What happens if you interrupt a back-up?

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Level 1

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What happens if you interrupt a back-up?

Hello.

This is probably a dumb question, but what happens if I shut down the computer whilst Time Machine is in the middle of a (big) back-up? I was under the impression that it would just continue where it left off when I switched it back on, but when I do that Time Machine never seems to starts up straight away -- it always waits exactly one hour from when I next log on. Does it have to redo the whole thing from the start again?

Thanks for your help!

Time Capsule 802.11n (4th Gen)

Posted on Jun 10, 2013 1:56 PM

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Answer 1

Pondini

Level 8

38,863 points

Jun 10, 2013 2:57 PM in response to Craigcro

Yes, it waits. Probably assuming that you want to do something immediately (else why would you have started up).

When a backup fails or is cancelled, the partial backup isn't lost. It's saved in an ".inProgress" package that you won't see via the TM browser (since it's incomplete). You can start it yourself, via Back Up Now from the TM icon in your menubar.

The next backup will take somewhat longer; it has to figure out where it was when cancelled; to do that, it does a "deep scan" comparing everything on your Mac to the backups. Then it starts copying from your Mac, but it doesn't copy things that it already has in the .inProgress package. Once it has everything, it creates a new backup.

Bottom line, overall it will take somewhat longer, but won't really hurt anything.

Message was edited by: Pondini

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