Want to use Time Machine, what do I need to do?

Looking to free up space on my computer, heard about Time Machine, but, have no clue what it is or how to use it. Do I really need to use it?

Time Machine makes incremental (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly) backups of your internal drive to an external drive. It should not be viewed as a way of saving space on your internal drive, but should be considered part of any backup scheme.
If you're running out of space on your internal drive I would recommend either getting an external drive on which to store data or upgrading your internal drive to a higher-capacity drive. I do recommend getting an external drive of at least 2-3x the size of your internal drive for a Time Machine backup, as well as an external drive using a 'clone' of your internal drive as additional backup.
While all of this (putting in a larger-capacity internal drive, investing in two external drive - one for a Time Machine backup and one for a clone) might sound expensive, drive prices have come down tremendously in the past couple of years and it's a measure of how important your data is to you: hard drives fail and it's best to have at least two backup schemes in place - I prefer Time Machine backups as well as clones. All my drives will never fail at once.
Good luck,
Clinton

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So I can't use NAV if I want to use Time Machine?

I just want to make sure I comprehend what I am reading on here and the internet in general: If I want to use Time Machine without lags, I need to disable Norton Auto Protect. So does that mean I can't have virus protection if I have TM in the "ON" setting?

If you want to use NAV, disable Auto-Protect during the initial Time Machine backup to speed things up for that initial backup. After that, turn Auto Protect back on if you'd like. You can judge for yourself, but I doubt you will notice any significant slowdown compared to when you had Auto-Protect turned on prior to using Time Machine.

HT201250 I want to use Time Machine to back up my pictures because my hard drive is full but I'm wondering if once I back up the pictures then delete them will time machine delete them off the back up too?

I want to use Time Machine to back up my pictures because my hard drive is full but I'm wondering if once I back up the pictures then delete them will time machine delete them off the back up too?

Evetually yes.
If your pictures have been in the same location (same folder, same subfolder, ...) for more than a week, then copies if them will remain in your TM backups until it fills up. They are then vulnerable to being deleted.
If they've been there for less than a week, TM could delete them as early as a month from now. If they've been there for only a few hours, chances are TM will delete them tomorrow.
This is why TM is not the best tool to use to archive data that you will be deleting from your main hard drive. Copy them to a dedicated external drive, or burn DVDs.

Just got ext HD and want to use Time Machine; questions first

I finally purchased an ext. HD with enough capacity to actually start using TM. My question is, the main reason for getting it was to back up media, mainly videos and such, things that I'd have quick access to. So, my question is, is okay to partition the drive? And if so, about how much should I allot to it? The drive is an Iomega ego and is 320GB. My iMac is a 250 GB HD with only about 100 GB's used.
Also, when I first plugged in the Iomega, it automatically took me to a Time Machine screen asking me if I wanted to use this drive for TM. I guess it's formatted for mac right out of the box. Should I click yes on this? Will it allow me to format after the fact? OR, do I need to hit "cancel" and then go into Disk Utility and set up my partition?
Many thanks. I know this is probably pretty rudimentary, but it's my first time using Time Machine.

Yes it's OK to partition a backup drive in order to use part of it for storage and the other part for TM backups. But your external drive is not large enough for both. A TM backup volume should be at least twice the capacity of the drive it backs up. In your case that means the TM volume should be at least 500 GBs to back up a 250 GB drive (it's really less important how much space is currently used then how much space could eventually be used.)
If I were you I would get a second larger external drive for TM backups. Or adopt a different backup strategy that does not involve using TM such as a simple cloned backup that you update periodically with backup software. This would only require a 250 GB volume on your external drive leaving about 70 GBs of a storage partition.
For backups you could use one of the following:
Backup Software Recommendations
1. Retrospect Desktop (Commercial)
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.

I have not used Time Machine before, but now need to back up to my external hard drive. How do I do this?

Need to back up hard drive due to needed replacement. Time machine is available to back up to external hard drive. Not clear how to do this and then to restore once the hard drive is replaced.

I would not use Time Machine for this task. Rather I suggest you clone to the external drive. You can then boot from the external drive to restore your clone. First, purchase Carbon Copy Cloner.
Clone using Carbon Copy Cloner
1. Open Carbon Copy Cloner.
2. Select the Source volume from the left side dropdown menu.
3. Select the Destination volume from the right side dropdown menu.
4. Click on the Clone button.
5. When completed select Disk Center from the Window menu.
6. Click on the Recovery HD tab then select the backup drive from the list.
7. Click on the button labeled "Create a Recovery partition for this volume."
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
You now have a fully bootable copy of your iMac's hard drive. When you receive your iMac back after the drive replacement you can boot it from this backup and use Carbon Copy Cloner to restore the backup from the external drive to the internal drive. The process is identical except you will switch the Source and Destination volumes - Source will be the external drive; Destination will be the internal drive.
Because the newly installed drive will most likely have OS X installed you can skip Steps 5-7. You can now continue to use your external backup drive by setting up scheduled backups with CCC. No need to use Time Machine.

I want to use Time Machine to restore from one IMAC to a different IMAC. How do I do that?

I use Time Capsule to back up two different IMACs. I want to use the back up from machine A to restore machine B.
When I am on machine B I can't see the back up on machine A. How do I do this?

Look at Q16.
The whole 14-17 is good to read so you understand what you are doing.
http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

Want to use Time Machine but my external HDD is NTFS formatted

Discussions suggest install NTFS ng but download failed (I'm on satellite broadband)...I need to backup my Macbook before installing Bootcamp and then I can use Windows on my Mac. I'm a new mac user and have just switch platforms. I don't want to loose the data on my Mac OR format the external HDD which is the backup of my previous WIN machine.
What is best plan.. <?> get a new HDD to exclusively Time machine to OR install Bootcamp and hope for the best...?

Lancer 10 wrote:
Discussions suggest install NTFS ng but download failed (I'm on satellite broadband)...
It's only 4 MB. Perhaps you should try again. If your satellite broadband can't handle that, perhaps you need something better, like 3G or dialup.
What is best plan.. <?> get a new HDD to exclusively Time machine to OR install Bootcamp and hope for the best...?
Time Machine requires HFS+ to work. It will create an HFS+ disk image when used with a server. For an external hard drive, I suggest you partition it into 2 volumes, one being HFS+ and the other NTFS.

I want to use time machine on a network drive

i know in the past Apple holds us hostage to buy their time capsule. With Lion now launched, is there a work around to allow families to buy there own hard drive and use it for multiple macs for time machine?
Im fairly new to Mac, convinced my wife to switch, now here we are held captive to buy a TC when we already have a fantastic 2TB drive we purchased for a fraction of the price of a TC. I dont care about wifi, I just want to save our Mini time machine to our MBP networked drive (or vice versa).
I currently have Lion on the MBP, and Leopard on the Mini. After installing and hating Lion on my MBP, i have not "upgraded" the mini. (although I am currently following the "upgrade back to Leopard" threads)
Thanks for any help or ideas.

In the past Apple was not holding you hostage by requiring you to use a Time Capsule for network Time Machine backups. Search on Google for Time machine NAS OS X (or something like that) You will find a number of drives that were working with SL.
Now, they did change the file protocol in Lion, so some of the NAS servers won't work with Lion, at the moment. So long as it is a decent company that makes the NAS they should be releasing a firmware update to get their NAS working with Lion.
One of the companies that put out a press release was Western Digital. They said they would be working on an updated firmware so that you could use it as a Time Machine drive.
Just look around the interwebs and I am sure you will find several that will work.

I want to use time machine to backup two 4 TB drives, one USB and the other thunder bolt to 2 4TB USB drives

I have a 2012 iMac running Mavericks, booting off of a external 4TB thunderbolt drive and using a separate 4TB USB drive for my pictures. I want to back up each of the drives to two USB 4TB drives with Time Machine. I cannot seem to figure out how to have multiple sources with multiple destinations.

Hello Randy,
Try excluding the drive in Time Machine settings. Take a look at the article below to go through and remove the exclusion of the external drive so that can be backed up as well.
OS X Mavericks: Exclude items from a Time Machine backup
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14182
Regards,
-Norm G.

I want to use Time Machine to ONLY BACK UP ONE FOLDER

Is that possible? Thanks!

With the "Options" button in the "Time Machine" system preference, you can list all the folders you don't want to backup. You could include the top level System and Libray folders, other user's home folders, and most folders in your home folder.

Want to use Time Machine as wireless back up only - no internet

Im searching everywhere and unable to locate how to set up my TM as a wireless back up only. Im already hooked up to the internet and only want to use the backup feature in TM. Can someone give me directions or point me to the thread? thanks

Welcome to the discussion area!
By TM, I take it that you mean Time Capsule, correct?
If you want to backup using wireless only to the Time Capsule, you have two basic configuration choices to consider:
1) Connect the Time Capsule to your existing wireless router using an ethernet connection, and turn off the wireless on the Time Capsule. Backups will occur over your current wireless network. For most users, this is the easiest and most reliable way to configure a Time Capsule for back ups.
2) Configure the Time Capsule to "join a wireless network". In this configuration, the Time Capsule can be located virtually anywhere that it can receive a good wireless signal because it becomes in effect, only a wireless backup device.
Configuring the Time Capsule to "join" a wireless network can be quite tricky, even for experienced users because you must know the exact type of security the wireless network is using. It sounds simple, but different manufacturers use different names for the same thing, and it can be a challenge to get the device configured correctly without multiple tries. If you already have an Apple main router, this will be much easier to configure.
Post back for more details.
Message was edited by: Bob Timmons

Can two HDs be backed up to the external using Time Machine

Here is my situation: I am using a MBP with the standard 160 GB HD. I am sure glad I went for the 160 GB instead of the "faster" 100 GB option because I'm down to just 15 GB now!
One huge file is my iPhoto 08 library, which has about 35 GB of photos in it - way over 20,000 photos and video clips from over 20 years now.
I want to use Time Machine to keep backups of it, but it really does take up a lot of MBP space.
I also have a portable USB HD I bought for my recent trip. It has like 240 GB of space on it - plenty to handle the iPhoto 08 library. I think there is an option in iPhoto for specifying that the library be on an external disk, right?
What I was wondering, if I put the iPhoto 08 library on the external portable USB HD, would it still get backed up with Time Machine, as though it were on my MBP internal drive?
Thanks,
doug

Time Machine will back up external drives if they are formatted in Mac OS Extended or Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Most drives ship formatted FAT32. The directions in this article are for formatting a Time Machine drive but they do a good job of getting rid of the FAT32 formatting so they will work for your purposes as well. People with PPC Macs should substitute Apple Partition Map for GUID when following the directions.
You also may have to drag the drive you want to back up out of Time Machine's "Do not back up" pane which is in System Preferences > Time Machine under Options.
+I am sure glad I went for the 160 GB instead of the "faster" 100 GB option because I'm down to just 15 GB now!+
You're skating on very thin ice. Mac OS X likes about fifteen to twenty percent of free disk space to function properly. An overly full disk can cause some extremely nasty problems.
+One huge file is my iPhoto 08 library, which has about 35 GB of photos in it - way over 20,000 photos and video clips from over 20 years now.+
One backup is not adequate for this type of data that usually has a lot of sentimental or business value. It would be best if you kept two copies of the data on different hard drives using different back up software. It would also be a very good idea to burn all your files to DVD/CD as well. One copy of the backups should be stored offsite.

HT201250 If I use Time Machine on my MacBook can I use the hard drive on the same MacBook as the back up drive ?

I want to use Time Machine but instead of using a hard drive outside of the MacBook, would I be able to use the hard drive that is in the computer?
Would I be able to use a memory stick ?

It defeats the purpose of having a backup if you keep it on the same drive. That's your safety if your drive fails.
Also, you should allow about double the space of the volume you are backing up.
EDIT: Time Machine does keep local snapshots on your drive
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4878
See this for more good TM tips...
http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html

Using time machine to backup Logic Projects

Hi
I was wondering if it is possible to use time machine to backup my Logic Projects. I have a seperate internal drive that I use to keep all my user data on, like my Logic projects. I want to use time machine to back up these projects onto a external firewire drive.
Can timemachine only backup your systems drive and therefore I would need to have my Logic projects based stored on it?

Yes - time machine can back up any drive. I am using 3 drives: system drive, a USB2 drive for Time machine backups and a firewire 800 drive for Logic Studio projects, instruments, samples, audio, etc. TM backs up my system and FW drives to the USB drive.
Time machine options (in system preferences) allow you to exclude/include drives so you just need to set it to include your second internal drive.
The only thing I'm not sure of is whether this effects the loop browser. Oddly, when I was experimenting with using aliases for Apple loops, Logic actually found the TM backup files when it couldn't locate the original GB loops! After some file moving and index deleting I cleared all loops but now I have duplicate entries again in Logic - possibly due to TM, but I have not verified this.
-Scott

Can I share an external hard drive across 2 machines both using Time Machine?

I have an iMac on Leopard and a MacBook on Snow Leopard and I want to use Time Machine to back up my iMac before migrating to Snow Leopard.
To do this I'm going to buy an external drive but before I buy it I want to check whether I can share this drive across my 2 machines both backing up using Time Machine.
Also from a drive capacity perspective is it sufficient that the external drive has the same capacity as the machine(s). If no then is there a multiplication factor that should be used.
Paul..

Hi Paul, you'll want to partition it into 2 Partitions, & ech {artition should be at least twice te size of the drive it's backing up, so 2*iMac's drive + 2*MacBook's drive for size.

Want to use Time Machine, what do I need to do?

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