Another newbie ? about time machine

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Hey all -

I was wondering if you could change the settings on how frequent time machine backs up your machine? Is this possible? Any and all help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Hwilensky
 
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Time Machine Editor

Though it can be counter productive, depends how much change there's been in the machine but having it backup more infrequently can just mean longer backups
 
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In Lion if you don't let it do the job as implemented it will do the backups temporarily on your internal hard drive unless of course you turn Time Machine off which would defeat any possible rescue of material incase of disaster.
 
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Does that happen by default in Lion? Or just on MacBooks?
 
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Time Machine was off by default on my 2 week old MBP.
 

chscag

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Does that happen by default in Lion? Or just on MacBooks?

It's on by default in Lion. The backups will continue to be made even when the external drive is disconnected. The only way to prevent it from happening is to turn off TM. Another Lion annoyance in my opinion.
 
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Clean install of lion on iMac, time machine switched on but no backups are made without external connected.

I even get the "you've not backed up for 10 days" nag.
 

chscag

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Are you sure of that? When the Time Machine external hard drive is disconnected in Lion it creates a hidden folder containing the backup images which are made at regular intervals. When the external drive is connected it copies what's in that folder to the external drive.
 
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This is how my TM Preferences looks.

last backup 11/3, nothing to indicate on local disk backups taking place.

As I understand it, if it was taking local backups I'd be able to open the time machine app and see them. Doing so just brings up an error to say the TM back up disk isn't present

tm.png
 

chscag

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Did you search your hard drive to see if there were hidden backups present? Time Machine will not show the backups unless they're on the external drive and it's attached. Read the following BLOG post which has also been substantiated by other users.
 
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That blog suggests its only MacBooks not desktops.

But I'll go looking for the backups

Update:
No hidden backups and About This Mac - Storage showing 0mb backups

Apple support doc:
Looks like its switched on automatically after the first TM backup on mobile Macs
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4878
 

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