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What do you not Back-up in Time Machine?


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What do you not Back-up in Time Machine?
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jcoley2
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Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Darien CT
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2008-01-18, 11:31

All this talk about TC and TM got me thinking, what should I be really backing up and what should I skip? (For me, I have a 500 GB drive pretty full with another internal, so I have made the decision to eliminate certain things that I could get back if something bad happens.)

Anyways, here is what I do not back-up:

Applications
Applications (Mac OS 9) - Probably should delete this folder but always worried if I did something would "break"
Document Folders for everyone else in the family (since they have their copies via Foldershare)
FCE Documents (always can go back to the original tape)
Games
Microsoft User Data (why?)
Music (figure it is on the iPhone)
SW (not even sure what this file is for)
System Files and Applications
System Folder (from old Mac) - I probably could delete this one also, right?

So basically backing up most of my User folder.

Now that I got a job, I can buy more Apple products!
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kieran
@kk@pennytucker.social
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
 
2008-01-18, 11:44

Is it possible to get the music back off of your iPhone though?

I know that Senuti works with iPods, but does it work with iPhones as well?
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jcoley2
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Join Date: Oct 2005
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2008-01-18, 12:04

Quote:
Originally Posted by kieran23kk View Post
Is it possible to get the music back off of your iPhone though?

I know that Senuti works with iPods, but does it work with iPhones as well?
shoot, I haven't even thought about that and I'm not sure now. Perhaps I should backup music also.
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bostongeek
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Boston, MA
 
2008-01-18, 12:07

I exclude my VMs.

I recently had my MBP stolen and I decided to replace it with an iMac. Upon first start-up of the iMac, I used the 'transfer from Time Machine backup' option. About two hours later, I had my docs, apps, and settings restored to my new computer. It worked perfectly and painlessly.

BostonGeek

Hey, I'm a reasonable guy. But I've just experienced some very unreasonable things. - Jack Burton
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ghoti
owner for sale by house
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Charlotte, NC
 
2008-01-18, 12:09

Disks are pretty cheap these days - and while you can get lots of things back, the amount of time you spend installing all your software again, perhaps fighting against program that won't let you register with the same registration code again, etc. really isn't worth it. The reason I'm not using Time Machine is that I want to have a bootable copy of my entire harddrive. SuperDuper! does that, for example.

My harddisk died two months ago, and I can't tell you how relieved I was that I could just drop in the backup disk and be up and running again in almost no time, rather than spending a day installing software and trying to find what data I had scattered around on DVDs, etc.
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kieran
@kk@pennytucker.social
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
 
2008-01-18, 12:25

TM isn't bootable itself, but if you put the Install disk in, you can migrate things over from a TM Backup, so it's not really that bad.

I'm willing to trade not being bootable to have a continuously backed up system automatically.

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Dave
Ninja Editor
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Bay Area, CA
 
2008-01-18, 12:59

The only thing I exclude from Time Machine is the Time Machine drive. If that ever gets full, I'll start thinking about excluding stuff.
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ghoti
owner for sale by house
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Charlotte, NC
 
2008-01-18, 13:04

I know that you can restore the entire disk from a TM backup. Thing is, my backup drive is the exact same size as my internal drive, so TM would use that up quite quickly. And so far, I haven't really had a need to go back to an earlier version of a file. But I am thinking about getting a Time Capsule, anyway.

I was mostly arguing against the "I don't need to backup X, because I have it on DVD/on a different computer/can find it again online/etc." It's too easy to fool yourself into thinking that, and realizing that you can't find something online or on that burned DVD anymore doesn't make things easier when your harddisk dies at exactly the wrong moment. And they usually do.
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Moogs
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: NSA Archives
 
2008-01-18, 13:23

Quote:
Originally Posted by jcoley2 View Post
Microsoft User Data (why?)
Because if you use Entourage for all of your email and business contacts, appointments, etc... you're utterly fucked if the database gets corrupted. How's that for a why?

Otherwise, in general I would only use it to back up one thing: my users folder, sans Library. Note this only works if you're one of those people who doesn't scatter documents all over the drive including at the root level.

...into the light of a dark black night.
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jdcfsu
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Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Florida
 
2008-01-18, 14:17

The only thing I don't back up is my EyeTV archive folder.
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Boomerangmacuser
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Vancouver, BC
 
2008-01-18, 14:18

The only thing I don't back up is my movies folder. If TM made a backup of every movie/show I put in there and then kept it when I delete the movie/show, I'd have little room for anything else. Any movie I want to keep I burn to disk.
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digitaldave
Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: St Evenage
 
2008-01-18, 14:27

The only thing I leave out is my music folder, as I have virtually all of it on CD. It'll be a pain to reload nearly 500 albums, but my current TM drive hasn't got the space. However, once I get a Time Capsule, I think I'll be backing everything up.
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Nogs
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
 
2008-01-18, 16:05

The only thing I have explicitly disabled is my Aperture Library as it can apparently screw things up http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306853
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apple007
BANNED
I am worthless beyond hope.
 
Join Date: May 2006
 
2008-01-18, 16:50

Quote:
Originally Posted by jcoley2 View Post
All this talk about TC and TM got me thinking, what should I be really backing up and what should I skip? (For me, I have a 500 GB drive pretty full with another internal, so I have made the decision to eliminate certain things that I could get back if something bad happens.)

Anyways, here is what I do not back-up:

Applications
Applications (Mac OS 9) - Probably should delete this folder but always worried if I did something would "break"
Document Folders for everyone else in the family (since they have their copies via Foldershare)
FCE Documents (always can go back to the original tape)
Games
Microsoft User Data (why?)
Music (figure it is on the iPhone)
SW (not even sure what this file is for)
System Files and Applications
System Folder (from old Mac) - I probably could delete this one also, right?

So basically backing up most of my User folder.
Wow. I can't imagine having a 500GB drive full *without* my music library or applications. That's some serious data.

Anyway, I would back up your music for sure, as well as *any* folder(s) that have the words "user data" in them. (They typically have very small, yet very important, files in them.)

I don't do a full Applications back-up but I do back-up the non-Apple apps I have installed, which is a very short list (eFax, MaxBulk Mailer, Quicken, Handbrake, Transmit, etc.).

(BTW, what's that "Mac OS 9" thing you mentioned? )

Quote:
Originally Posted by Moogs View Post
Because if you use Entourage for all of your email and business contacts, appointments, etc... you're utterly fucked if the database gets corrupted. How's that for a why?

Otherwise, in general I would only use it to back up one thing: my users folder, sans Library. Note this only works if you're one of those people who doesn't scatter documents all over the drive including at the root level.
I'm still using 10.4.11 but my Users folder doesn't have a Library in it. (The individual users have Library files in them, but I certainly wouldn't want to skip backing them up.) ???
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InactionMan
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2008-01-19, 10:17

I don't back up my movies or tv shows. I don't mind re-ripping them if I lose them and I simply don't have enough storage to back up everything.
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bobmoore
Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
 
2008-01-19, 10:52

I do not back up my Parallels file.
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