Time Machine or not??

I have a new MBP and am concerned about keeping it backed up. It is already a month old. I have a friend who backs up to a flash drive, but don't really know if that is the solution I am looking for. Any input on whether the investment in a time machine would be appreciated! Thanks!;D

You don't need to invest in Time Machine per se, as it's already on your computer. You will however need to buy an external hard drive, the size of which depends on how big your MBP's HDD is.

I wouldn't recommend backing up to a thumb drive, mainly because after a while it won't be able to back up everything you want due to size limitations. I would however, recommend that you back up your MBP. I've only been here a few months and have lost count of the amount of people that have lost everything because they didn't have a back up.

All you have to do, is buy an external HDD, format it to the correct Mac format (HFS Extended Jounaled - I believe), plug it in, open time machine and away you go. As you've had your MBP for a month, the initial back up will take a while, but incremental back ups after that will only record any changes made.

Having a desktop makes the process for me almost unnoticeable, but it's good insurance to have incase anything goes wrong.

I have a 1TB USB drive connected to my AirPort Extreme and other than the share point icon popping up on my desktop, I dont even notice.

I will say this, make sure you do nothing else with the drive you designate as the TM drive, it can fill very quickly in some cases. It only replicates incremental changes based on the previous backup, but that can be big in some cases (installing new apps, or adding movies or other things like that).

I got my WesternDigital 1TB drive for $110 at BestBuy during a sale they had. That is not a lot, considering.

As a pointer, I would suggest making your Time Machine backup drive twice the size of your internal drive. I have a 1TB internal, my time machine is a 2TB fire-wire 800.

The latest update to synology nas drives adds time machine capability, i use this as the mbp sees it directly in finder and works with no settings needed

I say that if you are at all concerned about backing up you computer you want to setup a good backup system and have it setup right. I agree with everything listed here. Flash drive is good for moving files back and for not for backup, the do fail from time to time and when they fail there is no recovery.

I would also say that it is a good idea to have a drive at least 2x as big as what you are backing up, however if you are really just trying to have a clone of the data, technically you need at least the same size, but then you will lose the option of using history in time machine once your internal drive fills up.

I am not sure what drive you have internally, but I just ordered one of these early today, because it is on sale.Newegg.com - Western Digital Elements SE 1TB USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive This drive is portable and a 1TB, usually MacBook Pro owners care about their backups being portable, but is not required because it will backup only when connected. Right now this drive is $159, it has $30 instant rebate, then if you enter the promo code that is on the page (good until 1/25), it is another $20 off coming out to be $109. It is a good known brand, the older one people were having enclosure issues, if they still have that problem, you can replace that at a later point for $10-$50 depending on options.

f you want wireless backups, the best solution is to go with time capsule or one of the seagate NAS devices. Anything else seems unstable, since apple disable support for every NAS Device except for time capsule.

rustyk123 said:

f you want wireless backups, the best solution is to go with time capsule or one of the seagate NAS devices. Anything else seems unstable, since apple disable support for every NAS Device except for time capsule.

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Personally, I would stay away from the Time Capsule. I have been warned against them by enough people, including 2 Apple store employees and one of the techs at the local apple reseller and authorized service store here. That was enough for me.

I have a Apple Air Port Extreme and a 1 TB drive plugged into it. The nice thing, I can change drives if I need to. You can do the same thing with an Apple Airport Express, from what I have been led to believe. My main storage drive, a 4TB WD My Book Live also has TimeMachine support built in. That could be another way to go as well.

The Time Capsule is an just Airport Extreme with drive integrated. I have no idea as to why anyone would "warn against them"... Especially an Apple Employee. Considering the fact that a comparable solution (buying the Airport Extreme and a 2TB drive) actually costs more money and would work slower (USB data transfer rates).

I have a 2TB Time Capsule, and use Time Machine for all of my backups. It has had zero problems with my MBA, and my Mini backing up on this. I also use the USB port on the Time Capsule to attach another group of hard drives which all appear on my network.

As others have already said, TimeMachine (Apple's Backup Software) is free.
TimeCapsule is just Apples take on the external HD with Wireless backup support.

Might want to read this, SuperDuper, Time Machine, and Bulletproof Backups — Shawn Blanc

My Backup system is as follows.
I have several 1 TB 3.5" HD's (These) that I use in a HD Dock (This Thing)
One of the 1 TB HD is my TimeMachine Backup, this allows me to go into the past and get back any file I may have deleted 3 weeks or more ago.

The other 1 TB HD, is a SuperDuper (Clicky) system clone. An exact mirror of the internal HD at the time of the backup.
If my internal HD died and I have to wait for a new one to come in the post, this SuperDuper clone allows me to boot from it and continue to use my Mac like normal until the replacement HD appears. This is something TimeMachine cannot do.

So,
TimeMachine: Backup history many weeks into the past but not bootable.
SuperDuper: Bootable, so you can get right back to work incase the internal HD kicks the bucket. No past file versions.

I've recently been turned onto Carbon Copy Cloner, a free utility that clones your drive in its entirety. If, like me, you don't have much use for fishing out individually backed-up files (which you may have accidentally deleted), but you do have every interest in getting back online after a crash with maximum speed and minimum fuss, then you might consider this program over Time Machine.

Also - I agree with everybody else. An external hard drive is the way to go for backing up. Thumb drives are just too small to be of any use unless you're backing up only a tiny subset of your system's content. But if this is all you need, then consider some kind of cloud-based solution like Dropbox. Nobody ever misplaces the Internet, but I can't tell you how many thumb drives go missing every day.

Good luck,

Z

SuperDuper for me on an external, or in the case of a Mac Pro, a backup drive in one of the spare bays.. The registered version ($29) makes weekly backups using Smart Backup in about three minutes, and like CCC it is bootable. TM is not bootable.

Shikarnov said:

But if this is all you need, then consider some kind of cloud-based solution like Dropbox. Nobody ever misplaces the Internet, but I can't tell you how many thumb drives go missing every day.

Good luck,

Z

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That is, until the Fed's take down your backup site because someone else hosted pirated materials there. Yes, Megaupload was a very bad apple, but I can totally see this happening to other sites as well.

[–]caitief 739 points 4 days ago
I am seeing red right now. *** YOU USA government. I had EVERYTHING backed up there. Photos - every photo I had ever taken. I think I lost 500 because my external crashed recently. My music (yes MY files). Documents I needed. Files my husband used for work. EVERYTHING. Are they going to give me my stuff back? I am sure they aren't
Feds shut down Megaupload : technology

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Hey Deckyon, I have an Airport Extreme and a 1TB external HD, can I just plug in the external HD to the Airport Extreme and time machine will see it or is there something else I need to do? Thanks for any help.

Apple says "How does it work? Just connect the external hard drive to the USB port on the back of your AirPort Extreme and — voilà — all the documents, videos, photos, and other files on the drive instantly become available to anyone on the secure network, Mac and PC users alike. It’s perfect for file sharing, collaborative projects, and more."
Apple - AirPort Extreme - Features - Hard Drive Sharing
So if you have an external HD that has USB it should be as easy as plugging it in!

I've recently been turned onto Carbon Copy Cloner, a free utility that clones your drive in its entirety.

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Just one small correction to your statement above: CCC is donation ware; in other words, the author is soliciting a donation to pay for the software. Not the same as free. But it is a great cloning application, I use it all the time. And yes, I have made a donation.

The issue with the Time Capsule is the integration of the drive and the substandard drives that filled a good number of them. The one store I went to had 5 sitting on their workbench to have the drives replaced. made me think of the DVD/VHS/TV combos. only takes one part to break.

There is some config in the AirPort software to make the drive show up for time machine as well as in the Time Machine software itself. It is really very simple.

I guess that could raise an eyebrow, but it wouldn't slow me down. I think that with Apple's solid warranty service I really never hesitate. There may have been five on the workbench getting repaired and 500,000 operating with no issues. There will be parts that fail on anything. I am on my second iPad 2 due to a faulty screen.

McYukon said:

That is, until the Fed's take down your backup site because someone else hosted pirated materials there. Yes, Megaupload was a very bad apple, but I can totally see this happening to other sites as well.

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The Megaupload case is a little difference than what you're describing. The folks running Megaupload have been personally indicted for multiple infractions of the law. Their site was not "taken down" SOPA style without any due process; rather, it was seized as evidence, along with many other assets, consistent with standard law enforcement procedures.

I highly doubt that this case can or will be used as some kind of precedent to tear down the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA which protect our search engines, media sites, public forums, backup and collaboration sites like DropBox, and more...

Losing a HD is not just losing the mechanical item, but all the data itself, unless you are either lucky enough to know someone who can pull a favor and has the tools to restore one, or you have the extra thousands it takes for a large drive to be restored.

It again comes to the point of All-In-One devices having a generally larger than average failure rate over the devices that perform their own function singularly.

As to the 5 on a workbench - when you consider the size of the community here who even know about that one shop, that is a much higher percentage than if you include a nation. These were at the shop because the units were already past Apples warranty.