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How many times have I received a call from a total stranger, telling me they’ve lost a folder, or their\u00a0whole machine, but they don’t have any backups, so can I help?<\/p>\nHow many times have I received a call from a total stranger, telling me they’ve lost a folder, or their\u00a0whole machine, but they don’t have any backups, so can I help?<\/p>\n
Me: “Not\u00a0unless you want your data back.”<\/p>\n
Time Machine is Mac’s built-in, automated, backup feature.<\/p>\n
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Let’s break that down:<\/p>\n
Located in the System Preferences, you can configure Time Machine (TM) without any additional software. 2 Things must be done before your very first backup will begin….<\/p>\n
1 – Switch on Time Machine (It’s a slider switch, left or right, and in newer versions, a tick box)<\/p>\n
2 – Select the external\/network drive you’d like to use to store your backups (External drives are best use here, from a speed, reliability and cost perspective)<\/p>\n
That’s it. It really is that simple. After 120 Seconds, your first backup will begin, which, unless otherwise specified (more on that later), will backup a single copy of every single file and folder on your Mac’s drive. Take a moment, read it again… EVERY SINGLE FILE. Unless filtered, you will have a backup of any and every file on your drive. This make’s restoring data an absolute pleasure.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
TM backs up every single hour, so long as your backup drive is plugged. If your drive is plugged in all day at work, you’ll have a good 8 backups run before you go home. If your drive isn’t plugged in, because maybe you’re in a meeting, or maybe you forgot your hard drive at home\/work (naughty), Mac will automatically copy the files that need to get backed up onto a reserved partition, hidden from us mere humans. Sort of a taxi-rank of changed data that needs to get off of your system and into the archives.<\/p>\n
MacOS (Apple’s new fancy name for it’s family of Operating Systems on Mac) is clever.<\/p>\n
We know this already. But it really is very clever.<\/p>\n
Once your first backup has completed (meaning TM now has 1 copy of every single file on your system), TM will now monitor each and every single file and wait for changes. The moment a file is changed (You’ve updated your Excel spreadsheet or received a new email in Outlook), TM will mark that file with a tag, something like “It’s not me, it’s you. You’ve changed. Get onto that backup drive at your earliest convenience”.<\/p>\n
Basically, all the files that have got a change, no matter how big or small, will be backed up at the next hourly TM schedule.<\/p>\n
In my next post, I’ll delve a bit deeper with TM, and show you some neat tricks and tips on Recovering your data, as well as Folder Filters too.<\/p>\n
Cheers for now<\/p>\n
Lee<\/p>\n
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