time machine....

[macdudeken]

good morning! I have a question on time machine and a backup solution. this doesn't need to be fancy, but I may buy a lacie 2TB FW drive (they say it works with time machine), for my mac 1TB server (only 1/4 full)

my question is this- would time machine be the way to go?

Thanks! Ken

[Sev]

good morning! I have a question on time machine and a backup solution. this doesn't need to be fancy, but I may buy a lacie 2TB FW drive (they say it works with time machine), for my mac 1TB server (only 1/4 full)

my question is this- would time machine be the way to go?

Thanks! Ken

I use Time Machine on my mac at home, using a 500 gig external drive. It is very easy to setup and use. It works in the background and is very easy to restore deleted files. I have not tried to restore any apps or OS yet, but I would imagine that it would work great for that, as well.

-Sev

[macdudeken]

to restore deleted files, ok, but what about an actual backup solution?
if time machine works like I think it does, I can back up my entire drive. if my mac crashes, I should be able to restore the contents of the crashed mac, correct??

[gordo]

to restore deleted files, ok, but what about an actual backup solution?
if time machine works like I think it does, I can back up my entire drive. if my mac crashes, I should be able to restore the contents of the crashed mac, correct??

Yes.

I have a 1tb external hard drive that I use with Time Machine.

I have a separate 1tb external hard drive that I use to back up all my files and some applications (but not my OS).

I also backup files and applications to DVDs.

So I have three backups of my files, two of my applications and one via Time Machine of my OS.

gordon p

[dabob]

I went out and got 2 2 terrabyte drives and then made a mirrored raid out of them and am using it for my time machine backup and then in addition to that I make a backup of critical files once a month and take off site. On my wish list is a NAS drive that will be in a separate building in the complex that will replace my off site backup since that is mostly for fear of fire in our primary building. But I love time machine it has saved my backside numerous times!!!!

[mojoprime]

time machine is a great start to a backup solution, but short of dabib's good raid + offsite system, i would suggest a time machine backup and then maybe a SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner clone of the drive, that you have someone take home with them every friday. time machine's great, but can be a little tricky and slow when restoring a whole disk from the backup. it's better when you're looking for a file you deleted some time back.

also, remember that depending on how you have time machine set up and what is selected to backup, it might not back up everything and it might also delete older backups as needed for space.

[macdudeken]

Thanks for all the tips!!

[Munsell]

I'd add Carbon Copy Cloner on top of what time machine is doing. That way, you have an easy bootable backkup of everything in case of failure. CCC can do full and incremental backups, as well as schedule at different times.

[einstein999]

Lacie drives has some pretty high failure rates. (notice the price per Gig is often less than competitors, and they have to be saving money somewhere) I use Time Machine / Time Capsule and have restored (moved from new unit to new unit) and had great success. I would suggest a DROBO, its a proprietary external hard drive system that is better than any standard raid setup. You can even make it a Time machine compatible partition, and make another partition for other backup. Then, use free Dropbox to mirror your most important files and you have a pretty nice backup.

[Mark]

I'm going to use my time machine to go back and talk me out of a printing career