and restore my son's latest back prior to the reformat thus giving him full access to the 2 TB of the drive.
If this is still making sense, does this mean :
replace the 1TB with a 2TB - but have it partitione - 1.5 TB & 500 GB.
Install(Restore using Time Machine) my latest back up prior to the 1.5 partition
Install (Restore using Time Machine) my son's latest back up prior to the 500 gig partition
Lastly, in order for us both to be using the partioned computer - I am assuming Switch user can no longer be used - so would we need to restart and select our respective partions in order to use the computer? And if so, how would we each be able to be using time machine to back up - two separte external hard drives - with each one dedicated to only one partition? Or ?
Thanks so much.
Ironically, I am only trying to do this so that I don't need to manually install all his apps, setting, games, blah blah for this temporary period. :-)

How to restore a time machine backup from a corrupted disk

Hi.
I have quite a problem. I recently downgraded to os x 10.5.4 due to the requirements of Digidesign's Pro Tools. I did so with a clean install in order to have the most optimized computer possible without loads of unused data. I had backed up my data using Time Machine on an external hard-drive (LaCie, 1 TB) so I wasn't worried about losing important data.
However, when I inserted my external hard-drive after the clean installation it turns out to be corrupted in some way. It is only recognized in Disk Utility, it doesn't mount on my desktop.
Disk Utility is unable to repair the disk. The errors are:
+Verify and Repair volume “Kristoffer's back-up disk”+
+Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.+
+Invalid node structure+
+Volume check failed.+
+Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.+
I went out and bought "Data Rescue II" at once to try to recover my data. It works fine with the stuff I've manually dragged to the disc but the Time Machine backup folders seem compressed in some way (It's only about 86 MB). And when I click a file restored from one of the Time Machine folders it seems like it's just a shortcut to an "original file". I get this error when double-clicking such a file:
+The alias "filename" could not be opened, because the original item cannot be found.+
Is there some way for me to get Time Machine to understand the back up disk even though it's corrupted? Or some other way to retrieve my data?
I have TONS of extremely important data on the disk so it would cost me a huge amount of work to format the disk and start from scratch.
ANY help is greatly appreciated

ohnoono wrote:
Hi.
I have quite a problem. I recently downgraded to os x 10.5.4 due to the requirements of Digidesign's Pro Tools. I did so with a clean install in order to have the most optimized computer possible without loads of unused data. I had backed up my data using Time Machine on an external hard-drive (LaCie, 1 TB) so I wasn't worried about losing important data.
However, when I inserted my external hard-drive after the clean installation it turns out to be corrupted in some way. It is only recognized in Disk Utility, it doesn't mount on my desktop.
Disk Utility is unable to repair the disk. The errors are:
+Verify and Repair volume “Kristoffer's back-up disk”+
+Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.+
+Invalid node structure+
+Volume check failed.+
+Error: Filesystem verify or repair failed.+
I went out and bought "Data Rescue II" at once to try to recover my data. It works fine with the stuff I've manually dragged to the disc but the Time Machine backup folders seem compressed in some way (It's only about 86 MB). And when I click a file restored from one of the Time Machine folders it seems like it's just a shortcut to an "original file". I get this error when double-clicking such a file:
+The alias "filename" could not be opened, because the original item cannot be found.+
Is there some way for me to get Time Machine to understand the back up disk even though it's corrupted?
no, that's quite impossible. you may try using Disk warrior on that drive. it's known to be able to fix the kind of error that DU is reporting. if that doesn't work your only hope is data recovery. If Data Rescue II doesn't work you can try other data recovery software like Filesalvage or try professional data recovery services (those can can a fortune).
Or some other way to retrieve my data?
I have TONS of extremely important data on the disk so it would cost me a huge amount of work to format the disk and start from scratch.
ANY help is greatly appreciated

Unable to use a Time Machine backup

I am getting very frustrated, as I cannot use a Time Machine backup the way I want to.
Short story, my Macbook Pro Retina (running Yosemite) is, and have for a while been, a litte buggy and slow, so I wsh to to a clean install of OSX, and use migration assistant to recover files and settings. I have tried to to a complete restore, but this hasn´t helped.
The problem is, the migration assistant can´t find the backups. When I restart with Cmd+R and prompt a restore from TimeMachine backup, it CAN find both mine, and other backups stored on the disk. But after I do a clean install, and get to the assistant, it CAN´T find any of the backups.
The backups are on a WD 2TB disk, connected via my Mac Mini.
I have tried creating another account on the fresh install, and verify disk and permissions. One time, that actually made the assistant find the backups, but I have never been able to recreate this. I did not try to copy the files on that occation, somehow.
I don´t understand how the two backup modes works differently. Complete restore cand find the files, assistant cannot.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The backups are created via a Mac Mini sharing the Time Machine disk. My backup is created as a disk file on Timemachine/Mybackup, and the Mac Mini backup is another level down on Timemachine/backups/Macmini. I don´t know if this has anythong to do with it.
On trying to recover, I have plugged the external drive directly into the MBP.
I have had to go back and to a complete restore every time, but I am not satisfied with this result.
I have tried to explain as good as I can, and will be very grateful for hints and tips.

A possible reason for backups not to be available in Migration Assistant is that the computer doesn't have a name, or the name is corrupt. Open the Sharing preference pane and check the name. If you can't do that, reset the PRAM. Credit to ASC member Csnote for this observation.
Otherwise, starting from a clean installation of OS X, set up a new administrator account and log in. Enter Time Machine and press the key combination shift-command-C. The front window will show all mounted volumes. All snapshots should now be accessible.* Select the one you want and navigate to your home folder (in the Users folder at the top level of the old startup volume.)
You should now be able to restore your user data. I suggest you do this in two stages. Quit all applications except the Finder before you begin.
Restore all the visible items at the top level of the home folder.
Hold down the option key and select Go ▹ Library from the Finder menu bar. Enter Time Machine and restore all items in the Library folder. Log out and log back in as soon as the restore is complete.
Any other invisible folders or files at the top level of the home folder that you want to preserve will have to be restored separately. For most users, that isn't necessary.
You may have to reinstall all third-party applications from scratch. That would be the only point of doing a clean installation.
You'll have another problem because you erased the startup volume. The next time you back up, Time Machine won't recognize any files as being the same as they were before, and will make a full copy of all files. There might not be enough space on one or more of the backup volumes for that. There are different ways of dealing with that situation, depending on your needs. The easiest way is to set the backup drives aside, if possible, until you're sure you'll no longer need the data on them, then erase them and start over. Meanwhile start a new backup on one or more empty storage devices. If that solution isn't workable for you, ask for instructions.
*If you don't see any snapshots in Time Machine, exit the time-travel view and then hold down the option key while selecting
Browse Other Backup Disks...
from the Time Machine menu, which has an icon that looks like a clock running backwards. Select the backups of the computer by its previous name. If you don't have the Time Machine menu, open the Time Machine preference pane in System Preferences and check the box marked
Show Time Machine in menu bar

Time Machine backup and main drive corrupted. Help! (REWARD OFFERED)

Here's the deal:
I have a Macbook Pro and a Mac Mini both runnign Snow Leopard. I use the Mac Mini as a kind of media center / server, it has a few external drives connected to it. On of these drives (1GB) is dedicated to Time Machine, the Mac Mini (80 GB hard drive) backs up to it directly and the Macbook Pro (500 GB hard drive) does it over the network (Time Machine created a sparsebundle). This has worked well for years now. Occasionally I got the error that Time Machine needed to start a new backup because the old one was corrupt. That happened about 2-3 times a year (did the same thing when I backued up via USB). Now about 2 weeks ago, that error came up and I just let the Macbook Pro on overnight and connected the ethernet cable for faster transfer.
When I woke up, the Macbook Pro didn't respont at all, spinning beachball, no response at all beside mouse movement. I let it do it's thing for another 10 hours (while I was at work) and just held down the power button to power off and restart it. But all I got was the gray-on-gray flashing folder with the question mark in it, that's what you get when the Mac can't find bootable partitions. So I popped in the OSX Snow Leopard install disk, ran disk utility. It saw the hard drive, but no partition (i.e. Machintosh HD) on it. I checked the Time Machine backup and the sparsebundle was 300 GB (the Macbook Pro had 400 GB used, the remaining 100 GB were free). There is no way to restore from an unfinished Time Machine backup...
First thing I did was clone the internal (Macbook Pro) hard drive to a DMG disk image using DiskDrill (the only program I found that could recognize the drive at all, not even DiskWarrior could). I also bought the exact same hard drive model and partitioned it like the cloned the corrupted hard drive to the new one using ddrescue (a command line tool that doesn't quit upon i/o errors but proceeds and tries to recover as much as it can). It copied everything except 65 kilobytes, the corrupted drive seemed to be physically damaged in a bunch of sectors relatively at the beginning of the disk. Since I had now an exact copy on a fresh, healthy drive, I went crazy trying out Disk Warrior (didn't recognize the drive at all), data rescue, testdisc, p a Windows isk, etc. Only R-Studio (on windows) showed the EFI and Macintosh HD partitions on there, they started and ended on the same sectors on the corrupted drive and its clone. After some research, I figured that the partition table was corrupt so I reformated the clone disk using the OSX Snow Leopard install disk (1 HFS Journaled Partition with GUID Partition table). R-Studio showed the EFI and Macintosh HD on that reformated drive, again, same sectors as before. So I figured I could just copy just the bytes where the Macintosh HD starts from the corrupted drive to the clone (using ddrescue). That worked, after almost 24 hours, I had the clone drive with a "disk1" partition on it that even disk utility could see.
Now I was able to run Disk Warrior on it, but all it could do was recover a few Application folders (Resource-Folders and lproj-stuff), about 100 MB in total. It couldn't repair more of catalog file apparently. Luckily, Time Machine backed up quite a bit (300 GB out of 400 GB of data) and I was able to manually copy all the Dokuments, Desktop, user Library, Applications, Music, Download and Movies. Unfortunatley, only a little bit of the Pictures folder was copied. iPhoto library (80 to 100 GB) was nowhere to be found, backup must have failed right then. I can salvage the drives (time machine drive, original hard drive with a few broken sectors, DMG-image of that drive, 1-1 copy of that drive with partition table repaired) but that only gives me files with numeric names and today's date on teh JPEGs (instead of the date the picture was taken).
Is there any way I can recover that iPhoto library? It appears the catalog file got corrupted because the hard drive (only 8 months old...) failed on a few sectors. If I understand it correctly, the catalog file on HFS+ file systems is where the folder structure and file names are stored in a B-Tree. I can't imagine that some i/o error during backup can totally annihilate that file when it was working perfectly before. Here's a few things I want to try out but haven't figured out how so far:
- Time Machine had to start a new backup. There's plenty of free space on that drive so there's a good chance there's old data left on it. Is there a way to restore files (including file names) and fodlers from deleted time machine backups?
- Is there any way to re-build that catalog file from what is there left on the original hard drive? I can't imagine 65 kilobytes destroys it all.
- Are there other ways to recover my iPhoto Library? The raw JPEG (and AVI) files with correct file names or metadata would suffice.
Thanks in advance for any help, I'll actually reward the person with a working solution, 5 years of photo memories are somewhat important. It really ***** that a failure during a backup destroys that...

Final Update:
The catalog file on the original hard drive could not be fixed. Seems like Mac OSX tried to repair the catalog file while the sectors this file resides on failed. To make things worse the partition table was also broken beyond repair, even overwriting the sectors with a new correct partition table didn't help. DiskWarrior found less then 100 MB worth of stuff, mainly Applications folders.
I recovered pretty much everything from the incomplete Time Machine backup by right-clicking the sparsebundle and browsing through the folders with the long alphanumeric names, looking for the version of the folder with the most files in there. All I was missing was part of the ~/Pictures folder, i.e. photobooth pictures and the whole iPhoto Library. My best option was to recover these files using data recovery tools.
DiskDrill proved to be the absolute best, fast, responsive, efficient, and the only one able to mount the DMG-file with no valid file system on it. As there were many i/o errors and broken sectors on the original hard drive, I made a copy of it using a free command line tool called ddrescue (the standard dd tool just aborted when it encountered the i/o error). ddrescue copied the whole drive to a DMG image, I had 56 kilobytes with errors on the first pass, but it managed to shrink that down to just 4 kilobytes (wow!) after the second pass where it tries to re-read the broken secors. It took about 24 hours for a 512 GB 2.5" drive (5400 rpm) but well worth it. Be advised that ddrescue is really persistent and tries everything to recover those last errorneous bytes. At the very end of the process, the read/write head of the hard drive just goes wild trying to catch the data on the sectors with different momentum. This works but I assume this is pretty damaging for the original drive. I also copied it all to a new hard drive (again using ddrescue) and tried partition and catalog repair tools on that (DiskWarrion, testdiks, pdisk, etc.). Still no hint of a good result.
I made a deep scan on the clone hard drive with DiskDrill. At the end (after about 8 hours over USB) it found 13 partition (I assume that's the Macintosh HD, EFI and some DMG files lying around) and hundreds of thousands of pictures. I restored some JPG files just to check the quality, some were damaged, some were good with all the EXIF data intact. I just made it copy all JPG files into a folder. I know the pictures taken from my camera produce JPGs larger than 1 MB and smaller than 5 MB, so I sorted them by size and moved the smaller and larger files into seperate folders. I took the remaining folder (100 GB) and just dragged it into iPhoto. It imported them overnight. Auto-Split by events and I got my library back, alas with different file names, originals and edited versions side by side, lots of duplicates, some damaged, some not. But hey, all the pictures in chronological order. Okay there was also one large event with all the JPGs without valid EXIF data landed inside, iPhoto just takes the file creation date (i.e. the date where the recovered file was copied). As far as I can tell, these are all just data corpses, halfway overwritten copies, random pictures from the internet, desktop pictures, etc.
I started to work my way back through the events, deleting the duplicates and renaming the events. There's an app called "Duplicate Annihilator" which apparently can find duplicate pictures in iPhoto and mark them for you. The free version only does 500 pictures but if it works, I'll get the full version. It can mark th eduplicate photos by adding something to the picture comment in iPhoto so you can manually review it all. Good stuff!

I just installed Mountain Lion on my iMac that was previously running Snow Leopard. Bugt I found that some key applications no longer work, so I would like to go back to snow Leopard. I can't use time machine backups for this. what can I do?

I just installed Mountain Lion on my iMac. But In was dismayed to find that my Canon scanner software (Canoscan LIDE500F)no longer works. Nor do any of my MS offce applications. I tried to use time machine to reinstall Snow Leopard (my previous operating system), but unfortunately my time machine backups did not include system software. Also, the original system install disk that came with my iMac would not allow me to install Snow Leopard in place of Mountain Lion. I would appreciate it if somebody could tell me how to solve this problem.

The reason your Office doesn't work is because it is PowerPC code. If you will upgrade the 2004 Office to 2011 Office then that will work.
I don't understand how you managed to get your Time Machine backup to not backup the system.
Now if you still what to downgrade you will have to erase the disk and reinstall Snow Leopard. Most likely all of your application and then restore your data from Time Machine.
To me it sounds like it would be easier to upgrade your software and stay with Mountain Lion instead.
Allan

Why does power nap time machine backup not work on my August 2012 macbook pro retina?

Hello. I got a MacBook Pro with retina display in August of this year 2012. I have done the SMC ? firmware update and I have 10.8.2 installed on my machine. Power nap still doesn't seem to work. I have the button in energy saver preferences and I have clicked it so it looks like power nap should work. When I am running Time Machine backup with the time capsule and I close the lid (plugged into power) it appears that no progress is made when I reopen the lid. I have closed the lid with activity monitor running and with network displayed. When I reopen the lid it may take up to one minutes to come out of sleep. When it does come out of sleep I can see that there has been no network traffic. Eventually, time machine backup resumes and I can see several megabytes per second. When I closed the lid overnight, just to make sure backup didn't restart after lid closing, I saw that no progress had been made in backup when I reopened the lid.
What options are left if I already have 10.8.2 and I have done the required firmware? One person has mentioned a clean install but I really don't like to have to reenter all the different passwords and all the different preferences again unless that's absolutely necessary. Are there any other options left to try before a clean install?
One other bit of information. I have filevault turned on; however, it looks like others have a working power nap even with file vault enabled. If this is not an option, the power nap button should be grayed out when the machine is in filevault.
Thank you for any help.

Yeah I still have the same problem BTW; it still does not work.
The second I open the lid and take it out of sleep mode, it starts to backup automagically, but when it's sleeping EVEN when it's connected to AC power, TM backups do NOT work to my OS X Server.
I don't understand what the problem is here.
I didn't before but I do have FileVault turned on now -- should that make a difference?
In either situation it didn't work, but now that I think about it, I could understand why it wouldn't backup while asleep. Apparently the encrypted volume will stay encrypted during sleep and even at the lock screen; it's not until you open the lid and log in from the lock screen that it will unlock the encrypted boot volume.
But even still, I did *not* have FV turned on before, and this still did not work.
Is there some third party solution that can do what I want this to do?
Here's my use case:
1.) I have a mac mini at home that I use when I'm at home; it runs OS X server.app (bought and paid for) and has TM server turned on.
2.) I have a laptop that I mainly use at work and I don't use at all when I come home (ie. when I'm ready to head home for the day I close the lid and don't open it until I'm back at work the next day, but the laptop does come home with me every day).
What I want to have happen is this:
1.) The minute my laptop enters my home wifi lan (even though it's still asleep with lid closed) I want it to automatically backup the boot drive.
I thought that's what Power Nap was supposed to do, but then I found out that in order for this to work, you have to be connected to AC power; so then I tried that -- ie. every day I come home, I put my laptop in a docking station that has AC power, but TM backups while lid closed / sleeping STILL do not occur!
Thanks for your help everyone...Looking forward to a solution that works.
EDIT:
I found this thread:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4158709
"It looks like Power Nap doesn't perform Time Capsule backups when the MacBook Air screen is closed."
So apparently that is yet *another* requirement to get powernap working. The lid can not be closed.
What is the difference between sleep with lid open and sleep with lid closed!?

I've mistakenly deleted Time Machine backups from my external HDD. How do I fix this?!

I manually deleted several Time Machine backups from my external HDD. Whenever I attempt to empty trash, it states (error code -22) has occurred. How do I fix my predicament?
I understand (now) that I should never do this and ONLY delete from the Time Machine app itself but I did not assume this would be so complex by taking a blind stab at it. How do I either a) place the Time Machine backups where the originated (Put Back is not an option when right-clicked) or b) successfully delete these so I can clear my bin.
I am running Mac OS 10.10 on a 13" MacBook Air (mid-2013) w/ 4GB of RAM and 128GB SSD. My external drive is a 5400 RPM WD USB 2.0 External Hard Drive.

Try Trash won't empty deleted time machine backups

Concerns ALL Time Machine Users. HOW TO MOVE Time Machine backups. Help !

Concerns ALL Time Machine Users :
MOVE (or COPY) Time Machine backups from a "x"To Disk to an "y"To greater disk.
Hello and thank you all for reading me,
First, excuse me if I make language errors (I'm French).
Secundo, I don't know if you'll find something interesting for you
in what I write about Time Machine and my own problems,
but there's a possibility also that YOU could perhaps help me.
I'm talking about Time Machine and his **** Backups.backupdb folder,
containing "*Name of your Mac*" folder,
this folder containing Time Machine backups, format : YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS
Time Machine doesn't recognize the backups it made *IF YOU MOVE THEM*.
I have perhaps a solution in this message.
You'll see below what kind of problem I (and you could) have.
Since 12/01/10, an Apple Adviser Level Two (and me)
are trying to understand how to move backups from TM1To Disk to, let's say, a bigger one.
My case is TM1,5To.
*Purpose :* Move 19 backups from Time Machine X disk to Time Machine Y disk.
Delete TMX disk Time Machine backups after that.
Make TMY disk the current used Time Machine Disk.
I don't remember exactly what we did before
(we even created a "root" account with password (dangerous to do),
but it didn't solve the problem),
but we finally copied :
TM1To > Backups.backupdb > *MacBook Pro* folder (containing 19 backups) into :
TM1,5To > Backups.backupdb folder.
The Copy application announced *16 hours !* (without antivirus, to remove absolutely).
So I said goodbye and thank you to my Apple Adviser. After *8 hours*, Copy failed.
BUT it had succeeded to copy *4 backups ONLY* (why ?) in TM1,5To.
I immediately verified and checked each of these with Get Info.
They had EXACTLY the same size (Byte to Byte) as in TM1To.
➔ BUT HERE IS MY OBSERVATION :
After designing TM1,5To as Time Machine Disk, I ordered it to Backup (now).
And what did Time Machine do in TM1,5To > Backups.backupdb ?
It created a *NEW folder*, named *MacBook Pro 2* !
➔ *I HAVE NO ACCESS* to TM1,5To > Backups.backupdb > *MacBook Pro* (4 backups copied from TM1To, remember) ;
➔ while I still *HAVE ACCESS* to TM1To > Backups.backupdb > *MacBook Pro* (19 backups) ;
➔ *AND I HAVE ACCESS* to TM1,5To > Backups.backupdb > *MacBook Pro 2*,
where Time Machine makes actually his backups.
*NOTE :* If you *change the name* of your computer,
Time Machine *changes automatically the name* of the folder who is in Backups.backupdb folder.
➔ ① I have *never seen* such protections (Sharing and Permissions).
You are not allowed to do anything. I've tried to change permissions,
first : "R+W", after that : "Make (Me) the owner", I can tell you : DON'T DO IT !
➔ ② It's impossible to install an OS on a Time Machine disk
(I thought it would allow better permissions).
OS Installer detects the existence of a Backups.backupdb folder
and refuses to install on this disk or partition.
I have now the bad intent to install minimal OS X
1) after deleting (how ?) this folder (but not its contents, how to move it ?)
and 2) declare *after that* the disk as Time Machine disk.
➔ ③ Time Machine doesn't backup OTHER Time Machine backups
(who are in an ancient-not-choosed-for-backups Time Machine disk) NOR backups this disk
(detects, once again, the existence of a Backups.backupdb folder).
AND you can't *absolutely not remove backups from the folder the're in*
(for me, *MacBook Pro* or *MacBook Pro 2*).
➔ ④ I didn't have time to do it, but I think there would perhaps be a solution
in restoring backups in partitions specially created to receive them (having the same name,
that sort of thing) and then re-backup these partitions (vicious and complicated).
There is a function on Mac OS X Install DVD : start with it, and then (do not install)
choose "*restore from Time Machine backup*" from the menu bar (it's called "Utilities", I believe).
➔ ⑤ I *absolutely don't understand* what follows :
— If I add (in my TM1To disk) the bytes of the 19 backups
in Backups.backupdb > *MacBook Pro* folder, I obtain about *1,8 To*.
— It's impossible (and not french).
— When I check the size used with Disk Utility (NOT with Get Info),
I find a correct (?) size : *about 750 Go*.
— What are Time Machine backups made of ?
It can't be aliases (because of their size, and because *aliases suppose originals,
and where could they be ?*), or am I wrong and becoming crazy ?
➔ ⑥ If you refer to the numbers shown at the end of this text (*4 backups*),
you'll see I could *delete duplicate elements* inside these 4 backups,
to win space (but *what kind* of space *if I delete aliases* ?).
Back-In-Time (see below) says he does it.
BUT is it really the OLDEST items I have to destroy (see ⑤),
when I don't know with what kind of ARTEFACT I'm acting ?
What does Time Machine delete to create more backup space ?
Is it REALLY the OLDEST backups it treats, or duplicates, OR ?
*What you can do :*
Find and go to Tri-Edre.fr or Tri-Edre.com/fr site (it's a french company
that creates small Mac applications since fifteen years at least,
I think I already bought them several programs in 1990) ;
Their program *Back-In-Time 1.4.4* is free (Trial) and complete to download (with PDF docs too).
It is *ENTIRELY DEDICATED* to Time Machine and *things you can't do* with.
Price is about 30 €, I think it's worth.
The TRIAL version you will obtain can only work on the LAST Time Machine backup,
but you will see what's featured *AND :*
You will ACCESS to ANY Time Machine backup you want
(It has to be the last of a serie of backups, but the serie you want.
I've bought the application and own an activation key, but you understand I can't give it to you
(it would not be ethic) and anyway you would be obliged to disconnect AirPort, Ethernet etc.
•➔ I have bought the application because I thought (it's said in PDF FAQs) I could IN THE END move Time Machine backup files, but it cannot, (I'm afraid).
*BUT ANY ACCESS PROBLEM IS SOLVED.*
•➔ Back-In-Time 1.4.4 can *delete :* duplicate backups, complete backups,
or duplicate items inside one or several Time Machine backups,
things that I believe impossible with Time Machine itself
(I've seen it offers to delete ALL occurences of an item) ;
•➔ The application can also restore anything you want, where you want
(but I think Time Machine does it too ?)
•➔ Believe it or not, but since I've bought it on 15/01,
I've only worked about 2 hours (no, much more) on it
and didn't make sufficient progresses (enhancements ?)
to talk of it with sufficient experience (I'm a bad guy, don't you think ?)
•➔ Tri-Edre offers on-line support, e-mail support (and so on),
and I EVEN didn't manage to join them, because I did many other things,
and also somewhat have been disgusted *not to be able to move* or copy
*(accessible by Time Machine after that)* backups,
and I also didn't succeed (*another Time Machine inconvenient*) to DESTROY an ".inProgress"
Time Machine (package) which doesn't work anymore (several interruptions while active),
date (and name) 2010-01-27-164345.inProgress, but is used (*with failure results*)
by Time Machine (it's turned off till I find how to destroy its **** ".inProgress" package.
•➔ I've asked my Apple Adviser Level 2 to wait for news from me
before working himself on the problem, and I think I will send him this message
to prove I haven't forgotten him.
•➔ I'll send it to Tri-Edre too, in the same move.
I hope those remarks to be useful for somebody, tell me if it has helped.
I will also publish this in any Time Machine topics I find here, and in MacRumors site too.
As you can see, I need help too … Does anybody have an idea ?
Perhaps if I used a specific Copy software, it could work ?
You'll see below an example of some time I've spent to study my problem
(you will think I'm crazy).
With my kind regards, and good luck if you have other Time Machine problems !
Olivier Herrbach
<Edited by Host>
Le but du jeu est de transférer toutes les sauvegardes Time Machine
d'un volume/partition que nous appelerons "1 To"
sur un volume/partition que nous appelerons "1,5 To".
*Je rappelle que les 4 sauvegardes effectuées par Time Machine sur le 1 To
n'ont pas été reconnues comme siennes par Time Machine sur le 1,5 To,
bien que strictement identiques en taille après leur copie.
J'ai remarqué dans Back-In-Time des fichiers invisibles (tels que "TimeMachine.log"
ou quelque chose de genre), et je soupçonne fort qu'ils n'ont pas été copiés et que Time Machine,
ne les trouvant pas dans le 1,5 To, a ignoré à cause de leur absence les 4 sauvegardes décrites ici.*
*Sauvegardes effectuées par Time Machine sur 1 To :*
Path : MacBook Pro > Volumes > 1 To > Backups.backupdb > MacBook Pro
MacBook Pro contient 19 items (dont un alias appelé "Latest") :
1°) 2010-01-02-045758 Size : 913.207 B for 41.888 items comprenant :
• Hitachi 1 To Size : 907.664 B for 41.887 items 7 folders
Différence avec 1°) = - 5.543 B - 1 item (1 folder)
2°) 2010-01-03-001957 Size : 982.211.325 B for 67.490 items comprenant :
• Hitachi 1 To Size : 901.516 B for 41.886 items 6 folders
Différence avec 1°) = - 6.148 B - 1 item - 1 folder
• Samsung 500 Go Size : 981.302.510 B for 25.602 items 4 folders
Total • + • = Size : 982.204.026 B for 67.488 items
Différence avec 2°) = -7.209 B - 2 items (2 folders)
— *Supprimer • Hitachi 1 To* dans 2010-01-03-001957. Comparer les dossiers.
3°) 2010-01-04-222709 Size : 5.241.032.819 B for 26.509 items comprenant :
• Samsung 500 Go Size : 5.187.330.874 B for 19.392 items 8 folders
Différence avec 2°) = + 4.206.028.364 B - 6.210 items + 4 folders
• StartUp Disk Size : 53.692.703 B for 7.115 items 4 folders
Total • + • = Size : 5.241.023.577 B for 26.507 items
Différence avec 3°) = - 9.242 B - 2 items (2 folders)
— *Supprimer Samsung 500 Go* dans 2010-01-03-001957. Comparer les dossiers.
4°) 2010-01-05-125449 Size : 9.428.705.396 B for 204.915 items comprenant :
• HD 250 Go Size : 9.374.308.265 B for 181.575 items 7 folders
• Samsung 500 Go Size : 692.898 B for 16.222 items 8 folders
Différence avec 3°) = - 5.186.637.976 B - 3.170 items
• StartUp Disk Size : 53.692.703 B for 7.115 items 4 folders
Total • + • + • = Size : 9.428.693.866 B 204.912 items
Différence avec 4°) = - 11.530 B - 3 items (3 folders)
— Supprimer • StartUp Disk dans 2010-01-04-222709. IDENTIQUE.

Dear James Pond,
Thank you once again, and, don't be afraid, I will be as short as possible,
but I need to use your last reply (I've cut all what was already said).
JP ➔ You can copy an entire set of backups, but you cannot copy part of it successfully. See #18 etc.
JP ➔ Read this from the first paragraph: "you cannot copy only selected backups,
or merge two (or more) sets of backups." The structure of the backups simply will not allow it.
I've read it, and found it regrettable. And I've also read, after that, what were the solutions under Leopard and Snow Leopard, and my conclusion is that it's a *dead end* for me. In short,
— I can't move (by drag and drop) the 1To's Backups.backupdb folder (containing MacBook Pro, 19 backups, access) to 1,5To, because there exists already the Backups.backupdb folder created by copy on 12/01 with Apple Assistance (containing [MacBook Pro, 4 backups of 19, no access] and [MacBook Pro 2, 15 backups, access]). I don't even know if it could be deleted by the copy (and I don't wanna do that anyway) ;
— I can't rename (and what for, I already forgot it) any Backups.backupdb folder nor delete it ;
— I can't copy any Computer'sName folder (entire set containing backups), being in a Backups.backup.db folder, into another Backups.backupdb folder ;
— I can't copy any (or all of an entire set) YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS backup(s), being in a Computer'sName folder, into another Computer'sName folder (even if it would be empty).
— Saying NONE in Time Machine Preferences and putting it to OFF is simply no use.
All is said. What I can try to do is :
— Delete (not with Finder, but with Back-In-Time) all duplicate things I find in all backups and also entire duplicate backups (I have full access to all with the software) ;
— Restore each of the reduced-to-minimum backups obtained in specially right-sized partitions wearing the YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS name of each restored backup. Time Machine doesn't backup his backups, but will backup these partitions.
I'm afraid to be actually completely running out of the target, when I read what I write … It's time to go to bed !
Reminder (OH) : Where did you find these amazing informations ?
JP➔ Some of it is detailed here: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/10/12/roadto_maco[]sx_leopard_timemachine.html
➤ Thank you ;
JP➔ and here:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2007/10/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/14
➤ Thank you too ;
JP➔ You have to understand the structure. When TM does the first backup, yes, it copies everything.
On subsequent backups, it copies what's new or changed, but also makes "hard links" (sort of like aliases) to the copies of the things that didn't change. That's how it can only back up a few things each time, but show you a complete "snapshot" of the way your entire system looked at the time of every backup.
➤ I'll do my best to understand.
JP➔ Time Machine deletes backups under two conditions. See the first part of #12 in the Frequently Asked Questions User Tip, also at the top of this forum.
Under normal circumstances, you should not have to delete any backups. See the rest of #12.
➤ I understood why Time Machine didn't delete oldest backups : they were not weeklies ones.
Reminder (OH) : How can I destroy the (corrupted ?) not working "2010-01-27-164345.inProgress" in 1,5 To, which causes Time Machine to abort any backup of any size I ask ?
JP➔ Why do you think it's corrupted? TM is designed to "recover" a partial backup.
➤ I'll verify that with the little Tools/Apps I discovered in your FAQ User Tip document and downloaded immediately.
Why didn't Apple tell me anything ? It's my fault, I'm perhaps not clear and not demanding enough more from them.
JP➔ You cannot install OSX on a disk containing TM backups. That's because they need to be on separate disks.
Technically, you could put them on separate partitions of the same disk, but that would not be a good idea.
➤ I never told you that (there would be no interest at all). I talked about the same location, to see if it would allow me more permissions, but if all works without doing it, it's really no use.
JP➔ Sorry, I don't know what that means.
➤ I'm sorry, I didn't explain : "but if all works" meant : Copy Backups.backupdb, "without doing it" meant : Install OSX.
➤ If I install an OSX BEFORE, Time Machine will REFUSE completely to backup on it, it's understood.
JP➔ Correct. The partition you're running from will not be an option in TM Preferences > Select Disk. That prevents TM from backing-up it's own backups!
➤ Would it be so absurd ? Maybe it could resolve my actual problem ?
I think you are right, but I don't know why. I trust you.
Reminder (OH) : "I will not bore you again except if I don't find a specific answer to an unknown-never-seen-incredible malfuction."
JP➔ Don't worry about that -- thats what this forum is for, especially if you're still having problems.
➤ It's seems in fact that there is no possible solution, except what I said above and is certainly crazy/out of subject.
Just try to be as clear and concise as you can.
And please don't post the same things repeatedly -- it wastes your time and ours, and can confuse other folks.
➤ You're absolutely right and I tried to do so this time, and I'm sorry because I see it's still (far) not enough (short).
Thank you once more. I wish you a good evening and week-end. Here it's 01:40 AM.
With my kind regards
Olivier Herrbach
[email protected]

Time Machine backup FROM multiple drives?

I'm in the process of choosing a new MacPro, someone on these forums recommended Digilloyd's Mac Performance Guide as a good place to get help setting up a new mac for speed. The simplified version of what he advocates is replacing the stock internal drive with an SSD drive, on which you put the OS, apps & home folder. He then recommends creating a 0-raid stripe from 3 other drives to separate & hold your data, then using the forth internal bay drive (or another 0-raid stripe of the leftover, slower portions of various partitions of the drives) for Time Machine.
My question is, can Time Machine backup both drives (boot & data raid-0) or would I have to choose one of them?
+The more I read, the more confused I get+.

OK, I've scanned through the various articles. My thoughts are still essentially the same, and that is just how effective the entire system is when using multiple partitions from several drives to combine into multiple RAIDs. In reality this is not speed effective if the RAIDs need to be accessed concurrently. A read/write head can only be in one place at a time meaning that when one partition on the drive is being accessed, the OS cannot concurrently access another partition on the same drive.
Essentially this is how I understand the configuration at a simplistic level. Let's suppose we have two hard drives that we'll call Drive A and Drive B. Each drive is partitioned into two equally sized volumes that we'll refer to as follows:
....................... *Drive A* ......................... *Drive B* ......
Volume................. 1 ..................................... 3 ............
Volume................. 2 ..................................... 4 ............
Now, we will make two RAID arrays. RAID A uses Volume 1 and Volume 3, and RAID B uses Volume 2 and Volume 4.
Suppose you want to copy data from RAID A to RAID B. In order to do this the OS must first copy data from RAID A before it can write the data to RAID B. However, if RAID A was created using two separate drives (say, Drive A and Drive B,) and RAID B was created using two separate drives (say, Drive C and Drive D,) then the OS can copy from RAID A while concurrently writing to RAID B. This is physically possible because two read/write heads are involved instead of one. Theoretically the second construct is going to be much faster than the first construct.
My second observation is with regard to the reliance on external storage. A 2nd or 3rd generation Mac Pro's SATA bus is capable of a data interface rate of 3.0 Gb/sec. Firewire 800 is capable of 800 Mb/sec. The MP's internal SATA bus can support data transfer rates nearly four times that of Firewire. A modern hard drive is capable of saturating the Firewire bus, but not the internal SATA bus. The higher interface rate of the SATA bus means it's much better suited for truly fast RAID arrays. This is not the case for the Firewire bus.
External Firewire arrays are better suited for storage that does not require frequent or fast access.
Now with all this said it makes more sense to fully understand what your overall storage needs are then consider suitable designs. One need not rely on complicated RAID arrays if they aren't required. The focus should be on data access, data storage, and backup needs.
Although it's nice being able to brag at the cocktail party about having a fast SSD for your boot drive, let's consider how often you even need to boot the computer. I put my computers to sleep when they aren't in use. I never boot the computer unless a software update requires it or the computer has crashed completely. I haven't had the latter occur very often - mainly when I'm experimenting. Literally days, weeks, or months may go by before I reboot the computer. So a fast SSD boot drive would be for me a hugh waste of money.
My 1st generation Mac Pro is set up for my needs. It has four 500 GB fast Hitachi enterprise level hard drives. I use enterprise level drives that cost more because the computer is always on, so I want drives that will be reliably working. I used to have four Maxtor 300 GB drives that lasted for four years before I replace them with the Hitachis. My setup has one drive partitioned into a startup volume and a Boot Camp volume. One drive is my 'scratch' drive used for different OS system versions and/or seed testing. Two drives are configured as a mirrored RAID and used as the primary backup for the boot volume. The boot volume is 450 GBs and the Windows volume is 50 GBs. There's no backup for the Windows volume at the present time. Backups are usually done in the late afternoon using a backup utility. Presently that utility is Synk Standard, but I've also used Synchronize! Pro X and Carbon Copy Cloner. Backups are done on a fixed schedule in the background so they are virtually transparent to me. I use a mirrored RAID for backup to provide redundancy. If one backup drive fails hopefully the other will still be usable to protect the backup. I also have one external Firewire drive that contains a clone of the startup volume. The clone is updated monthly by incremental backup. It's for security in the worst case scenario that both drives in the mirrored RAID were to fail simultaneously.
Now, my need for frequent and fast access to data such as might be needed for streaming music or video is non-existent, so my configuration is one that is well-suited to my needs. You'll note that it's both simple and practical while providing data backup that's doubly secure.

Remote Time Machine backup over VPN, high data usage?

I have a remote Mac mini Server running 10.10.1 in a hosted environment. I'm attempting to perform a Time Machine backup from a MacBook Pro, also running Yosemite, over VPN.
While TM does see the AFP share over VPN and is backing up, it's been working at it for almost 36 hours now. I understand than uploading a lot of data takes time, but I noticed that Activity Monitor shows that over 30GB of data has been uploaded while the TM progress bar states that only 6.35GB (of ~20GB) has been transferred. Why such a difference? I know that VPN will introduce some overhead, but this just seems ridiculous.
Does anyone have any insight into what is happening? Better yet, can anything be done to fix it?
I actually purchased the mini server for the primary purpose of having remote TM backups, but this type of data rate and transfer is almost making it look impractical.

Time Machine is a very network intensive process, it has to check to see what files have changed this requires comparing between any existing backups and the Mac itself, it may have to prune existing backups to make more room this requires various commands, it of course has to copy new or altered files, it also has to verify all of this. On top of all this as you said the VPN system itself has an overhead and TCP/IP itself does so as well.
While >30GB vs 6.35GB does seem an excessive ratio it is not impossible. It should be noted even a local first backup (the biggest) can take a great deal of time, however typically subsequent backups are a lot smaller and hence quicker.
If you were able to do a local backup and do the same measurements of amounts transferred this would at least show if the amount is normal.

Understand Time Machine Backups

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