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- wsts87, on 10/16/2007, -9/+44maybe 10 years from now we will see windows doing something familiar to time machine.
- PaulPinfield, on 10/15/2007, -5/+36I want, I want, I want...
- Ireland, on 10/13/2007, -4/+33This is one feature worth shouting about. It makes backing up in Leopard both easy and free.
- abrooks, on 10/13/2007, -5/+29Shadow Copy is nothing like Time Machine, they work on two very different principles.
- justinviger, on 10/13/2007, -3/+27Not only is it going to be more intuitive than other backup options, it also looks really cool.
- kaytrio, on 10/14/2007, -0/+21Wow... if you actually sit down and read this, you can really learn something about how file systems work.
- meatmcguffin, on 10/13/2007, -3/+22Read page three of the article. Plus, how many ordinary people, not network admins, use shadowcopy?
- yabos, on 10/13/2007, -2/+20Why don't you read the damn article which explains why it's not the same thing as Shadow Copy. Here's a hint, it's on page 3.
- abrooks, on 10/13/2007, -1/+18Not necessarily, if the backup source is not present Time Machine can't do anything. As soon as the source is there then it will start backups.
- inactive, on 10/14/2007, -2/+16excellent rundown
- milkmage, on 10/13/2007, -2/+14here you go moron, FTA:
Snapshots and Windows' Shadow Copy
Time Machine has been frequently compared to Microsoft's Shadow Copy (or Volume Snapshot Service), because both systems involve file backup. In reality, they are not really very similar at all. Microsoft uses the background Shadow Copy service to duplicate files on the same disk. Those shadow copies record a "snapshot" of the file at a given moment in time, and can be accessed by the user using Previous Versions (which shows up in the file properties viewer), or tapped into by an external network backup system. Backing up these "shadow copies" simply prevents the external backup system from running into problems trying to back up live files that may be locked by the user working on them.
The data backup features related to Shadow Copy are only useful if a Windows machine is running in an environment with a server backing them up. Shadow Copy is not in itself a backup system, although it can present a listing of duplicated files that were captured by the shadow copy service. Without a dedicated backup system, Previous Versions only shows local shadows of a file. It does not copy files to an external disk for safekeeping, and its shadow copies can't be browsed through by the user in the file system by date or by query. Shadow Copy is certainly not an easy to use consumer backup solution (nor is intended to be), which is what Time Machine expressly is.
In Windows Vista, Microsoft also tied Shadow Copy into System Restore, which allows users to roll back their entire PC software install to a previous point in time. This is not a backup system either; it's a system wide undo. System Restore is oriented around undoing the problems caused by installing a software title, a Windows software update, an unsigned hardware driver, or some other event that causes problems that need to be rolled back. It doesn't go back and find something lost from the past; it reverts the clock to a previous checkpoint and throws away the future from that point forward. System Restore is not even loosely related to Time Machine in what it does, how it does it, or why it exists. - superkendall, on 10/13/2007, -5/+16What I really like about these series of articles is that they are complete enough to head off the common Apple hater troll at the pass - the article talks about Shadow Copy, the previous article talked about X-Windows forms of virtual desktops, etc. Really cuts down on people bringing up the same inane points as much as they normally do.
- rspeed, on 10/13/2007, -4/+15Not to mention reliable.
- shahvikram123, on 10/14/2007, -4/+15If you had read the article it made a clear comparison between time machine and shadow copy. There 2 completely different things
- chrisgeleven, on 10/13/2007, -0/+11Well then, don't use it. Duh.
For many people who don't have proper backups, this will be a huge improvement. - edcrosay, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10You may not need it, but it will drastically help average joe shmoe who thinks RAID always follows the word panty.
- DoctorShim, on 10/13/2007, -4/+14Estimate to get Time Machine feature into other operating systems:
Windows: 8 - 10 yrs.
GNU/Linux: 3 - 5 yrs.
BSD: 30 - 65 yrs. - edcrosay, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Well I'm not a programmer, but I dont whine when they include development tools. I don't use automater, apple scripts and dozens upon dozens of features in OSX. However, there are a ton of features that I do use and enjoy. You don't need to use Time Machine. You don't need to buy Leopard. If you do want Leopard, buy it for the features you do want, and don't bitch about the "extraneous" ones.
- DaffyDuck, on 10/13/2007, -0/+8My lack of extra hard drive, however, is still not solved.
- mikepictor, on 10/14/2007, -0/+8"I am also not interested in my files being "deleted." I want my files to be DELETED."
Um...what? You want them deleted, or not? And if you did want them deleted, just don't go looking for them in the backup. The first time you *didn't* want them deleted, you will be glad you could go find it again. - ataylor32, on 10/26/2007, -2/+10Hey, you weren't supposed to mention that!
- drogers, on 10/13/2007, -0/+7RAID on a laptop? Not likely - and in case you haven't noticed Apple sells a ton of laptops these days. And manual archiving? Why on earth would you bother doing that when you can have your OS do it for you? Seriously, when was the last time you backed up iCal? Address book? Your email? Time machine did mine 34 minutes ago. Last week I fired up iCal and it was empty - the database had become corrupt and I lost everything. Even my latest manual backup wouldn't open (so much for manual archiving). Then I remembered TM, fired it up, found the backup from a few hours before, and BAM - all good.
So let's see - your way requires a) multiple steps, which differ for each app or data type you want to back up. b) manual intervention. c) a drive to back up to. Time Machine requires c) a drive to back up to. Sounds like a winner to me!
As for potential drawbacks, time machine has no noticeable hit on system performance (been running it for a while with an old slow USB drive, and I *always* forget it's there) and all it requires is plugging in an external drive once in a while. On top of that, you can still back it up with an occasional CCC or manual file copy if you want to be sure. So, where are the drawbacks?
As for deleted files - when you delete them they are gone from your main drive, and they'll be removed from your backup drive when it runs out of space to store old files. What's the harm? Or are you looking for a way to make sure the black-helo folks don't find your data?
One more thing - if/when your drive does die and you replace it, a fresh leopard install will find your TM backup and restore your machine to a pristine pre-failure state with just a few clicks. Make no mistake - OS integration is a HUGE boon for backup.
Listen, I'm not a huge fanboi that jumps on every feature as Job's gift to mankind, but when I see someone bashing the most well thought out and executed data backup system I have EVER used (and that includes years of enterprise level backup systems), it makes me wonder about motivation... - Stirk, on 10/13/2007, -1/+8It's explained in the article.
- danielwsmithee, on 10/13/2007, -1/+8Because it is explained well in the article.
- edcrosay, on 10/13/2007, -1/+8You're right. They should just release OS 10.5 "Devindotcom" edition with only the features that you specifically want.
- DelMonte, on 10/19/2007, -0/+6Anyone posting that Time Machine is like feature X of operating Y from N years ago either:
A) Didn't read the article at all.
B) Only read the first page. (There's more than one page in this article, in case you didn't notice.)
C) Only glanced through the article, looking for pictures proving their theory that Time Machine is all about looks.
D) Is too dumb to understand what's being written about it.
E) Is an Apple hater that voluntarily disregards what makes Time Machine innovative and different, reducing it as "simply a back-up program with a pretty GUI".
Time Machine is much more than a back-up program. It's a framework that provides APIs to enable almost unlimited undo in apps using their native interface. You can use Time Machine in the Finder, with Spotlight search and smart folders, but you can also use it with Mail, the Address book, iPhoto, without being limited to a crippled interface. The app-native interface window is brought into TM, with all its features, like search and sorting. And that's just the start. The APIs are available to all developers so they can easily add TM functionality to their apps. - danielwsmithee, on 10/13/2007, -0/+6Just make a network share that you can't get to from anywhere, and Time Machine should work fine with it
- rebotfc, on 10/13/2007, -1/+6Its great because i can come home from a day at work plug the lappy in and it will auto back up. It doesnt need the drive online all the time and automatically detects when its connected.
- spectre_25gt, on 10/13/2007, -1/+6The same comment above got buried down to -26 at the time of this posting. People just don't learn, do they?
- rebotfc, on 10/14/2007, -2/+7I must say Time Machine is awesome, since I've been using the beta it has saved my arse on several occasions where i've overritten files and once where i've had to revert the system entirely.
Great considering it is part of the OS. - rebotfc, on 10/13/2007, -0/+5You don't need to do any of that, its all automated and detects what drives are installed etc.
- DoctorShim, on 10/13/2007, -2/+7> it also looks really cool.
Which is why I'm not buying a Mac.
Fine I lied. I am. - DelMonte, on 10/14/2007, -0/+5"theres also vista's auto backup feature. it is set to run once a week and you can restore a file by right clicking on it and seeing all of the previous version."
What if you deleted the file? You right click on the empty spot where the file once was? I doubt it.
I guess you're forced to restore a previous version of the whole folder to find the deleted file that was once inside... And then, you only have access to a list of versions for the folder, which may have changed after that file was deleted. How do you know which folder to restore?
In Time Machine, open the folder that was containing the file, click on the Time Machine icon, and simply go back to the point where this file existed. Then you can use Quicklook to see the content of the file, before you choose to restore it.
What if you deleted the file and don't remember where it was exactly?
Do a search for the deleted file using Spotlight, it returns 0 result? No problem, enter Time Machine, click the upward arrow and instantly go back to the point where this search returned something.
What if you don't even remember the name of the file?
With Time Machine, just set up a search for the file you're looking (let's say a PDF file that contains the word "blob" and is >1MB) and with one click you can go back to the last time this search returned something, then restore your file from there. Again, you can use Quicklook to see if it's the right file, before restoring.
Just a few examples of things that are hard or impossible to do with Vista's backup solution, and that's only scratching the surface. - yabos, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Time Machine will wait until your external drive is connected. When it is then it will start the back up and continue every few hours as long as it's connected.
They used to have a setting to not back up system files at first but now it seems to be missing from the latest builds. - RajAtWork, on 10/13/2007, -2/+6It is not clear in the article: which protocols are supported for a backup to a network drive? SMB, NFS, ...?
- chrisgeleven, on 10/13/2007, -3/+7Yeah, because many people are going to bother to right-click a folder to see the previous versions.
What Time Machine does completely different from Vista is the presentation. It is simple to open, simple to use, and will get people to backup. - kdjsmith, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5What I want to know is, will it work with secondary drives in a Mac Pro? They always reference external USB drives (Firewire? eSATA? I should hope so) but could I purchase a 750GB SATA drive for my Mac Pro and run Time Machine to it? Can't see why not, but since it's never been mentioned...
- deadbaby, on 10/13/2007, -0/+4System Restore exists because of DLL hell and the fragile Windows registry. It does nothing to prevent data loss. It's a band aid on the bloddy infected knife wound we call Windows.
- inactive, on 10/14/2007, -0/+4Considering that OS X presently only supports read-only access to ZFS, I'd say no.
- Ireland, on 10/13/2007, -0/+4Well if you are on Tiger and you buy Superduper that's a further $28. Now you don't need to buy Superduper, because you get better alternative built into the OS. The OS is $129, so in my mind Time Machine is free. When you are on Leopard, and you decide to back up, you don't have to buy Superduper.
- deadbaby, on 10/13/2007, -0/+4It's typical of the whole MS/Apple debate isn't it? Shadow Copy is only really useful if you have an Active Directory setup with My Documents folder re-direction. Even with Vista the backups that Shadow Copy makes are stored on the same physical disk which gives you no redundancy at all. What Apple did, as usual, was to look at a common problem (lack of users backing up files) and give them an easy solution (it takes aprox. 3 clicks to enable time machine) Microsoft just doesn't understand (or care) how to make features work well.
- MacParrot, on 10/13/2007, -1/+4If Word was a new feature in MS Office, than yes you would be correct. He means it's free as compared to buying a separate program to do backups with.
- iChaz, on 10/20/2007, -0/+3is there a porn filter?
XD - drogers, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Yes, you can use local volume, or even a second partition on a local disk as the backup target. The partition option might make sense if you already have a good RAID setup that you're happy with....
- nanboya, on 10/27/2007, -0/+3The article says shared network drives a la Airport Extreme; can anyone confirm if a standard Appleshare volume (say from a desktop) would be usable? I'd be more than happy to partition off one of the 250GB drives in my G5 for "permanent" Time Machine use if I can access it from my laptop while in my home network.
- rebotfc, on 10/14/2007, -2/+5Did you even read the article moron?
- FenrisUlf, on 10/13/2007, -0/+3I'm guessing it has to be afp://
- nanboya, on 10/14/2007, -0/+3The one nice thing is that this will be built into the system and not an add on.
- Twee, on 10/13/2007, -0/+3It backs up to an external drive. It doesn't use any of your local drive's space. Also, this is completely different from system restore, RTFA! System restore is an undo for system settings in case you install a bad driver, it takes a snapshot of your system, but not your personal files.
- devindotcom, on 10/14/2007, -4/+7Just because it's included in the price of something you're buying doesn't mean it's free ... not in any way. You're paying for an update and software package, it costs you $129. There is nothing free about it, you are paying for the functionality of a backup system.
By your argument, something is free if you buy it but not an alternative. Adobe Premiere is free because if you buy it, you don't have to buy Vegas! You just saved like $400! Buy a Canon... now you don't need to buy a Nikon! $1000 savings! You see the problem here? You're buying a backup program as part of a software suite. Please don't try to say something is free when you're paying for it. -
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