> On 22 Jan 2015, at 11:16 am, Chris Burton <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Peter, Ronni and Daniel, > Thankyou all very much for your time to sort me out on this external drive > backup situation, I really appreciate it. > > I wasnt aware of what TM actually did, so thanks Peter for the explanation on > TM and CCC and what I need to do. > > Best regards to all > > Chris > > On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 7:38 AM, Peter Hinchliffe <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > > On 21 Jan 2015, at 9:00 am, Chris Burton <[email protected] > > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > > > Hi Ronni, great to hear from you and thanks for your great pdf on how to > > set things up for TM. > > > > I have a couple of questions: you mention that TM is for backing up the > > hard drive of a mac to a connected external drive. > > > > Can I also use TM to backup from a number of other external drives (3tb WD) > > on which I have my previous backups of data/photos/movies/music etc onto > > one big drive? What im hoping to do is use a large drive (like the Seagate > > or WD 5tb) for the main repository of everything that I can keep offsite > > (in the Bank box) and then take it out every 2 weeks to do updates from my > > other drives at home? > > > > I’ll chime in here since Ronni hasn’t time to answer: Time Machine should not > really be regarded as backup software per se. Its primary purpose is to > provide a safety valve for those files and resources which get accidentally > deleted, damaged or or altered in undesirable ways. the time Machine > interface makes it incredibly easy to go back to the last known good copy and > recover it so you can keep working with a minimum of fuss. It is by nature, > therefore, to work with the hard drive of any active computer. You can have > multiple computers all using the same TM Drive, and you can set TM up to use > multiple drives, but you cannot tell TM to back up one external drive to > another. That’s not what it’s for. > > For more comprehensive options you should be looking at other solutions, such > as Carbon Copy Cloner, TriBackup, etc. The ideal backup situation should > involve such software anyway. Time Machine is an important and useful > utility, but should not be your only backup resource. I have Time Machine > running all the time, but also do a Carbon Copy Cloner backup every Sunday. > One of the advantages of CCC is that it creates a bootable “clone” of your > hard drive so in times of disaster you can start up from it with full access > to the resources you’re used to, but that’s just one of its features. It will > certainly handle the kind of thing you’re looking to do.
Thanks Peter! ... Yes, I am busy with work projects since a few days break over Christmas and New Year :( Hi Chris, You downloaded my Tutorial "My Backup Strategy" from my website around the time your downloaded "How to: Format & Partition your External Drive to work with Time Machine’ ". Basically a good Backup Strategy consists of Three Parts: 1. Versioned Backups - 2. Bootable Duplicates - 3. Offsite Copies <http://www.ronnibrown.net/tutorials/backup/index.html <http://www.ronnibrown.net/tutorials/backup/index.html>> Time Machine Basics: <http://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201250> <http://support.apple.com/kb/VI29?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US> How Time Machine Works: Time Machine copies the files on your computer to a destination you designate—such as a Time Capsule or External Hard Drive. Then, once per hour, the program runs again, updating your backup to include whatever files have changed since last time. With each hourly backup, Time Machine makes a snapshot of your entire system. If you look through the folders on your backup disk, you’ll see what appears to be a complete copy of all your files for each of numerous backup sessions. But to some extent that’s an illusion; Time Machine copies to your backup disk only the files and folders that are different from the ones in your previous backup. Using a bit of Unix magic known as hard links, Time Machine can store just one copy of a file or folder but make it appear to be in several places at once. That way, your disk doesn’t fill up with multiple copies of files that haven’t been changed. Time Machine keeps the last 24 hourly backups, the last 30 daily backups, and as many weekly backups as there is space for. You can count on it to keep the first backup of any given day for an entire month. Even after a month, it preserves the first backup of each week until your disk is nearly full. Only at that point does the program begin purging files from your oldest weekly backups. There are two main bits of "Magic" behind Time Machine: 1. The File System Event Database -- How changes are found 2. Multiple Hard Links -- How backups are stored If you wish to know exactly how Time Machine works its magic I have document "How Time Machine Works Its Magic PDF". It's not uploaded to my website. Cheers, Ronni 13-inch MacBook Air (April 2014) 1.7GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost to 3.3GHz 8GB 1600MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM 512GB PCIe-based Flash Storage OS X Yosemite 10.10.1 > > Peter Hinchliffe Apwin Computer Services > FileMaker Pro Solutions Developer > Perth, Western Australia > Phone (618) 9332 6482 <tel:%28618%29%209332%206482> Mob 0403 046 948 > <tel:0403%20046%20948> > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > Mac because I prefer it -- Windows because I have to.
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