Time machine back ups question

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Level 2

341 points

Time machine back ups question

Ok, normally have backed up drives using CCC. Since I'm familiar with CCC I'm able to back up all my data but wanted to try TM. basic questions are the following.

I have a brand new 4TB drive already formatted for ALL my back up data, I partitioned the backup drive with 3 partions.

A. All my OS applications

B. All my files for those applications

C. All My Itunes / Music etc

If I go to TM and I see the Set Up dialog box

Now since I named the partitions already on the 4TB drive I'm seeing the partions on the desktop and I'm assuming that TM once initiated will back up each partition named files to that partition am I right?

So which means that I will be doing 3 separate back ups on 3 partitions?

Just want to make sure as with CCC I just set up the source and destination s then do three separate back ups ( or I believe I could do all three at once not sure)

???

R

Mac Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9), Mac Pro 8 Core

Posted on Mar 9, 2014 1:14 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 9, 2014 1:44 PM in response to ralphiedee

The beauty of Time Machine is you can have it back up everything, but you can selectively restore any file or folder.

If you have multiple partition, Time Machine needs to be the first partition so it can find it automaticlly, no matter what is on the other partitions. Otherwise manually you will always have to point TimeMachine to the destination and kind of defeats the ease of use.

Your backup plan may need some rethinking.

No Time Machine is not going to disperse the backups according to some naming scheme.

http://pondini.org/TM/32.html

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Answer 2

ralphiedee Author

Level 2

341 points

Mar 10, 2014 8:55 AM in response to leroydouglas

Ok so wahat you mean is I need to name a partition "Time machine" in order for TM to back up any volumes and TM will always start with the volume titled Timemachine ?

so as I stated

A. All my OS applications _________Rename this to time machine or can I ues the volume name it is now?

B. All my files for those applications ---------Once that is done TM will back this up?

C. All My Itunes / Music etc---------Once that is done TM will back this u last?

Also I did a test run and I geet the error msg that the backup disk of my OS needs 1.36 TB but only 1.34 exists. The orignal OS disk has only 232GB of data why is tome machine asking for all that space?

I set the partition at 1.34 so there would be way more than enough space to copy.

R

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Answer 3

Mar 10, 2014 9:39 AM in response to ralphiedee

ralphiedee wrote:

Ok so wahat you mean is I need to name a partition "Time machine" in order for TM to back up any volumes and TM will always start with the volume titled Timemachine ?

Yes.

ralphiedee wrote:

A. All my OS applications _________Rename this to time machine or can I ues the volume name it is now?

Renaming is easy enough, you can do it right on your desktop.

ralphiedee wrote:

B. All my files for those applications ---------Once that is done TM will back this up?

C. All My Itunes / Music etc---------Once that is done TM will back this u last?

No. Time Machine is not going to search out files to back up just because you named a partition.

It is always better to hvae seperate HD, but you can alwys have a CCC on a partition if you want a boot clone and no seperate external HD.

The larger the TM partition the further back in Time you can go.

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Answer 4

ralphiedee Author

Level 2

341 points

Mar 10, 2014 11:05 AM in response to leroydouglas

Ok now we are getting somewhere, so TM is saying that I will need at least 1.36 of space to do a backup and that space could hold lets say 4 back ups and when it gets full TM will start to delete the earliest back ups to make room on that partition?

So the rest of my situation your saying I would have to initiate TM to back up the other two partitions?

OR once the FIRST parttiton with my OS is done (the 1.36 of space) TM will automatically back up ther other two?

??

R

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Answer 5

dwb

Level 7

32,920 points

Mar 10, 2014 11:28 AM in response to ralphiedee

If I understand you correctly you intend to use this external drive for backups and you partitioned it to put all your applications on one partition, music on another and all other files on a third. For TimeMachine you've done too much work instead of letting TimeMachine do the heavy lifting. I recommend that you repartition the drive so it has a single partition and let TimeMachine backup everything.

What is amazing about TM is that every hour or so it backs up anything that changed no matter what. If your backup drive is at least twice the size of your data being backed up TM won't need to begin deleting old backup files for nearly a year. My main TM drive is about 3 times larger than my data and I went nearly three years before anything needed to be erased.

Meanwhile keep another drive for CCC. My habit is to back up with CCC and test it right before I apply a new OS update or upgrade. This gives me a drive I can immediately boot with should the update/upgrade go awry. (I also make sure TM does a backup before I update.) The CCC clone is my emergency boot disk while TM is my backup drive which is always up to the minute current. The CCC drive isn't necessarily 100% current.

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Answer 6

Mar 10, 2014 12:12 PM in response to ralphiedee

OS X Mavericks Use multiple backup disks

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14382

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Answer 7

ralphiedee Author

Level 2

341 points

Mar 11, 2014 6:53 AM in response to leroydouglas

Thx for the link, I was running out of time so I had to back up all using CCC but I was able to notice that when I did a TEST backup using TM I see that it backs up the folder in Devices which I had hidden in my desktop. I let it copy for about an hour but I see the approx time to finosh was something like 18 hours so am I right in thinking that if I let the copy run TM would have copied ALL the devices / hardrives onto 1partition on may back up BUT would have separated each drive rather than copy all the data on the root?

This way I know for the future and I know there is an EXACT way for me to back up what I need to do and will revisit some other time.

thx but I'm I right?

R

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