MacBook Pro :: Using Time Machine To Backup Only Music Folders?
Oct 25, 2010
Like the title says is it possible to back up only a certain folder in time machine? I'm a producer and dj and instead of manually backing my files up every few months I'd like it to happen automatically but I don't care for any of the other programs or anything on my computer.
Perhaps its just me being tired, as it seems there should be simple solutions to both of these problems, but I can't find them.
1) I got a new HD, and had it connected to my MacBook and MacBook Air one at a time to do an initial Time Machine backup. However, now I've connected it to my Time Capsule, and pointed them to the same partitions that they backed up to earlier - and they can't see the older backups. Is it possible to get them to see it and only start an incremental backup?
2) I'm also trying to mirror my iTunes library on the new hard drive, but all the methods I've tried so far (ie a couple of Automator actions and various apps) have either failed, or haven't worked properly (one has added several thousand '..DS_Store' files to the folder which aren't there even when I view hidden files!
Did a fresh install of SL on my iMac. So far, so good.
Go to my Documents folder, enter time machine, choose the files in my Documents folder and click restore. Exits out back to my desktop, enter my password and it starts to copy over the files. But then suddenly stops. And only copies over a small number of files and empty folders. When trying to restore just the files in some of the folders I get an error that says I don't have permission to access these files. Don't have permission? Says who and why?
So I go in via finder to the backup, select all the files in my Documents, and manually drag them over to my Documents folder. Same thing happens.
The files are a couple hundred mb. But can't figure out why they don't all copy over. Weird thing is I didn't have this problem with files from other locations like restoring my iPhoto library.
I'm trying to do a favour for a friend. She has a 320Gb external WD hard drive which she used on her Macbook to backup with Time Machine. It is not partitioned and she keeps the "Backups.backupdb" folder with other personal folders she throws in there. Recently she sold her Macbook and all that was left was this hd. She now only has access to her work pc but it won't recognize her hd as she's apparently formatted it with option "Mac OSX Journaled". So she gave me her hd to backup and then format to FAT32.
I've been a Mac for a long time but have never used Time Machine, I simply copy my important files into an external hd as I feel it's cleaner and I've never really had HD problems with any Macs I owned. So basically I have no idea how this works. I managed to copy all of her personal folders into my hd as well as the one labeled "Latest" on the Backups.backupdb folder ("Latest" is actually an alias). But I can't seem to be able to copy the rest of the backup folders. I can copy them into my computer hard drive, but each folder (I'm talking about the ones labeled with dates, there are 35 of them) is around 70Gb. Now, of course that doesn't make any sense, as it would be impossible to have 35 folders of 70Gb each in a 320Gb hd. I can only assume they use aliases as well, but when I try to copy them individually or as a whole (enclosing folder) Finder says I have no space available for that (even though I have more than 320Gb available).
Now, in my mind it's completely idiotic to keep any folders other than the Latest one. She doesn't even own a Mac anymore. But she's freaking out that I'm going to lose her entire life (she's that kind of person). I don't want to open the Time Machine app because like I said I don't use it on my computer and these are not my files, so I do not in any way want to sync with this hard drive or backup to it. I'm on a 21" 500Gb iMac running 10.7.3.
I'm trying to figure out someway to back up my music, stored on my ubuntu box, to my time machine drive. I can connect either as an afp share or a samba share.
I have looked into this a lot already. It is to much that Time Machine backs up every single hour! It would be nice to set it to something like 3 or 5 hours. I have tried a 3rd party app to do this, but... If my computer was off or asleep when it was supposed to back up, it would get an error. It would not just do the backup when i turned it on or when it came out of sleep like stock Time Machine does. I have also seen a way to change the time incraments in the Terminal.(I am very good with it, not a noob) I have tried this and it screws up time machine completely. Maybe it does not work with the newest OS X. By the way... I have a 2010 MacBook Pro, got it 2 months ago.
Does anyone know a solid 3rd party app, that will work seamlessly. Or has anyone changed the time in Terminal and are currently using something different than 1 hour. There is a lot of examples online, but I would like the codeing that you literally used.
Just wanted to check if he problem was unique to my MBA (Rev B, HDD) or you notice it too ;
My Time Machine backup takes up to 6 hours to do a backup of about 30GB. And each backup size is 31.5GB everytime !!
I have the following Config - 80 GB for OSX (53GB Free) and 40 GB (10GB Free) for Win 7 on Bootcamp. Sometimes I wonder if TM making a backup of Win 7 also everytime. (Does it mean - In a way its good, that means I should be able to restore the entire hard disk from TM including Applications, Win 7 , bootcamp and all the programmes installed in Win 7 in case I have a problem ?)
But the speed should still be fast... 6 hours to do a 32GB backup is torturous specially because then I have to leave the machine alone and cannot use it.
I am getting the following error from Time Machine when doing my first backup. The startup disk being backed up, and the TM disk are both the same size.
Macintosh HD: 465.44 (total); 393.99 (free); 71.45 (free) Time Machine: 465.44 (total); 465.29 (free)
The Time Machine error is: Quote:
"This backup is too large for the backup volume. The backup requires 472.7 GB but only 465.3 GB are available." why would this be? Other disks are excluded from the backup, and Time Machine is telling me that it needs more space than it actually needs. What should I do?
A: an old macbook (the white one) B: a modern macbook pro (retina) C: another modern macbook pro (TBD)
I am giving away B now; I expect to get C in 2 months time; I keep A with me all the time.
The goal is to migrate all of the data from B to C. I have Time Machine backups of B.
Since the transition is a long time (2 months), I need to keep working on my data during this period. For this I will use A. This will generate new files, modify old ones, ...
Since A's HDD is much smaller than B's backup, I can move only part of them.
By the way, I have totally erased A and used migration assistant to restore part of my old data from B. So, when I use A now, I do it with my same account as in B (and the same I will use in C).
How do I manage my backups in such a way that, when I will get C, I can safely move all of the data I had in B plus all of the changes and modifications that I have done during the 2 month transition?
Can I just continue to use Time Machine (on A) to update the old backups? I am afraid that some mess could be created because the computers are different (before the backups were taken on B, while now on A), even the present data are different (because now A only contains a subset of the original B data, which I do NOT want to lose), the good point is that the user is the same.
I have used my passport for mac as a time machine for my home computer and my work computer - both are macbook pro. I wanted to transfer documents from one computer to the other from the backups.backupdb, but when I get to the folders like "desktop", "documents", "downloads" etc. I get an error message saying "The folder “Desktop” can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents." and there´s a red "stop" icon on the folder.
In case I loose one computer, how I can access the data on another computer?
I was a PC user who recently moved to mac. I have a macbook (intel 2.2GHz, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD). When I was using PC, I backed up all my data to a network storage device (Buffalo LinkStation 250 GB connected to a 802.11g netgear router which is supplied by Sky) using a program called SmartSync Pro, which worked very well. Although I can connect to and mount the Share folder on this drive when the macbook is connected to the network, Time Machine will not back up to it. It wouldnt even recognise the disk on the network.
So I went onto the trusty internet, and found that you can get time machine to recognise the Share folder. (This was obtained from: http://blog.imulus.com/george/software/using-leopard-time-machine-to-backup-of-a-network/)See my comment on their page at the bottom, number 66.
It recommended entering the following in to the Terminal: defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1
Before attempting backup I have to go into "Network" and select the Share folder by double clicking on it. This seems to mount the volume. After this, it can be seen in Time Machine as a potential backup destination.
However, this method does not work for me. Time Machine "prepares" for a while, then gives the following message: Time Machine error. The backup disk image could not be created.
More internet searching took me to macosxhints which suggests creating something called a sparsebundle image on my local system. (http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080420211034137) Have not tried this yet as I thought it would be prudent to seek some help first.
Apple have deliberately disabled the ability for Time Machine to back up to network attached storage, (except of course to their proprietory Time Capsule):
Is this because time machine requires a network faster than 802.11g?
Is this because a time machine backup to a network attached storage device is unreliable and the data is corrupted?
I dont want to shell out more cash for a time capsule. I would prefer not to have to hardwire to an external drive (which I will also have to go out and buy). Any thoughts?
I just purchased a Seagate 3 TB USB 2.0/3.0 external drive to use as my time machine backup drive. I have a MacBook Pro that was purchased about 3-4 years ago. The MacBook Pro has a 120 GB hard drive and is currently running MAC OSx 10.6.8. I also have another WD 1 TB FireWire external drive that I use to store all of my media files.
After I followed the instructions for installing the new Seagate drive for use with the MAC OSx, I initiated a time machine backup. It very quickly determined that it needed to back up almost 900,000 files totaling just about 400 GB. It started the backup process at a rate of about 1 GB per minute. In a little less than an hour it reach 53 GB and remained there for an additional two hours before I decided to stop the backup.
Once I got the backup stopped, I deleted the backup and decided to look at my energy saving settings. I noticed that the "Put drives to sleep whenever possible" check box was checked, so I unchecked that option and restarted the MAC. I then initiated the time machine backup again. Like the first time it quickly determined that it needed to backup the same amount of data as before and started the backup process at a rate of about 1 GB per minute. Before going to bed at around 11 PM last night it was at about 60 GB so I thought I was out of the woods (having gotten further than the 53 GB earlier). When I woke up this morning at 5:30 AM it was sitting at 69 GB.
I am really frustrated at this point and don't know why the time machine back up would be failing on a brand new hard drive. PS - I was previously using a Seagate 1.5 TB USB drive as my time machine backup and never had any issues with it. I decided to use the 1.5 TB drive for a different purpose, which is why I have the new 3 TB drive to use as a backup. And I still have the full backup on the 1.5 TB drive just in case anything were to go awry.
I have a external HD which has always worked fine under snow leopard. Since upgrading to lion I keep getting the following message The identity of the backup disk has changed since the previous backup.The disk may have been replaced or erased, or someone may be trying to trick your computer into backing up to the wrong disk. And after this the drive disappears from the desktop appearing agian only after restart. What can I do do rectify this? Delete and re-intialise the drive?
Is there a way to make a backup of your Time Machine backup on a 2nd hard drive? I want to be doubly sure that my data is backed up!Right now I get an error saying that the second hard drive isn't authorized to copy my Time Machine data from the original hard drive I have set up as my Time Machine.
I just replaced my HD on my 15"MBP. The install went well until restoring my data from Time Machine. The apps came over fine but none of my data did. Yes, I checked all the boxes on the "restore from backup" menu.
Of course now when I start up time machine the backup isn't there. How do I get Time Machine to recognize the backup? I have it on two places - a time capsule and a separate external HD.
I just replaced the stock 160GB HD in my unibody macbook with a WD Blue Scorpio 640GB HD. I used Super Duper to clone the old drive to the new one, approximately 115 GB.
Now Time Machine wants to backup the full 115GB to my Time Capsule, which kinda sucks because it's going to be a redundent backup that's gonna take up over a 10th of my TC's space. Is there any way to avoid this and still use Time Machine?
I have a 1tb external for time machine back up and have about 750 gb of stuff to back up. I was under the impression that when time machine backs up my stuff it will automatically delete the oldest backup to create room for the newer backup.
My problem is that i did a back up a couple weeks ago and then today i go to back up and it tells me back up failed only 718gb available for 740gb of stuff to back up
Well TM is acting up. I get an error that reads: "This backup is too large for the backup volume."
Both the internal boot disk and the external baclup drive are 1TB. The internal one has a two partitions, the OSX one that is 900GBs and a 32GB NTFS one for Boot Camp. The external drive is a single OSX Extended part. that is 932GBs.
Both the Time Machine disk, and the Boot Camp disk are excluded from the backup along with a "Crap" folder for temporary large files.
Time Machine says it needs 938GBs to backup only the OSX disk, which has 806GBs in use with the rest free. WTFFF?
This happened after moving a large folder (128GB in total) from the root of the OSX disk over to my Home Folder.
I have reformated the Time Machine drive and have no backups at all of my data and it refuses to backup!!
Why would it need 938GBs of space to backup if the disk has "only" 806 GBs in use??? Is there anyway to reset Time Machine completely???
my TM wil not back up! It states that this backup is too large for the backup disk. The back up disk requires 573.50 GB but only 225.23 GB are available. The TM needs work space on the backup disk, in addition to the space required to store backups. Upen TM perferences to select a LARGER backup disk or make the backup smaller by excluding file.
Okay I;m sorry but obvioulsy I dont get this. I've never called Apple for help! I have every product they sell practically including Protection Plans I never used and no one will help me with this. My MAC is starting to have black or white screens and i can hear it running but it will not do anything so i have to reboot it, it screws up Enturage and then I have to rebuild that ( 5 times this year) anyway... I would like to back everything up- can I delete everything on the Time Capsule or Time Machine; god I dont even know what it is called Im so MAD... help if you can please. I'm going to have to take this to the genius people at the store and probably buy another computer but like before they will not save my files.
I plug my harddrive in and let it do the time machine thing. Does this mean all my movies will backup onto the HD? When I try to search in the hardrive I cant seem to find the movies and tv shows that I want backed up and I need to get them out of my laptop.
Albiet to the claim that the Time machine performance in SL is almost 50% faster than Leopard seems to be not true. The initial backup after the upgrade took almost 45 minutes and incrementals around 15 -20 mins as before.
Anybody else seeing the Time machine backup performance improvement in SL ?
If I were to make a time machine back up of my MacBook pro and then sold it wouid I be able to restore that time machine back up on a new iMac ( both are using snow leopard , uni MacBook pro and new 27 iMac)?
i bought that 15" i7 mbp yesterday. after importing a time machine backup from my mid 2009 15" on it, it didn�t switch the gpu back to the intel one again, so its only 330 gt. that means you have to make a clean install for the gpu switching to actually work. everything runs fine after that new install. just wanted you guys to know if somebody had the same problem. another thing is that as long as skype is open the mbp always uses the nvidia gpu. that takes a lot of battery away, especially is you have skype running in the background the whole day is i do.
I need to upgrade to a larger hard drive size, if I make a time machine backup of my current drive can I then re install selected items onto the new drive once it's installed without losing any data or programs?