BackUp With OS X Leopard Time Machine

[Eric Seaberg]

Originally Posted by jonboi

what would be cooler is something like snapshots like in vmware fusion.
it jsut takes a snapshot of the whole system. so say if you install something and it goes funny. you can just restore to the snapshot.

We use Retrospect for backing up our entire network of ProTools/AVID rooms. Backup is done on a robot tape system holding 22 x 200GB LTO tapes. Snapshots is exactly how it works, so I can restore any system back to any status from any number of days ago. We've had the system running continuous for the last 4.5 years without issue.

BTW, I also have Retrospect running on my home system as opposed to TM. I'm just so used to making Retrospect do what I want, nothing else makes sense. It's definitely worth looking at, IMHO. Info at http://www.emcinsignia.com/products/...e/retroformac/

[Chief Technician]

Originally Posted by 25ghosts

I guess I back up differently from you.

Perhaps.

I see it in two stages.

Stage one - Immediate Backup of everything. You work in PT and two hours later your disk fails. Boom - Data gone. With Time Machine, non problem just go to restore.

This restore is only as accurate as the last TM backup, just like an auto-save in Pro Tools is only as accurate as the last time auto-save was executed. As an aside, I always set auto-save to keep the last 99 sessions and save every minute. Do you?

With Retrospect I NEVER backup every hour, more like every day or every second day.

We agree on that.

Stage Two : Storage. Time Machine is NOT a storage solution but a back up solution. You have got those two stages mixed up Chief Technician.

No I don't. I think you are interpreting what I wrote in a different way.

For storage I have a FW drives standing in the closet and once I am done with a project and ready to get it off the main frame I pull out that drive put it on there and put the drive back into the closet. Then I'll Burn a DVD and put that in there as well.

Two true backups. An excellent strategy.

I know that Time Machine will delete the earliest BU once getting full. And I would expect it to as well but TM will post a warning before deleting anything so you still have control.

The only control this gives you is to prevent erasure of something in the TM. If you don't have another drive to direct TM to, then your first line of defense is gone.

Like I said, maybe you have got the two stages: BackUp and Storage mixed up a little

Like I said, I don't.

Read "Backup and Recovery" by W. Curtis Preston (O'Reilly) if you have the time.

[Rubicon]

Originally Posted by spoons

Right clicking on the drive in PT workspace gives you the option to unmount/eject that drive ..

spoons

Yep, that does un-mount the image, but is there any way to to exclude the TC image permanently?

TIA

[M2E]

Thanx Spoons. That's a huge help here....

Marc

[DCOhio]

Can you partition Time Machine so you can use it as intended for Back up, but also use it as the HD to store your files on? I know it will delete old files when it gets full, so can it be partitioned so it doesn't overwrite your stored music files? ProTools told me the ethernet cable is faster than FW, so I'm wondering if I can use it as my HD, partitioned apart from the back up. Or if I can't, then I wonder if I should skip the Time Machine back ups and just use it as a HD for my music to play from onto ProTools LE?

[Touchwood Studios]

I use a 3 TB raid drive for TM (2 X 1.5TB Seagate's). It's great for daily back-ups and working drives,System and Sample Drive but long term back-up it's still AIT 3 and Blu-Ray for me.