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Do not rely completely on Time Machine backups. I learnt the lesson in a painful way. My MBP crashed a few years back, and Apple decided to replace the motherbo

by hsuresh 13y ago

Do not rely completely on Time Machine backups. I learnt the lesson in a painful way. My MBP crashed a few years back, and Apple decided to replace the motherboard. Unfortunately, Time Machine detected this as a new laptop, and won't let me restore from the backups. These days, i backup only user data and i don't worry about the base OS. In fact, i prefer this over TimeMachine style backups. Photos go to Google Drive, work related documents to Dropbox, all code goes to BitBucket/Github, and thats about it. Videos and other personal stuff get backed to an external disk.

free652 13y ago
Huh? I restored the same TimeMachine backup to multiple different machines, including a hackintosh. Just weird. But yea, I have dropbox, timemachine, a drobo with 16tb for photos/videos.
mdmarra 13y ago
You can absolutely use time machine backups with a different Mac, the process is slightly different but still works. Migrating a Time Machine backup to a new Mac When you buy a new Mac, you can transfer all of your applications, files, settings, and other information from a Time Machine backup you've already made. You will be asked if you want to transfer files when you start up your new Mac for the first time. Or, you can use the Migration Assistant (located in Applications/Utilities). After Migration Assistant completes the transfer and you select your existing Time Machine backup drive, you will be prompted with "Inherit Backup History". Once selected you will be able to continue to use your existing Time Machine backup on your new Mac. http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427 http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427
danieldk 13y ago
Do not rely completely on Time Machine backups. I learnt the lesson in a painful way. My MBP crashed a few years back, and Apple decided to replace the motherboard. Unfortunately, Time Machine detected this as a new laptop, and won't let me restore from the backups. But Time Machine backups are just a folder with (yet another) folder per backup timestamp. It doesn't use deltas or anything fancy, unchanged files are just hard linked. In other words, you can browse a Time Machine backup like any other filesystem. For instance, you could just use cp or rsync to restore an exact copy. On a Time Capsule or Airport Extreme with external hard disk, the files live in some disk image IIRC, but even there it is generally not hard to restore files.
cr3ative 13y ago
Sorry, you did something wrong. One of Time Machine's core functions is to migrate old laptops to newer laptops. It absolutely does not refuse to let you restore across new hardware.
snowwrestler 13y ago
You can exclude the OS and applications from your Time Machine backups if you want. It's a great way to save space, since you can probably reinstall those from other sources.
- epochwolf 13y ago
  Time Machine does not back up the operating system.

by hsuresh 13y ago

free652 13y ago

Huh? I restored the same TimeMachine backup to multiple different machines, including a hackintosh. Just weird. But yea, I have dropbox, timemachine, a drobo with 16tb for photos/videos.

mdmarra 13y ago

You can absolutely use time machine backups with a different Mac, the process is slightly different but still works. Migrating a Time Machine backup to a new Mac When you buy a new Mac, you can transfer all of your applications, files, settings, and other information from a Time Machine backup you've already made. You will be asked if you want to transfer files when you start up your new Mac for the first time. Or, you can use the Migration Assistant (located in Applications/Utilities). After Migration Assistant completes the transfer and you select your existing Time Machine backup drive, you will be prompted with "Inherit Backup History". Once selected you will be able to continue to use your existing Time Machine backup on your new Mac. http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427 http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427

danieldk 13y ago

Do not rely completely on Time Machine backups. I learnt the lesson in a painful way. My MBP crashed a few years back, and Apple decided to replace the motherboard. Unfortunately, Time Machine detected this as a new laptop, and won't let me restore from the backups. But Time Machine backups are just a folder with (yet another) folder per backup timestamp. It doesn't use deltas or anything fancy, unchanged files are just hard linked. In other words, you can browse a Time Machine backup like any other filesystem. For instance, you could just use cp or rsync to restore an exact copy. On a Time Capsule or Airport Extreme with external hard disk, the files live in some disk image IIRC, but even there it is generally not hard to restore files.

cr3ative 13y ago

Sorry, you did something wrong. One of Time Machine's core functions is to migrate old laptops to newer laptops. It absolutely does not refuse to let you restore across new hardware.

snowwrestler 13y ago

You can exclude the OS and applications from your Time Machine backups if you want. It's a great way to save space, since you can probably reinstall those from other sources.

epochwolf 13y ago
Time Machine does not back up the operating system.