Where to store Time Machine backups
I use Time Machine and an external HD to backup my MacBook Pro, and I had been uploading a copy of these backups to an online backup service. Recently I purchased a new external HD and moved the TM backups to this HD. When I attempted to copy newer TM backups to the online backup service, however, it was taking days. After calling the backup service, I was told that they do not recommend backing up TM folders and that (according to the company rep) these TM backups would not allow me to restore my MacBook. The rep claimed that their backups were done in such a way that the TM backups would no longer be usable for a Mac OS restore. I do not want to store my TM backups on an external HD only, as I've had external HDs fail in the past. Does anyone have any suggestions as to where I could store copies of my TM backups? Thank you for your help.
I had been uploading a copy of these backups to an online backup service.
You should very much not do that. It won't work the way you expect, and anyway you should never back up a backup. All backups should be made directly from the original data. Use an online backup tool that can do it. There are many of them. I don't have a specific recommendation.
Similar Messages
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I am really hating Apple right now. Where is my Time Machine backup?
OK, kinda a long story. Pardon the ranting, but if feels like everything is going wrong and I'm getting pretty tired of it.
I was going along nicely with my Mac. Then I had a time-sensitive iMovie project that was going totallly screwy. I ended up buying Lion hoping that would fix the problem. It didn't spent several more hours trolling forums and figured out it was a weird problem with the software.
So... then I was stuck with Lion. Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Rosetta Stone, etc. don't work on it. Not cool. Would have been nice if I was warned before doing this. So, I figured I'd go back in my Time Machine backup. However, I was really busy and didn't get to it until a few weeks later. I'd never actually used Time Machine, but when I went into it I was astonished to find that it backed up on the hour, filling up the external hard drive so it only kept backups for a few weeks. And of course, it was too late to backup to my old OS. So not cool. Who in the world needs an hourly backup??? I'd much prefer a weekly backup a little further back. That's just absurd.
So, anyway, I had the old Time Machine backup. I figured if I messed up, I could always restore to the recent Lion backup. So, I restored to Snow Leopard from the disk, wiping the hard drive. Then, I tried to go in and get my files off of the external hard drive/Time Machine backup. It didn't recognize I even had an external hard drive plugged in.
So... I decided to go back to Lion, maybe I needed to be in Lion to access the Lion backup. Spent hours putting Lion back on. And... still doesn't even recognize that there's an external hard drive plugged in. What gives?
I've been trying to think of what all could be the problem here. Did I just think I was backing up to the external hard drive this whole time, when really I was backing up to the computer? No, because it would send me reminders when the external hard drive wasn't plugged in. Is the cord or something broken to the external hard drive? I suppose it's possible, but just a few hours before I saw the Time Machine backups... And there is power to it.
Please help! I don't know how all my data was lost!OK, solved my own problem, but am posting here in case someone else has the same problem. It totally does not make sense, especially considering that it stopped after I reinstalled Lion, but the good thing is I have my files back.
I scoured the web and found a lot of other people are having the same problem. Most of them didn't have a clue how to fix it. This discussion was the most helpful to me: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2569766?start=30&tstart=90
So, I went to the WD page and followed the instructions. The first suggestion was to plug it directly into a wall, because it may not be getting enough power from a power cord. I did this and it fixed the problem. Who would have guessed?
Anyway, if anyone else is having this problem, go to your manufacturer's website for help. Here's WD's help: http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1164/related/1/session/L2F2LzEvd GltZS8xMzI2MzIzMjUwL3NpZC82dmo0blZOaw%3D%3D -
How can I store time machine backups on Amazon Glacier?
Hello,
How can I use time machine to backup my mac and have the time machine files stored on Amazone Glacier? upload is easy but I wonder how to restore a backup on Glacier to the mac.
Thanks.You need to create the sparsebundle on external drive.. then copy it to the cloud store area. You cannot directly backup TM to the cloud.
And please note.. sparsebundle is a single file.. if a small file inside it corrupts.. the whole thing is corrupt. It might be repaired perhaps but any failure is far more serious than a failure in a simple backup.
I still think TM is unsuitable. You are far better using a software that can rsync to backup.. ie CCC. -
Where is the Time Machine backup of my home/user folder?
I just realized that Time Machine hasn't created any backups of my "home directory"/"user folder" ... i.e. I can't find any of my documents or pictures (e.g. the iPhoto library) on the external hard drive.
I checked whether I somehow had listed my user folder on the "exclusion list", but the only thing listed there was the external hard drive (which makes sense).
Does anyone know what I can do about this? I really need Time Machine to backup my photos!!!
(I am using Mac OS X 10.6.4)See Pondini's TM FAQs for starters.
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I cannot load Maverick on my iMac HD. It reports that my HD is used for Time Machine backups and will not load to that drive. I do not use this drive for backups. I use an external 1 TB WD My Book for backups as well as Super Duper Backups. Can anyone offer advice. Thanks.
Welcome to Apple Support Communities
You have got the "Backups.backupdb" folder in the root level of your hard drive. This is the folder used by Time Machine to save backups to, and the OS X Mavericks installer thought that your hard drive is being used to store Time Machine backups
To fix this, open a Finder window, select the Go menu (on the menu bar) > Go to Folder, and type:
Then, delete "Backups.backupdb" and empty the Trash. Finally, open the Mavericks installer from the Applications folder and follow the steps -
I run a small office with three machines:
new Core i5 iMac, just purchased, (refurbished from Apple) running MacOS 10.8 (1 TB HDD)
Macbook, first generation, running MacOS 10.6.8 (160 GB HDD)
G4 iMac, used as a file server, being slowly phased out of use, running MacOS 10.4.11 & 9.2.2 "classic mode" (300 GB HDD)
I also store a common iPhoto library on a LaCie Rugged 300 GB hard disk, which will go back and forth between the new iMac and the MacBook.
My Time Machine questions:
I plan to use LaCie's SilverKeeper backup utility to back up the G4 iMac and the LaCie iPhoto drive, so they are not relevant.
My concern is with the newer iMac and the Macbook. Currently, the greatest capacity I have on an external hard drive is 500 GB. If I plug the new iMac into a 500 GB hard disk and start up Time Machine, will the Time Machine back up process really work? I do not have anywhere near 1 TB of data to back up. In fact, up until recently, the new iMac's predecessor was a (now dead) MacBook Pro and I was able to back up both laptops, the G4 iMac and the iPhoto drive on one 500 GB hard drive.
The other concern I have: I studied Time Machine on both Lynda.com and on my old MacBook Pro before it died. (It ran MacOS 10.6.8) I'm a little confused. Can a single backup drive be used to store Time Machine backups between two or more computers? It looks like Time Machine wants to use an entire hard drive per computer. Can I partition an external drive to have more than one mountable volume available for periodic Time Machine backups? Also: has the Time Machine interface changed significantly from MacOS 10.6 ("Snow Leopard") to today's 10.8 ("Mountain Lion")?
I've been hunting for deals on the internet for new backup hard drives. Does anyone here use cheap, USB-only portable bus-powered hard drives (like LaCie's Rugged drives) for easily carried, easily stowed Time Machine backup drives? If so, what brand and model do you use and how well does your drive-of-choice work? Does anyone here buy empty USB enclosures and laptop drives to assemble their own cheap Time Machine backup drives? If so, what is your preferred scheme?
Thanks in advance!
--WAWalt_Atwood wrote:
Do I need to partition an external backup hard disk for use with more than one computer?
That's usually a good idea. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #4.
Should I at least put folders on the hard disk for each backup to be separate, or won't that matter?
You can't. Time Machine automatically creates a Backups.backupdb folder at the top level of a directly-connected drive, and will only back up to it. For backups made over a network, it creates a sparse bundle disk image named for the Mac it's backing-up at the top level of the drive, and will only back up to that.
Since you have an iMac and a MacBook, you have a much better alternative than switching the drive from one Mac to the other: Connect the drive directly to the iMac and let the iMac back up to it directly. Then back the MacBook up to that same drive (preferably a separate partition) over your network. That way, both can back up hourly as long as they're awake (and the MacBook is in range of your network) automatically. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #22 for setup instructions. -
I just restored my 13" MBP i5 at the apple store to the newest version of Lion after issues with a previous Time Machine backup from Snow Leopard- this time I created a new account and just ported files and folders, and now MS Office doesn't work.
^^ that's the main problem. Here's the full history.
I bought a new 13" i5 MBP, early 2011 edition. I had an old white Macbook 2.14 ghz core2duo on Snow Leopard. I attempted to port over my time machine backup, but encountered problems in that my User was inaccessible from the new computer after the import finished, and I had to go in and change the root password, etc, and for some reason or another, I couldn't install any programs at all from that administrator's account. By "couldn't" I mean I could install them, but upon installation they would never boot. So, I took it to the apple store and did a clean install from the most up to date Lion OSX. Then, I created a brand new admin account, instead of trying to import the old one, and things seemed great. Then, I just imported my old files from the TM backup, but not any system settings, permissions, or user data. Just my Docs, pics, vids, apps, and itunes stuff.
Here's where things get weird again. I imported this stuff under the name "old", but all of these folders have a red negative sign on them, marking them as restricted. So, from my main admin account, I cannot even peruse these folders. Since I didn't import user data, I can't sign in to the "old" account to change permissions. I already tried to change the permissions from system preferences, but that didn't change anything. And now, for whatever reason, of all the apps that were imported then, MS Office is the only set of apps that does not work. When I click on it, it just says there was a problem and asks if I'd like to send a report to apple. I tried reinstalling it to no avail. I'm an English student, so i really need access to Word. Can anyone help? The Apple store is a major detour for me and would like to fix this issue myself.Most likely you have Office 2004 which are PPC-only applications and will not work in Lion. Upgrade to Office 2011. Other alternatives are:
Apple's iWork suite (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.)
Open Office (Office 2007-like suite compatible with OS X.)
NeoOffice (similar to Open Office.)
LibreOffice (a new direction for the Open Office suite.) -
Before I upgraded from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion, I thought I did all the appropriate updades (to 10.6.8) and backups, I did a Time Machine backup literally right before I did the install. During the install of Mountain Lion, my hard drive crashed and I had to get it replaced... which was covered by a Protection Plan. When I got the computer back, it had the desired OS (10.8.3), and I was told that if I did a Time Machine restore from my last backup, everything would kinda "catch up" to the current OS. So, just about everything "looks" the same as it did on the day when my original hard drive crashed (everything organized the same way on my desktop, multiple settings saved as they were before the crash)... but when I open iPhoto, it asks me what Library I want it to use. There was no separate folder that I had my original photos saved in... but I always was able to find the root files within iPhoto. But now iPhoto can't find them. Where the **** are they... and did the update have something to do with them being moved, or worse...?
Thanks for any helpCertainly you can restore files with Time machineas I noted in my original post - that is what TM is all about
1 - launch Time Machine
2 - go back to the when you made the backup
3 - select the iPhoto library (by default in your pictures folder)
4 - click the restore button
See - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US - for more details
One quote from that article
To restore, select the file/folder and click the "Restore" button. The file will automatically be copied to the desktop or appropriate folder. If the file you are restoring has another file in the same location with the same name, you will be prompted to choose which file to keep or keep both.
And also from my first post
And you may need to post in the Time Machine forum as this is really a TM question not an iPhoto question
LN -
Can anybody tell me how I can locate my photos from I Photo in the Time Machine backups as I seem to have lost most of 2011 after installing Lion.
Many thanksTo recover individual photos open iPhoto and use the File ➙ Browse Backups menu option.
Click to view full size
That will take you into iPhoto in Time Machine where you can search for the phtoos and restore them.
To restore the entire library, close iPhoto, go to the Pictures folder, enter Time Machine, go back in time till you get the library you want to restore, select it and use the Restore button.
Click to view full size
OT -
Time Machine Backup only one-fifth the size of my disk. Where's the rest?
I have a startup disk with about 250 gigs in my G5 dual. I have a 500 GB disk for Time Machine. It runs when it's supposed to and I've used it to recover a few lost files successfully. I felt safe until I noticed that the Time Machine disk has only about 50 GB on it! How is this possible? What do I need to do?
When I click on options in the TIme Machine preference pane, I see the Time Machine Backups disk excluded (as I would expect) and I have excluded an additional disk, and it says in the lower right "Total included: 250.0 GB" What is going on? I feel as if I definitely cannot rely on Time Machine if I had to do a complete restore. I'd be missing 80% of my files!If Time Machine runs into a problem with a corrupted file, it may skip the balance of the entire folder holding that file (or more), and then if there are no changes in the folder it is skipping, it doesn't pick up on it in later backups. Obviously this is not ideal behavior, but that's the way it works right now.
Here's what you can do:
Reboot from your Leopard install DVD (hold the "c" key while booting until you see the spinning gear on the gray Apple screen, and, if the DVD is not already inserted, insert it just after you press and release the power button).
When asked, select your language.
At the next screen, where you would normally begin an Install, INSTEAD Quit out of the Leopard Installer using the menu bar. Select your main hard drive as the drive to boot from.
When it boots up, log in as normal. Then open Applications / Utilities / Console and select "All Messages" in the column on the left. If this is the first time you've done this, it will take a while to get itself organized and the initial list of messages may be empty.
Then open System Preferences / Time Machine so you can watch what is happening.
Then right-click (or CTRL-click) on the Time Machine icon in the Dock and select Back Up Now from the pop up menu.
Booting from the Leopard install DVD like this will cause Time Machine to ignore the file system event logs of what's changed (because the drive may have been altered without those logs reflecting it), and instead do a Deep Traversal of your main hard drive's file system looking at everything for changes since the last backup. You will see a message to this effect in the Console. Time Machine's "preparing" stage will be unusually long -- for your size of file system it could be an hour or so -- but eventually it will finish the Deep Traversal and it will backup whatever needs to be backed up.
NOW, look at the Console for any error messages during this. The infamous -1088 error is the one most people have found. That indicates a file Time Machine has decided is corrupted -- causing it to give up on a folder. Get rid of those files/folders or put them in the Do Not Back Up list, and do another backup until you have no more such errors.
You should now have a complete backup on your Time Machine disk.
--Bob -
Where can I find mail messages I saved in the time machine backup
I am trying to retrieve e-mail messages I had saved in folders from my time machine backup. Where do I find them ?
Put the icon in the menu bar (if not already there) ->System Preferences->Time Machine->Show Time Machine status in menu bar.
Then, while in Mail, click the icon, and select "Enter Time Machine"
Locate the emails in Time Machine, then select Restore. -
My time machine backup disc has apps from Mountain Lion that won't open now that I have Yosemite. They all say need to be upgraded to Yosemite. Go to app store. But app store sees that I have yosemite so doesn't even show me an udate option. How can Update these files??
How do you know they won't run in Yosemite? You're not trying to fiddle with stuff in your backup from the Finder, are you? If so you are likely to render that backup unusable.
WHen when you restore them from your backup, they should be updateable. -
1) Where do I find the "Time Machine menu" and the choice to "Enter Time Machine" (as mentioned in the "Restoring data from Time Machine backups" section in the Mac Support article "Mac Basics: Time Machine")?
2) How would I restore e.g. a particular photo from a backup I made with Time Machine? I can see how this is done with Word documents, but can't see how to do it with photos?Welcome to Apple Support Communities
1. The Time Machine icon is on the menu bar.
2. If you want to do that with individual photos, it's the same way as for documents. If you want to do it with iPhoto, you have to restore the whole iPhoto library, not only one photo -
Permissions issue with Time Machine backup store
I am struggling with a Time Machine permissions issue on an iMac running OS X 10.10.2 + OS X Server 4.0.3, and backing itself up to an external USB disk.
Backups complete successfully, but I am unable to carry out any user-level operations such as accessing the "time travel" interface via Enter Time Machine from the menu bar. Invoking Enter Time Machine fails with the error Can't connect to a current Time Machine backup disk. Likewise, although tmutil will correctly list the backup destination, tmutil listbackups produces an error:
$ tmutil listbackups
2015-02-05 16:53:19.413 tmutil[29181:2324148] Error enumerating (null): The file “Backups.backupdb” couldn’t be opened because you don’t have permission to view it.
No machine directory found for host.
My system logs are full of similar error messages from Finder.
On the back volume, the permisisons to the store are set to owner root and group wheel, and there is an access control list applied to the directory and Backups.backupdb:
$ ls -lae
total 2688
drwxrwxr-x 12 root wheel 476 Feb 4 22:29 .
drwxrwxrwt@ 9 root admin 306 Feb 4 11:57 ..
0: group:everyone deny add_file,add_subdirectory,directory_inherit,only_inherit
drwxrwx---+ 6 root wheel 204 Jan 30 13:49 Backups.backupdb
0: group:everyone deny add_file,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,writeattr,writeextattr,chown
-rwxr-xr-x@ 1 root wheel 115716 Nov 13 02:43 tmbootpicker.ef
The problem is clearly the drwxrwx--- permissions applied to the store. I can temporarily revert these with chmod, after which all the user-level operations described above work correctly. But on the next backup, backupd will revert the permissions to give wheel write access and remove rx privileges for everyone else. It doesn't leave anything in the system log to suggest why it is making this change.
I have a MacBook also running OS X 10.10.2, without the Server pack. This also backs up to a (different) external volume. On this volume the owner, group and access control list for the store are set as above, but the permissions are (and remain) what I would have expected, drwxr-xr-x.
Is there any obvious reason why backupd should be modifying the permissions in this way — and is there any way to stop it?Thanks - I was seeing exact same problem on one of my client's machines (10.10.2 with OS X Server). I could see wrong group of "wheel" but wasn't certain that just changing to "staff" would be enough - but seems to have sorted things out
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Just bought a Macbook Pro. I want a clean install so won't use a Time Machine backup but how can I install the software I bought from Apple Store? can I just delete it from the old machine that is going to someone else?
The ne
The new machine has Mavericks which is fine. And I will leave it as is. I don’t want anything from my old machine other than 2 apps that I will need on the new one. I want to be able to install those apps that I bought from the App Store onto my new computer. I assume Apple doesn’t want me to have the apps installed on 2 machines at the same time so I wonder if just uninstalling them from my old machine will release them for re-install on the new one.
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