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Anyone handy with "Time Machine" on a Macbook Pro?

  • 31-03-2009 8:40pm
    #1
    henke08
    Closed Accounts Posts: 28 ✭


    Hey guys,

    Just a few questions from someone who's fairly computer illiterate...

    1) How exactly does Time Machine work? Does it simply sync. my laptop with my ext. h/d like iTunes does with my iPod?

    2) If so, it's not possible then, I assume, to have material on the ext. h/d that's NOT on my C drive?

    Cheers guys

    H


Comments

  • #2
    cornbb
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,790 ✭✭✭cornbb


    1) It doesn't sync exactly - syncing is a 2 way process whereas Time Machine only copies files in one direction (from your system disk to your backup disk). It makes incremental backups every day, you can restore pretty much any file or folder on your machine to a state that it was previously in.

    2) You can store other stuff on the hard drive too, no problem. You can do it without partitioning but it might be a better idea to partition the drive BEFORE configuring it for Time Machine - if you don't, Time Machine will keep eating away at the free space available so you might not have as much room as you like to store stuff.

    If you have e.g. a 500gb hard drive, decide how much of it you want to keep for file storage (e.g. 300gb) and that will leave around 200gb for Time Machine to do it's thing. Then tell Time Machine to use the 300gb partition and use the other one for storing your stuff. (You can use Disk Utility for partitioning)

    (By the way, what's a C drive? ;) )


  • #3
    Sad Professor
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,693 CMod ✭✭✭✭Sad Professor


    I would advise against partitioning personally. Time Machine will store all the backed up data inside a separate folder on the external hd called "Backups". If you want to store other things on that hdd you can, it won't affect Time Machine except reducing the available space for it to use like cornbb said.
    cornbb wrote: »
    (By the way, what's a C drive? ;) )
    +1 :p


  • #4
    henke08
    Closed Accounts Posts: 28 ✭henke08


    Cheers mate, sounds good!

    Still not sure what the craic is with a "C drive" though! Think I'd best just take it on the chin! ;)

    Thanks again lads!

    H


  • #5
    cornbb
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,790 ✭✭✭cornbb


    henke08 wrote: »
    Cheers mate, sounds good!

    Still not sure what the craic is with a "C drive" though! Think I'd best just take it on the chin! ;)

    Thanks again lads!

    H

    Sorry, I was just being a pedantic Mac-head ;)

    On a Mac, drives are not assigned letters like they are on a Windows machine. Your main hard disk (C drive) would be referred to as your system disk and its called Macintosh HD by default.

    Let us know if you need more advice. Time Machine is pretty fool proof and reliable really, although it would be nice if it had a few more configurable options.


  • #6
    henke08
    Closed Accounts Posts: 28 ✭henke08


    cornbb wrote: »
    Sorry, I was just being a pedantic Mac-head ;)

    On a Mac, drives are not assigned letters like they are on a Windows machine. Your main hard disk (C drive) would be referred to as your system disk and its called Macintosh HD by default.

    Let us know if you need more advice. Time Machine is pretty fool proof and reliable really, although it would be nice if it had a few more configurable options.

    Cheers mate,

    I think I've got it all sorted and backed up now. I just have one final question about what Time Machine actually does...

    Let's just say:
    On Monday I back up my hard drive that contains 10GB of music.
    On Tuesday I delete 5GB of music from my hard drive and then back up.
    On Wednesday I add 5GB of new music to my hard drive and back up.

    Does this mean that on Thursday, when I access the backed up files on my external hard drive, I find 3 separate days with 3 different amounts of data stored in each file? To put it more simply, the advantage of Time Machine is that you can revisit old versions of your hard drive - is this correct?

    Thanks again dude!

    H


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  • #7
    cornbb
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,790 ✭✭✭cornbb


    Yes exactly, if you "enter" time machine you can visit your music folder or any folder and see the state it was in on monday, tuesday, wednesday etc and restore it to that state (e.g. undelete your files) if you so wish. Enjoy.


  • #8
    henke08
    Closed Accounts Posts: 28 ✭henke08


    cornbb wrote: »
    Yes exactly, if you "enter" time machine you can visit your music folder or any folder and see the state it was in on monday, tuesday, wednesday etc and restore it to that state (e.g. undelete your files) if you so wish. Enjoy.

    Ah brilliant. What a cool little facility! :)

    Thanks a million for your help mate!

    H.


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