On Nov 15, 2011, at 1:58 PM, Ben Kernan wrote: > I can't seem to figure out how to change Time Machine's preferences... I > really don't want it doing a backup of my drive every hour, once a week would > be fine. BTW I am backing up to an 80 gig drive... Yea, I know I should get > something bigger, but I haven't gotten there yet. Just took the thing out of > storage today... > > Ben Kernan: 24"I-Mac 2/2.8/700, graphite g-4 1gig/400/52, iPad 2/64/wifi, > iPhone 3g - Dedicated Mac user since 1990
If all you want is a weekly backup, then you'd be better advised to use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper and use it to do that. Once CCC of SD do the first clone/backup, it will do incremental backups on whatever schedule you choose. Either program also lets you specify what you do and don't want to backup. And you will have a bootable backup in case of a system crash. A good rule of thumb is to have a backup drive with at least as much storage capacity as the drive that's being backed up, BTW. Time Machine does not create a bootable backup, although you can use it to restore all your files in case of a disaster requiring a complete nuke and pave reinstall of the OS. Time Machine's main value is that it gives you an hour-by-hour snapshot of all the data on your Mac. Which means that if you mistakenly deleted something at 1 p.m. and discovered it at 5 p.m., you could go into Time Machine, navigate back to the undeleted files at 12 p.m. and recover them. It's saved my bacon more than once since I started using it. I find that having a bootable CCC daily backup on one external hard drive, and an hour-by-hour non-bootable Time Machine backup on another external hard drive (I use a 2 TB Time Machine) gives me all the backup I need. However, I also do regular backups on a third hard drive via CCC which I keep in a different location in case of fire, theft, earthquake, stupidity. YMMV. Jim -- You received this message because you are a member of the iMac Group, a group for those using Apple iMacs and eMacs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To leave this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/imaclist
