Time Machine questions

[Bill Gates Jr.]

Does timekeeper only upgrade my Mac HD or will it also copy info off any external hard drive or thumb drive that is plugged in? Reason i ask is I keep financial data on a thumb drive. I usually turn off safari when I plug it in to do some work, then remove it before I log on to the internet. All this time Timekeeper is running and I don't know if it is copying my financial data...that could possibly be viewed from Timekeeper when Safari is on.

 

[MacInWin]

What is Timekeeper? Is that an application you installed?

 

[chscag]

I suspect he means "Time Machine" Jake.

 

[pigoo3]

If Time Machine…that would make MUCH more sense!

- Nick

 

[MacInWin]

I just didn't want to make an assumption. His question was whether Timekeeper upgrades his internal drive or copy off his externals. That question doesn't make much sense in Time Machine because Time Machine doesn't upgrade anything. It's a backup system. So I'm confused and didn't want to make it worse by making any assumptions.

 

[pigoo3]

Sometimes folks use "less than correct" teminology.

Maybe "Bill Gates Jr." is out surfing at the moment (Hawaii)! And will let us know the deal soon!

- Nick

 

[MacInWin]

I'm off to go watch football. See you after the games!

 

[pigoo3]

I'm off to go watch football. See you after the games!

Yes...it's about that time (for many of us in the United States)!

- Nick

 

[pigoo3]

I'm off to go watch football. See you after the games!

By the way. You can still watch football & be on Mac-Forums. That's what the laptop & WiFi are for (plenty of commercials during a football game)!

Just don't spill the beer (or beverage) on the laptop!!!

- Nick

 

[Bill Gates Jr.]

Mea culpa. Mea culpa. I did mean Time Machine. I don't know what timekeeper is. Nearing 71, I don't have as many brain cells as I used to...although my wife would say I never had that many to begin with.
The AFC game was good. Stopped watching the NFC game...poor Colts.
So answers on Time Machine?

 

[MacInWin]

OK, just wanted to make sure of the product. So, you said:

Does timekeeper only upgrade my Mac HD or will it also copy info off any external hard drive or thumb drive that is plugged in? Reason i ask is I keep financial data on a thumb drive. I usually turn off safari when I plug it in to do some work, then remove it before I log on to the internet. All this time Timekeeper is running and I don't know if it is copying my financial data...that could possibly be viewed from Timekeeper when Safari is on.

Time Machine is a backup product so it doesn't "upgrade" anything. I think your spellchecker got you on that one. And it defaults to backing up everything it sees, including your thumb drive. But you don't see the files with Safari, that's your Internet browser. You see files with Finder, and yes, you can see Time Machine files with Finder, so if your financials are backed up, you would be able to see them. If you don't want that to happen, you can open System Preferences and then the Time Machine icon there and then click on Options and in the resulting window click on the "+" and add anything you want Time Machine to ignore. Once done, the backups will no longer have that included, although previous backups will still remain, I think. I've never tested that.

Hope that helps.

 

[Bill Gates Jr.]

Yes, I meant update. Yeah, lets blame it on my spellchecker. I've posted enough errors by myself for one post.
I

 

[MacInWin]

I think you meant "Do not backup these drives" and if the are on the list, they are not backed up. The + and- are to add and delete things from the list. You highlight one, click - and it's deleted from the list.

 

[Bill Gates Jr.]

Jake,
Unable to highlight drive.
When I go to options the thumb drive is shown (shaded). When I click the + it takes me to the individual files on the thumb drive. I can then click on a file and it will be shown (not shaded) ...so it's ok. Do I have to do each file individually?...note some file are WP, DOCX or RTF files. Not sure if they will copy allow me to exclude them. Is there away to just copy the whole thumb drive?
Not sure if these thumb drives have been formatted for mac. Could that cause a problem?

 

[Bill Gates Jr.]

Does the external drive for Time Machine have to be connected to accomplish these tasks?

 

[RadDave]

Mea culpa. Mea culpa. I did mean Time Machine. I don't know what timekeeper is. Nearing 71, I don't have as many brain cells as I used to...although my wife would say I never had that many to begin with.
The AFC game was good. Stopped watching the NFC game...poor Colts.
So answers on Time Machine?

Hi Bill - well, were out on the surf?

Now, Jake has already posted about TM backing up other than your HD, so piqued my curiosity, i.e. I assumed that w/ the default settings that the backup would only be for the one drive - SO, as a test, I just plugged in an USB flash drive and ran my TM external HD - just did a backup of my MBPro's SSD - could not find any files related to the attached flash drive.

I"ve not really explored the options in System Preferences regarding TM - may be some settings that would include other attached drives - don't know - will have to await responses of others having more experience w/ Time Machine - some more information HERE - let's see what others say; but in the meantime, you probably should be doing redundant backups of those attached devices - Dave

 

[MacInWin]

I just tried it and my removable thumb drive is also greyed out an non selectable, which I originally took to mean that TM won't back it up. However, when I opened Time Machine and looked at my backups, the files on the thumb drive are there, which is very strange.

But just to be sure, what exactly do you want to happen? Do you want your financial data included in the backups on the TM drive or not?

I just saw your later post. I just tested and the TM drive doesn't need to be mounted to make the changes in System Preferences. However, you need to know that if you turn TM on and don't have the drive attached, it will make backup files on your internal drive until that external is re-attached, so you'll see disk space shrinking.

If you don't need the hourly backups of TM, you can get a utility like TimeMachineEditor (search for it) and schedule it to run when you want. I backup twice a day, noon and midnight.

 

[MacInWin]

RadDave, that is the exact opposite of what I had. My thumb drive files are in the backups. Strange behavior. My thumb drive is listed in the Exclude list, greyed out and unselectable, but the files show in the backups of TM.

 

[Bill Gates Jr.]

I do not want anything on my thumb drive to be on TM. It has personal and financial data.
If I turn TM off, can I be sure it will not copy my thumb drive when I insert it or do I have to Physically remove the connection to my external HD running TM?
I have usually disconnected the HD using TM prior to using my thumb drive.
I can continue to turn TM off or disconnect my external drive. That seems to be the only option as the thumb drive does not highlight and when it goes to my individual files, I cannot highlight most of the individual files to the 'Do not Copy these drives' in TM.
Guess I need to reformat the HD running TM. To get rid of any TD info. Yesterday I bought CCC and backed up my HD. I should get this week aScanDisk super thumb drive to back up my current Thumb Drive. This new drive is supposed to last almost forever, well longer then most HDs or TDs...they claim.

 

[RadDave]

RadDave, that is the exact opposite of what I had. My thumb drive files are in the backups. Strange behavior. My thumb drive is listed in the Exclude list, greyed out and unselectable, but the files show in the backups of TM.

Hi Jake - well, I plugged in another flash drive & then my TM HD - below is a pic of the TM settings in System Preferences - the USB drive shows up but running TM does not do a BU of that device - not important to me but curious if attached drives can be included in the TM files? Sorry - not of much help. Dave
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