Two Useful Time Machine-oriented Articles

Yesterday ARS Technica pointed me to two useful articles that dive deeper into the true workings of Time Machine.

The first article dives deeper into the nature of performing a Full System Restoration off of a Time Machine backup. It outlines the steps it takes (with screenshots) and explains the side-effects of a restored system. The process involved in setting up the Install DVD to restore your mac is by choosing the backup disk, choosing the backup (only ones with system files show up for restoration), selecting the destination (usually your mac’s internal boot disk), and waiting about 3 hours for the system to be restored. Some of the side effects include Spotlight needing to reindex, Mail needing to re-import your mail (not re-download it), iTunes needing re-authentication, and some commercial software needing to be re-authorized. .Mac and Address Book also ran into some hiccups with his testing.

The second article dives deeper into what backup Time Machine chooses as the daily backup and the state of renaming/ moving files and how Time Machine responds. Apparently Time Machine takes the first backup of the day (made at 12:01 am) as that day’s daily backup. Also, it outlines that a renamed file/ folder or a moved file/ folder get re-backed up and thus take up twice the space on your backup disk as it does on your internal/ boot disk.

Those are the two articles I was intrigued to have read yesterday and figured that I should share with you all here. Enjoy, Alex.