Oct 13

How do I format a new Hard Drive to use with Time Machine?

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Answer: Use Mac OS Extended.

Mac OS Extended, also known as HFS Plus or HFS+, is the file system that was used on all Macs from 1998 until the last couple of years. APFS is the new file system for OSX and it works well for an SSD drive. But you can’t backup to an APFS drive using Time Machine (even if the external drive is an SSD drive). It sounds a bit backwards I know but that’s the way Apple are doing it at the moment.

There’s a work-around: you can use a sparse image to create a DMG to back up to an APFS SSD drive, (see here). I would not recommend this because the Apple recovery mode will not be able to find your backup.

From Apple Support:

Important: You can back up from an HFS+ or APFS-formatted disk to an HFS+ disk; however, Time Machine can’t back up to an APFS-formatted disk. If you select a back up disk formatted as APFS, Time Machine offers to reformat it as HFS+.

[retrieved Oct 7 2020 from ‘https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/mac-help/mh15139/mac’]

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Oct 07

How to move a Time Machine backup to a different hard drive.

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time machine

If you’re like me after a year or two you may have outgrown your Time Machine backup and with Hard Drive prices dropping it’s time to get a bigger hard disk to host your Time Machine  backup. But starting a new time machine backup on a new hard disk means you lose the continuity with your old backups. Thankfully you can move an existing Time Machine backup from one hard drive to another. Here’s how.

Continue reading ⟩

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Jan 07

How to transfer your data from an old macbook to a newer thunderbolt macbook or macbook air.

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migration-assistant

Some of the newer macbooks and macbook airs do not have an ethernet port or firewire port, so you can’t connect them to an older macbook to copy your old files and settings accross. What do you do? Continue reading ⟩

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Apr 10

Backup Backup Backup!!!

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Is your computer backed up? With 2T hard disks at around $100, there’s no excuse not to have your computer backed up. At the very least, you should have an external USB Hard Disk with some kind of backup on it. If you haven’t – do it now! This is the easiest way.

As for me – it’s the start of the New Year so I’ve re-evaluated my backup regime. I think it’s working well. Here’s what it is: Continue reading ⟩

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Apr 03

How to make a bootable backup of your computer

backup, DVD, Repairs 81 Comments »

backup1.png

There are two main ways to backup your Apple computer.

1. Use Time Machine to automatically backup. This is the Apple way – the easy way.

OR

2. Manually backup your computer with some other software such as Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner.

If you are a beginner I recommend Time Machine. Look here.

Apple’s way (Time Machine) is a lot simpler. It’s automatic. It doesn’t rely on you remembering to do anything. The big disadvantage  is that the backup is not bootable.  So if your computer crashes you need to insert the original DVD and restore from the Time Machine backup. This process can take hours – not good if you are just heading out the door and need a file. But it will get your computer back to what it was like the hour before it crashed!

The second method takes a few steps longer to set up, but  your backup will be bootable. That means if  you plug your backup drive in, and then hold down Option-Command-Shift-Delete during startup,  you can boot instantly off your backup drive. In an emergency you can plug in your backup and be running from it under a minute. You can’t do this with Time Machine. The downside it it will only take you back to THE LAST TIME YOU BACKED UP.

I do both. I have time-machine running so my most recent work is always backed up, and I do a CCC backup monthly so I have an instant bootable backup ready to go for emergencies.

This article describes how to manually backing up using Super Duper. If you want to use Time Machine as well, here’s an article on how to backup using time-machine.

Continue reading ⟩

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Feb 20

How to backup and restore your computer using Time Machine

backup, software 11 Comments »

This article describes how to backup your computer using Time Machine. Apple’s Time Machine is simply the best backup system available for the Macintosh – it’s simple to use and it does everything automatically so you don’t have to remember to back things up. You can use it to go back in time a day, a week, or month to find a file that you’ve deleted or changed, and you can use it to restore your entire system should your Hard Disk go down.

And did I mention how simple it is!  Time Machine is built into OS X  so all you need to do is Plug in an external hard drive, open Time Machine and select your hard drive, and turn Time Machine on! It will automatically backup for you. Here are those steps is a little bit more detail with some pictures to make it real easy, along with some tips on choosing the size of Hard Drive to buy.

Continue reading ⟩

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Feb 14

How to back up your computer automatically (with MyBook Live and Time Machine)

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In this previous article I describe   how to backup your computer using Apple’s Time Machine  and an external hard drive.  Here’s how to do it using a network hard drive:

Step 1. Throw out your My Book Live.

Step 2. Go and buy an Apple Time Capsule

Step 3. Turn on Time-Machine.

I kid you not!  I am sorry if anyone followed these instructions below. The My Book Live has been more trouble than it’s worth.

1. The drive stopped working in under 1 year.

2. After many calls to Western Digital they still havn’t provided a warranty replacement.

3. They use some weird custom drive format that can’t be read by OSX or Ubuntu or Windows, so you cna’t get the data off your backup if it crashes.

I’ll leave this article below for your information, but DON’T TO IT!!!

It’s worth paying more and using Apple’s time capsule for peace of mind and better support should something go wrong, plus it’s easier to set up.  

Continue reading ⟩

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Mar 13

How to back up your web server via the terminal

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This will backup your entire remote server to your local Macintosh computer. It uses the command line so it’s not for beginners. Continue reading ⟩

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