Re: Time Machine: Spit!!!

T i m <news@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:14:09 +0000, thewildrover@xxxxxx (Andy Hewitt)
wrote:


Quite, but this is a thread about TM!

Since when has that made any difference. ;-)

Oh so true :-/

[..]
Unless it has software included to control it, I don't see how.

It does and that's *the point* of this dongle. It has a virtual CD
thing like these USB BB dongles that autorun on insertion.

OK, fair enough. The Maplin page doesn't make that clear.

The
implications are that it has no such control.

Plug in, click 'Yes' to the agreement (the first time on that machine)
and away it goes.

OK.

[..]

It appears this solution might also need a click to TM ... like 'No'
don't use it'. ;-) Unfortunately it also seems happy to restore the
existing data that's on there (telling me it's a windows backup) but
didn't give me any backup options., probably because there was no Mac
friendly space on the external drive. I'll pop it in W7 and shrink
that partition down and then use DU to put a suitable one on there as
well (what type would I need)?

That may not work, although I'm not sure, as I've not tried it myself.

This backup dongle onto an external drive with a suitable Mac
partition?

No, mixing a Windows partition with a Mac Partition. I expect you'll
have to choose one partition map system, although you can choose
different formats on each partition.

For TM to use a drive it does need to be formatted in HFS+ with a GUID
or Apple Partition map. Formatting a partition to HFS+ is fine, but
you'll have to set all partitions to the same partition map type - it
won't work on a MBR disk, or one formatted for Windows (according to
Help).

So what would you recommend for a file system for this Mini / Backup
(under OSX) then please?

For best results:

PPC Mac, partition Apple Partition Map
Intel Mac, Partition GUID

and seems to work predictably enough on my system
- at least as *I* expect it to work anyway :-).

I'm sure you are right (although not so for some there).

Being a little pedantic, it works 'predictably', but not always in a
manner that some require.

That's not quite what I'm reading here (but I could easily be reading
'it ate my data' and not realising that was what it was supposed to do
... under any circumstances).

No, that was quite predictable, although maybe not expected by the OP. A
case of RTFM IMHO!

TM backs up your data, creating a timeline of everything you've saved,
or deleted. You can go back to any time or date and pick out a file you
deleted, or may have become corrupt, and restore it to the main system.
You can also reinstall a user, or a full bootable system, either from a
previous point, or just the latest. Obviously a file created and deleted
in between hourly saves isn't going to be in the backup.

The timeline extends back as far as the data will fit onto your backup
drive. Once it's full, TM has to, obviously, make room for new files to
be added, so the oldest files are deleted in a rolling fashion.

When the OP attatched an external drive, TM attempted to back this up
(any drives attached can be backed up), but before it could be excluded.
TM will have looked at the data on the new drive, and calculated the
space needed, so will have had to delete enough files in the existing
backup to make room for the new data.

Quite predictable, no?

I agree that this may not be ideal in some cases, particularly where a
TM backup drive is getting full. Apple do give recommendations about
capacity required for TM drives, based on the source drives.

A simple solution is to simply turn off TM while you attach an external
drive, and add it to the exclusion list. It should then ignore it each
time it's attached.


That's the same for most software though - you
can't please all of the people all of the time, etc.

<Nods>

Possibly a good solution for those on older systems that don't have Time
Machine though.

Or less tekky family members with Windows as well (to make full use of
it and do something TM couldn't do).

Would a 'less tekky' family member be likely to have both a Mac and
Windows machine?

Quite possibly (my Mum and Dad have one each). My point was more that
with the dongle you CAN do both.

In the case of different family members having their
own machine, would you really want to risk all their backups on one
piece of hardware?

Versus not doing a backup at all, yes.

There is that of course.

I have a Windows machine here, but it's not got anything on it that even
warrants the cost of a cheap backup drive, however, it has one, and I
just use the built in backup software as supplied with Windows (which
took a lot more effort than TM).

Indeed, 'takes effort'. I was just mentioning this dongle thing (in a
thread about backing up) as something that some might find handy for
their friends / family that they know they should do some sort of
backup but don't.

Fair enough.

I also like it's portability. You could take your backup to any
machine with no matching backup software and restore your data. Or
backup that machine etc, and to any USB drive (they sell a ClickFree
drive as well).

How would TM cope under that scenario (multiple machines locally to
the same drive shared about)?

It's possible, although not necessarily cheaply. I can do it by
connecting a drive to my Airport Extreme, and then all Macs with TM can
backup to that drive. Personally I wouldn't do that, it's just increased
risk of losing backup data for multiple machines IMHO.

And way way too complicated. This was just a practical down_n_dirty
solution that would allow even the most lazy and non technical person
actually have a reasonable chance of saving some of their most
important data.

Not really that complicated, just too expensive (although I do have an
Airport Extreme).

I certainly wouldn't want to be using a single backup drive as a source
for multiple machines though. Far too much risk of losing stuff for my
liking.

Me neither, so we share the dongle but have a drive each. ;-)

Righto - meaning that your backup isn't constant on one machine then?

The whole point of TM is to be able to restore, whether it's a new hard
drive, or a reinstall, or to a newly purchased Mac. You can choose to
restore from a given point in time, and whether to restore an entire
system, or just user data.

Of course and from what I've read here (of those who have actually got
TM running and had to use it in earnest and it has behaved as they
expected ... which isn't everyone by the look of it) it's a very
clever / good solution.

I think it behaves perfectly well, you just need to understand what it's
doing, that's all.

I was only making light hearted comparisons. ;-)

I was actually quite puzzled that they've made a rare bit of Mac
supported hardware, that's actually pretty much redundant. For anyone
with 10.5 and and external drive, I can't see any reason for buying this
dongle.

However, for Windows users, particularly those before Vista, and those
with earlier than Mac OS 10.5, it is a good suggestion for sure.

--
Andy Hewitt
<http://web.me.com/andrewhewitt1/>
.

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