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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Time machine

sweetstillwater - Nov 9, 2007 - 9:02 am

What is the difference between time machine and back up that comes with .mac?

ScottW - Nov 9, 2007 - 9:07 am

Nisa,

Time Machine provides a full backup solution of your Mac stored to an external hard drive, that takes snapshots of your system throughout the day, allowing you to restore files as they where a few hours earlier. It also allows you to do a full system restore, if you lost a hard drive.

Backup on .Mac is geared toward backing up selected files like iLife related files, Mail, and home directory content to various media, online, CD/DVD, hard drive, etc. Each has a different feature set and one doesn't necessarily replace the other depending on feature set your looking for.

Scott

sweetstillwater - Nov 9, 2007 - 9:17 am

That's very helpful. Does that mean that I have to keep that external hard drive connected at all time? Further if that's not possible how do I disconnect it once it is connected to time machine?

Nisa

ScottW - Nov 9, 2007 - 9:46 am

Once the initial backup is complete, the external hard drive does NOT need to be connected all the time. You can periodically plug it in. When you plugin the drive, Time Machine will automatically start backing up everything that changed since the last backup. You won't get the ability to fetch files from earlier in the day that you deleted a minute ago with it not being plugged in all the time, but for most people, including myself, that is fine. I only need recoverability in the event my internal hard drive fails.

sweetstillwater - Nov 9, 2007 - 10:24 am

This was great!! Thanks