Friday, January 25, 2013


Mac Basics: Time Machine

Summary

Learn how to set up Time Machine to perform backups, how to restore items (or your entire system) from a Time Machine backup, how to migrate existing Time Machine backups to a new Mac, and more.

Products Affected

Mac OS X 10.6, OS X Lion, OS X Mountain Lion, Time Machine
Time Machine is the built-in backup that works with your Mac and an external drive (sold separately) or Time Capsule. Connect the drive, tell Time Machine to use it, and relax. Time Machine automatically backs up your entire Mac, including system files, applications, accounts, preferences, email messages, music, photos, movies, and documents. But what makes Time Machine different from other backup applications is that it not only keeps a spare copy of every file, it remembers how your system looked on any given day—so you can revisit your Mac as it appeared in the past. Time Machine keeps hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups until your backup drive is full.
OS X Lion and Mountain Lion let you encrypt the Time Machine backup external drive using FileVault 2.
Time Machine in Mountain Lion also lets you encrypt Time Capsule backups.
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Setting up Time Machine backups using an external drive

Setting up Time Machine is as easy as connecting an external drive to your Mac via Thunderbolt, FireWire or USB. You can also use a secondary internal drive if your desktop Mac has one (that is, a drive that you don't start up from).
If you haven't specified a Time Machine backup device yet, Time Machine asks if you would like to use the disk for backups the first time you connect it.

Click "Use as Backup Disk" to confirm you want to use the drive for Time Machine backups.  Time Machine preferences will then open with this drive selected as your backup destination.
Check "Encrypt Backup Disk" if you want to encrypt the Time Machine backup external drive using FileVault 2 (OS X Lion and Mountain Lion only). Note: If you want to use Encrypt Backup Disk, but the choice is dimmed (grayed out), you'll need to turn on FileVault 2.
That's all you have to do for Time Machine to automatically backup your Mac.

Manually preparing a new disk for Time Machine
  1. If you want to erase a disk before using it with Time Machine, follow these steps:
  2. Open Disk Utility (located in the Utilities folder).
  3. Connect the disk if it isn't already attached.
  4. In the left side of the Disk Utility window, select the disk you want to use with Time Machine.
  5. Optional: If you want to partition the disk, click the Partition tab and select a layout. Make sure "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" is selected in the Format menu for the partition that will be used for backups. Click Apply.
  6. Click the Erase tab.
  7. Optional: If you want to securely erase the disk, click Security Options to configure, then click OK.
  8. Click Erase.
  9. After erasing, open Time Machine preferences in System Preferences and configure as described in the section above.
     
About the first backup to an external drive
You may want to set up Time Machine in the evening so that the initial backup can be done overnight because it may take a while depending on the size of your OS X volume. You should not interrupt the initial backup. You can continue to use your Mac while Time Machine backs up.
Once the initial backup is completed, Time Machine performs subsequent hourly backups of only the files that have changed on your Mac since the last backup (as long as your backup drive is connected).
Tip: You can manually initiate a Time Machine backup cycle at any time by choosing Back up Now from the Time Machine menu, even if you have Time Machine preferences set to off.
Changing your backup drive
You can manually select another backup drive in Time Machine preferences.
  1. Select Time Machine menu > Open Time Machine Preferences…
  2. Click "Select Disk…"
  3. Choose a drive where backups will be stored, then click “Use Backup Disk”
Note: Every available drive that can be used to store backups is listed. If you’ve partitioned a drive, the available partitions are listed. Time Machine can’t backup to an external drive that's connected to an AirPort Extreme, Time Capsule, or a drive formatted for Microsoft Windows (NTFS or FAT format).  If you select an NTFS or FAT-formatted drive, Time Machine prompts you to reformat the drive. Choose a different drive or reformat the drive in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. Because reformatting erases any files on the drive, only do this if you no longer need the files or if you have copies of them on a different drive.
The most common format for a Time Machine backup drive is Mac OS Extended (Journaled)  format, but Time Machine also supports Mac OS Extended (Case sensitive, Journaled) and XSan formats.
If the drive is partitioned using the Master Boot Record (MBR) partition type, some partitions may not be available for use with Time Machine. The GUID Partition Table (GPT) or Apple Partition Map (APM) partition types are recommended.
Time Machine works best if you use your backup drive only for Time Machine backups. If you keep files on your backup drive, Time Machine won’t backup those files and the space available for Time Machine backups will be reduced.
OS X Mountain Lion, OS X Lion v10.7.2 and later: Starting from the recovery partition of a Time Machine backup drive
Hold down the Option key at startup to boot into the startup manager. Select the Recovery system of the Time Machine backup to start from. Once started, you will have all of the functionality of Recovery.

Setting up Time Machine for backups using a Time Capsule

Selecting items to exclude from the backup

Restoring data from Time Machine backups

Additional Information

Backup drive fills up

Important: Information about products not manufactured by Apple is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute Apple’s recommendation or endorsement. Please contact the vendor for additional information.
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