Time Machine Backup and Recovery on a CustoMac

[beelzebozo]

[video=youtube;PAAU6gvn0ME]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAAU6gvn0ME&feature=youtu.be[/video]​

Time Machine, the backup and recovery tool built into OS X, not only works on Macs, but on CustoMacs. Once you have your system running smoothly, it's always a good idea to do regular system backups. You can use Time Machine backups to recover deleted files, or to do a full re-installation and migration. This helps tremendously if you happen to install a system update or a wrong kext, causing an unbootable system.

Although there are several tools out there for backup and recovery, you can use Time Machine in OS X to perform these tasks simply and efficiently. If you have any other uses for Time Machine, share them in the comments.

Related:
Backup Solutions for Your Mac or CustoMac

 

[alans17]

Fantastic timing. We're now using our CustoMac for my wife's photography buiness so we're taking backups much more seriously. We'll probably be using Time Machine for data, CCC or Super Duper for cloning the OS drive directly onto a 128GB USB 3.0 thumb drive plugged into the back, and either CrashPlan or BackBlaze for offsite needs.

For what it's worth, I've been traditionally backing up the OS drive to a networked unRAID box using Time Machine. I recently tried a system update and it brought the whole system down. I knew the data was safe on my second hard drive, but I couldn't reach it without a bootable computer. I was cursing up a storm until I remembered the backup. I had to jump through a couple of hoops, but I was able to start right back up where I left off.

That lesson taught me two things:
1.) Time Machine absolutely works when it has to, and it's probably great for people with a single-drive system.
2.) Cloning the OS drive will probably be faster for me in the future, while I can leave Time Machine to backup the data like it always has.

 

[brandonb927]

I never used to trust Time Machine, but recently it has yet to fail me! *knock on wood*

 

[RBOwens]

I have been using time machine on both my CustoMacs since the beginning. I was completely blown away how simple it was to use, how colorful it is, and from someone who spent years with Microsoft machines, there is nothing that even comes close. Even when you absolutely kill your current OSX installation, simply reinstall and follow the wizard to restore from Time Machine. Probably the very best, well designed feature of OSX there is. Enough said.

 

[colinzeal]

Article: Time Machine Backup and Recovery on a CustoMac

I still prefer Carbon Copy for a Initial backup of a working system (not taking personal files into account). That WILL copy Chimera to your backup. Therefore, if anything goes wrong, you can boot directly from your Carbon Copy and load into it. You can then copy it back over to your OS disk if you have to.

Plus, if you configured your Chimera to boot with the menu on your Carbon Copy, you can use it as a rescue stick/disk.

 

[digitalix]

Article: Time Machine Backup and Recovery on a CustoMac

I was allways happy with timemachine, it was one reason to move from Windows. My last (and most important) Timemachine backup failt! The sparsebundle file was not readable, no tools where able to repair and more as 2.5 GB Data where lost. I was really glad to have a (little older) Windows backup from the time before i moved. I am a Photographer i am really unshure whats the best to work with. I still use Timemachine on a Synology NAS and parallel onto a WD MyLife NAS to be save.

 

[Olivier75009]

@colinzeal bootloaders are not copied with CCC.

I use TM since the beginning of my hacks (SL), both managing OS + DATAS as it may be relevant to reinstall kexts, prefs plist ...
I also use CCC daily for OS.

 

[jweisbin]

Users of Time Machine might want to consider using TimeMachineEditor (free). It lets you schedule your TM backups when you want them, instead of every hour, which (IMHO) is usually overkill for most users.

My biggest complaint about TM is that you have to tell it what NOT to backup, instead of being able to tell it what TO back up. What happens (fairly often, in fact), is that, if you attach another drive with a lot of data on it, and forget to set that option in TM, it will try to back that whole drive, filling up your TM disk.

 

[Landru]

I have my wife's iMac on a Time Machine backup, defaults are fine for her use.

My hack backs up to a separate 2TB drive when I want it. After a working session, I'll back it up then, but while I'm at the day job, and the hack is cranking on SETI@home, I see little reason to waste clock cycles backing up the latest SETI data sets.

And yeah, it is annoying to have to tell it what to exclude. And wait for it to count up all the files in the excluded folders? Sheesh, give me a break. I *know* that I'm ignoring the 45,000 music files, they're already backed up somewhere else. You don;t have to count 'em all up just to tell me.

 

[nobodynose]

Article: Time Machine Backup and Recovery on a CustoMac

I have used Time Machine in the past to recover both individual files and the whole drive. The interface is a little, um, quirky, but I was able to restore what I needed. What I do now is clone my hack's boot drive to another drive (that's kept offline) before I make any major change (such as a Mac OS X update, a new version of MultiBeast, etc.). Then I let Time Machine handle the day-to-day backing up of my data to a NAS drive (a WD MyBookLive). That NAS drive actually handles the TM backups for three hacks in our household.