Q: from Case-Sensitive Journaled HFS+ to NON Case-Sensitive Journaled HFS+

Pondini wrote:

Marcin wrote:

Time-Machine will force the same case-sensitiveness setting on the backup volume as the drive you are backing up. So if your main drive is case-sensitive, when you are first creating Time Machine backup one of two things will happen:

No, it won't. It defaults to case-sensitive, regardless of the sensitivity of your internal HD.

If your internal HD is case-ignorant, you can back up to either case-sensitive or case-ignorant.

I have not tested this and you're likely right.

If your internal HD is case-sensitive, you can only back-up to case-sensitive, but Time Machine won't erase and reformat the drive -- it will just fail.

Here I must disagree, as I tested the scenario yesterday.

I have a case-sensitve installation of SnowLeopard. I pointed it to a newly created case-ignorant HFS+ partition on a USB connected, and watched it warn me that data will be erased, and than go through initialization of the partition. When it was done, the partition was case-sensitive HFS+.

I did another test, where I pointed TimeMachine to a case-ignorant HFS+ partition network shared through Airport Extreme. It also initialized, creating a sparse disk image, which when mounted was case-sensitive.

Only if a drive is not formatted HFS+ will Time Machine reformat it.

*Restore to a case-insensitive volume*

I have read about others restoring from case-sensitive TimeMachine backup to a case-insensitive new partition, and apparently this works, but you will get restore errors whenever filename conflicts occur, in which case I have no idea which version of the file gets restored.

Neither. You get a generic "conflict" message, that doesn't even list the names:
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See the pink box in #5 of Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions for details.

I do recall reading someone mention this message and listing the files that were effected. They are most likely being reported to log files and can be viewed through console.

Marcin wrote:
. . .

If your internal HD is case-sensitive, you can only back-up to case-sensitive, but Time Machine won't erase and reformat the drive -- it will just fail.

Here I must disagree, as I tested the scenario yesterday.

I have a case-sensitve installation of SnowLeopard. I pointed it to a newly created case-ignorant HFS+ partition on a USB connected, and watched it warn me that data will be erased, and than go through initialization of the partition. When it was done, the partition was case-sensitive HFS+.

I've never seen that, but may not have tested it since Snow Leopard came out. I will.

I did another test, where I pointed TimeMachine to a case-ignorant HFS+ partition network shared through Airport Extreme. It also initialized, creating a sparse disk image, which when mounted was case-sensitive.

It doesn't care about the sensitivity of the partition, since it will create a case-sensitive disk image regardless of the case sensitivity of the volume(s) being backed up. You can change it (before starting a backup) if desired and appropriate. See #A8 Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Also, unless you were just testing, note that backing-up via an Airport Extreme is "iffy" and +*not supported by Apple.+* See: Using Time Machine with an Airport Extreme Air Disk (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

I do recall reading someone mention this message and listing the files that were effected. They are most likely being reported to log files and can be viewed through console.

No, they're not in the system.log nor console messages.