Time machine, MacBook Pro and moving about

windymiller · Feb 22, 2010

I'm going to buy a new external hard drive for the MacBook Pro and like the idea of using the Time Machine.

I've been reading up on it and watched a few videos etc. But I'm yet to find out how to use it if you are away from the hard drive at times. I would be unable to set it to back up every hour for instance because I'm not always using the MacBook where the Hard Drive would be. So that each time I return to the hard drive the Time Machine has chosen, do I just plug the firewire/usb back in and perform a manual back up through Time Machine.

Thanks in advance for any help.

TattooedMac · Feb 22, 2010

You should be able to set it up to do weekly, monthly or hourly and when you hook your Mac back up to TM, it will just do its thing. TM also does a back up once you decide to to your Mac off as well (or might just be with FV turned on) Not quite sure about that.
But as goo as TM is we recommend you make a bootable clone of your HD as well using either Carbon Copy Cloner or my favourite SuperDuper as TM doesnt do bootable clones of your HD.
Its a extra precautionary as if your HD fails in some way you can still use your Mac until the new HD arrives.
It doesnt take much either.
All you need to do is get info of your home folder, and get the size of it, then just make a partition say 5 MB bigger than your home folder, and make a bootable clone.

Hope it helps some

Cheers

windymiller · Feb 23, 2010

TattooedMac said:
You should be able to set it up to do weekly, monthly or hourly and when you hook your Mac back up to TM, it will just do its thing. TM also does a back up once you decide to to your Mac off as well (or might just be with FV turned on) Not quite sure about that.
But as goo as TM is we recommend you make a bootable clone of your HD as well using either Carbon Copy Cloner or my favourite SuperDuper as TM doesnt do bootable clones of your HD.
Its a extra precautionary as if your HD fails in some way you can still use your Mac until the new HD arrives.
It doesnt take much either.
All you need to do is get info of your home folder, and get the size of it, then just make a partition say 5 MB bigger than your home folder, and make a bootable clone.

Hope it helps some

Cheers

Thanks for that. I certainly have a look into the cloning tip.

chas_m · Feb 23, 2010

If the drive for Time Machine is not found, TM will simply wait until the drive is re-mounted, then do an automatic update backup.

If you have been away from your TM backup drive for a while, this may take a few minutes.

Jaygray · Feb 23, 2010

chas_m is right. It's a non-issue. Leave TM set for hourly backups. While you're traveling it will automatically skip/postpone the backups. When you return, it picks up right where it left off.

live steam · Feb 23, 2010

TattooedMac said:
You should be able to set it up to do weekly, monthly or hourly and when you hook your Mac back up to TM, it will just do its thing. TM also does a back up once you decide to to your Mac off as well (or might just be with FV turned on) Not quite sure about that.
But as goo as TM is we recommend you make a bootable clone of your HD as well using either Carbon Copy Cloner or my favourite SuperDuper as TM doesnt do bootable clones of your HD.
Its a extra precautionary as if your HD fails in some way you can still use your Mac until the new HD arrives.
It doesnt take much either.
All you need to do is get info of your home folder, and get the size of it, then just make a partition say 5 MB bigger than your home folder, and make a bootable clone.

Hope it helps some

Cheers

If the HD crashes, is there a way to retrieve files from TM on another machine?

McBie · Feb 23, 2010

Yes, you can recover files from time machine on another Mac.
Right click on the TM icon in the dock and select " Browse Other Time Machine Disks "

Cheers ... McBie

Time machine, MacBook Pro and moving about

windymiller

TattooedMac

windymiller

chas_m

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Jaygray

live steam

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