This thread started out in "Folder behavior" in Mac OS X 10.6.x & 10.7.x, in case a history is needed.


Just before my copy of Pogue's book arrives, I've been scoping out various external hard drives.
There seem to be a whole host available, mostly USB (including USB 3), all of which need to be reformatted for Leopard and Snow Leopard (meaning that nothing is going to be formatted for Lion — and I wouldn't have a clue how to do any of that anyway).
I have yet to find a Firewire drive.

In any event, what exactly would be necessary to make use of this Time Machine function in my iMac? What frequency of backup might be warranted? And what might I use such backups for (since a crash of the iMac can't ostensibly be corrected by a backup, at least as far as I can comprehend the discussion in that thread).

In light of the foregoing, what brand names and models do FTM folk recommend? I'd like to keep the price reasonable, preferably (well) under a hundred bucks.

From Mac OS X 10.7 Help:

To erase a disk:

If you want to erase an external disk, connect the disk to your computer.

In Disk Utility, select the disk or partition in the list on the left.

Click Erase.

Choose a format from the Format pop-up menu. Usually you will choose
Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

Type a name for the disk or partition.

If you want to prevent the erased files from being recovered, click
Security Options, select the option you want, and click OK.

Click Erase.

FYI, I got this by going to Mac OS X 10.7 Help: Erase a disk and followed the links. The part that I quoted appeared in Disk Utility Help, not at the Apple website.

Once you have erased the disk (it will be formatted at the same time), follow the instructions in Mac 101: Time Machine. That should the be same as for 10.5 and 10.6.

Time Machine backs up regularly (about once an hour) by default, so you don't have to set anything.

Thanks. Pretty much identical to erasing/reformatting a thumb drive (which I've done a couple times). I thought it might be more involved.

I haven't really gotten around to the mechanics of backups, since I'm still trying to discern what I might need and to what purpose I might put it/them.

Once hourly backups seems kind of excessive and obsessive. Why would one do that? Nothing that I do on the computer could possibly warrant that frequency, but then I still don't know to what use I would put such.

You can alter the frequency of TM backups via the System tab of Cocktail. That seems a lot easier than the method described here and in other links at this Google search page. Of course, you could always disable automatic backups and back up manually when the mood strikes.

Your under $100 limit for a Time Machine drive is unrealistic for the capacity your need with a drive/enclosure that is reasonably fast, reliable, and Mac friendly. Check Other World Computing for external drives with just about any and all interfaces. Their drives are not fancy but they are fast, reliable, and 100% Mac compatible.

To make Time Machine function you need

1. an external drive with 2 to 3 times the capacity of th drive you are backing up.
2. The drive must be formatted Mac OS X Extended (journaled) with GUID partition table (easily done with Disk Utility)
3. Spotlight turned ON
4. Theoretically any interface will do, but as a practical matter the faster the better. USB 1 a.k.a. USB Full Speed is really too slow. USB 2 a.k.a. USB High Speed will work, Firewire 400 is better, Firewire 800 is great, Thunderbolt would be best if you could find one.

The Time Machine backup interval is every 60 minutes and those hourly backups consolidated into Weekly and monthly backups. Time Machine is efficient enough and smart enough that I have never found it necessary to modify the default backup frequency and I have on more than one occasion found the backup frequency very helpful. Time Machine is a very different backup solution than most people are used to, but it offers just about the best possible security and flexibility. IMO tinkering with its timing interval only serves to make it less effective.

People who do a lot of writing are one group. Many writers like to save different versions as they progress, knowing they may find that changes they've made haven't generated as good a piece as something they recall writing earlier.

Time Machine allows instant restoration of earlier text.

Some suggestions, re external drives, I've gotten:

Irrespective of brand name, it should have a Seagate or Western Digital drive inside; avoid Fujitsu.

3TB USB 3 drives with 16-32MB cache with 7200 rpm recommended (over Firewire or Thunderbolt).

Partition into 2TB for Time Machine and 1TB for other (possibly to mirror iMac HD in case it's required to boot from external drive — as though I knew what any of that means or how to do it).

Any comments?

According to the comments that I have read, you should avoid Seagate. WD has been highly recommended and, FWIW, I have had good luck with Hitachi.

I suspect that 7200rpm is overkill.

As an internal HD it would pep up your iMac, but as an external, and particularly considering the minimal use to which you're apparently going to put it, I dunno if it's worth the added cost.

My practice has been to order an empty external enclosure from Other World Computing then install the drive mechanism of my choice — usually Hitachi (which I also get from OWC). That is the only way I have found of guaranteeing the manufacturer of the drive itself. Besides, pre-mounted drives generally have only a one or two year warranty while purchasing the components separately you can often get up to five years warranty. Go figure!

Installing the drive in the enclosure is easily within the capability of just about anyone who has a small phillips screwdriver (P1) and can read and will follow the most basic level of instructions. My main difficulty has been in handling the very small machine screws without dropping them resulting in digging through the dust bunnies under the desk.

> "Installing the drive in the enclosure is easily within the capability of just about anyone who has a small phillips screwdriver (P1) and can read and will follow the most basic level of instructions. My main difficulty has been in handling the very small machine screws without dropping them resulting in digging through the dust bunnies under the desk."

Further to that I'll paraphrase V1's comment (from a thread I can't locate) that while all the screws used to mount an HD may be identically threaded, they are not necessarily identical in all other respects, so care should be taken to screw each screw back into the exact same hole from which it was unscrewed.

Edit: I've found that a minimally magnetized screwdriver is extremely helpful for dealing with the teensy-tiny screws while having no apparent effect on the HD, itself.

Am I treading on dangerous ground?

To add some information, read Seagate vs. Hitachi drives.

If a hard drive states "for 32-bit kernel only", can it be used with 64-bit Lion?

Note: I've gone over the Wikipedia article Kernel (computing), but to me the content is pretty much gibberish. I 'understand' the diagram, but that's as far as I get in terms of understanding what's described.

Thanks for asking; I wasn't aware that there were 32 and 64 bit HDs.

I have not run across that limitation before. Could you perhaps let us know where you found it so i/we can get some more information?

The item in question is a Seagate Free Agent GoFlex Desk External Drive, 2TB; for Mac OS X 10.4.11 to 10.6.2, 32-bit kernel only; UPC 63649 02341.
Moreover, no external drive which I have seen so far has indicated a compatibility with OS X Lion; the latest version of OS X applicable has been 10.6.x.

Seagate's Web site specifies:


Have you got a link for us?

I'm not aware of there being any need for an HD to be specifically compatible with Lion, but....

The FreeAgent GoFlex Desk Product Information Sheet (pdf) says, under System Requirements:

No link. I read the information off the box in the store.

That said, I'm tending towards a nice little Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 1TB USB3.0/2.0 which should work out just dandy with Time Machine and my needs (including recovery, which also answers the question of whether a bootable backup disc is necessary — it isn't — thanks to Pogue's information in "the missing manual").

(At least it's mentioned, even if only in part, on the packaging [as has been posted by grelber].)

But why? I guess it's a function of the enclosure, rather than of the HD, itself?

Any ideas about "Reformatting for Mac may be required?" (I read "for" and reacted to "of.")

As for the WD model mentioned in my last post, colleagues who use it for critical business backups (on multiple Macs, using Time Machine) tell me that it does the job right out of the box (ie, they've never had to reformat the drive prior to use).

I just reread my question and realized that it was beyond stupid.

But thanks for your response, anyhow.

The reason for that, I just noticed (Pogue, p 262), is that "Time Machine automatically reformats [drives] to the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) scheme, which it requires."

Reformatting of the entire drive only takes place if/when the external is physically mounted via a direct cable connection. Not sure, but if your muliple-Mac-using colleagues are backing up to the same drive, chances are they're using Wi-Fi rather than running around the office shuttling the backup disk back and forth.

In the case of a NAS (network attached storage), Time Machine doesn't reformat the actual remote disk itself. Rather, it creates a disk "image" on that filesystem, mounts that file as if it were an actual disk, and reformats just that imaginary disk. It's kinda abstract, but less work for the user.

E.g., i'm not sure what format the disk is inside a Time Capsule, but i do know from several attempts that it doesn't support hard links (Unix-style). Therefore it isn't UFS or HFS+ format. But no matter, Time Machine can back up to it anyway, since it uses that disk image method just described. [fwiw, Time Machine relies heavily on Unix hard links.]

My bad. They use multiple 1TB drives for multiple machines (ie, one drive per each machine) via direct cable connection, swapping them out daily to secure off-site storage.

From personal experience with that very drive I can tell you that it comes pre-formatted with the NTFS file system format (Windows - specific) AND it comes with some add-on Western Digital software that you absolutely DO NOT NEED OR WANT TO INSTALL.

When you get your drive, simply plug it in so that it mounts to your computer, run the Disk Utility application that is in your /Applications/Utilities directory, highlight the disk partition (not the drive mechanism listed just above it) and then choose "Erase" and pull down the list of formats to HFS + Journaled, then click OK.....you can rename the disk to a name of your liking. The result will be a Macintosh - specific formatted hard drive that will perform exactly the way you desire for your Time Machine needs.

Rats! You beat me to it (by about an hour). I was out shopping (see below) when you posted this item. Here's my take:

Man, that was slick! But first a little history ...

Given the crapola (ie, flooding) in Thailand with respect to external hard drive factories (which may or may not ever come back on line) and otherwise indefinite plans of external hard drive purveyors (eg, Western Digital), 1TB drives under $100 (much less in the $70 arena) are going to be few and far between. So I went to a local big box store and grabbed a WD My Passport 1TB drive on sale.

It took me longer to get it out of the box than it did to connect it and get my first backup started (ongoing as I write this). Upon plugging it in, my iMac asked if I wanted to make it my backup disk, to which I answered in the affirmative, whereupon it immediately opened Time Machine, reformatted the drive* and gave me 120 seconds during which I could choose the option of aborting the first backup, and then went into the backup. It took about 90 sec/GB for the initial backup.
[* It just did it. No options, no list of formats. It knew where it was going and went there. Another new feature of Lion (which Pogue also alluded to).]

Ain't too shabby. And now I've got an external source to recover the entire system plus my files. Sweet.

I wonder which format Time Machine chose [which you can easily check via a Finder Get Info window (or in Disk Utility).]

The reason i highlighted those sections of your quotes is because —when Time Machine auto-formats a disk image on its own—its "choice" is: HFS+ (Mac OS Extended), Case-sensitive, Journaled. [sic] Yes, case-sensitive... which is not a commonly used/recommended option for Mac users. And it's also not a commonly known fact that that's what Time Machine itself chooses.... at least when it formats a disk image.

So i'm hoping you can tell us (as i'm unsure) what it chose in your situation (i.e., a direct connection via cable). I'm guessing it might not choose case-sensitive in that scenario, since users might have other uses for their backup volumes. But still, there's a chance...

So could you tell us please? Just select the disk on the desktop (or in the 'Computer' window), and post the full Format description (just above Capacity in the Get Info window).

Indeed. From the Get Info window —
Format: Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)
Just as you surmised, although Pogue (p 262) left the "Case-sensitive" bit out of his note on the automatic reformatting of the drive. Pogue's parting comment in that note is: "Thoughtful, really."

Two minor addenda:

— When I went to WDC's website to acquire a user manual, I also noted that there was supposedly a firmware update for the drive. So I called WDC (30 days' worth of free telephone consultion included in purchase), who tried to convince me that it would improve the functioning of my drive ... until they found out that I was using Time Machine for backup, at which point they said that the update was unnecessary (ie, it wasn't really a firmware update but a software update for their SmartWare).

— Not included in the box was their software (which I wasn't planning on using anyway, for the same reasons MacManiac gave earlier) — either a mistake in packaging or it may have been on the drive itself before Time Machine took it over and erased everything on it prior to reformatting.

That's interesting. I checked my TM Backup and it only says: "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" At first I wondered why.

Then I recalled seeing something about Case Sensitivity in Disk Warrior. If you select Rebuild while holding the Option button, you get a couple of extra options. One of them is Ensure MAC OS Extended Format Case Sensitivity.

Under that are choices for either Case Insensitive or Case Sensitive. The Default button is Case Insensitive and it says "This is the default format for Macintosh disks."

I have never changed that Default setting so I assume that's why my TM Get Info differs from grelber.

The Case Sensitive button has a caution "This may be incompatible with some software and requires Max (sic) OS X version 10.3 or later."

> [i][...] it may have been on the drive itself before Time Machine took it over and erased everything on it prior to reformatting./i]

I suspect that such is the case...as it has been with the two thumb drives I've bought.

You named it....the support software was loaded onto the drive itself.....and you haven't missed a thing by not having seen it.

Okay, Interesting... thanks.

I wonder if Pogue mentions 'case-sensitive' anywhere in that book (in the index perhaps). Because some apps (e.g., creative suite) have been known to react unfavorably if the boot volume is formatted as such. But for a backup volume (and backup software), such sensitivity supposedly provides some benefit of sorts.

Just keep a mental note of this, because that external disk will act differently than the internal HD. E.g., on the external you can have a folder which contains these separate files inside: "my notes.txt", "My Notes.txt", "mY nOtEs.TxT", etc., because it treats them as being different items. Whereas the HD won't allow all three to exist simultaneously in the same folder, as it regards them all to be identical (as per traditional Mac OS behavior since day one).

A small issue. I tried to select Verify Backups from the TM menulet, only to find it greyed out and therefore non-selectable. Keeping in mind that I haven't been backing up for a whole day as yet, is there something I can do to check on the backups?

Update:
Okey-dokey. Just checked/spoke with Apple support. Senior advisor advises that he has also experienced this problem and that it's shown up on a number of discussion boards. Engineering is to be consulted for potential problem resolution — which likely means that it may be addressed in a subsequent OS 10.7 update.
In the interim I suspect that it's nothing to be concerned about, namely that TM is properly doing its business.

I haven't come across it elsewhere, and the index (as good as it is) doesn't have a separate entry for occurrences of 'case-sensitive'. As and when I come across a reference, I'll let you know.

Excellent. Now i'll just pretend i missed that part.



FWIW, i see no such [Verify Backups] item in Snow Leopard's menu extra... so it must be new in Lion.



As i'm yet unsure what exactly the new "Verify Backups" actually does, all i can say is that the backup disk (filesystem) can be checked with Disk Utility, as if it were an ordinary disk. But note that —once Time Machine has started to work its magic —the disk becomes somewhat special. Any utility used to repair (or 'verify') its content must be qualified via knowledge of hard links... and not just linked files, but Apple has also implemented hard-linked directory structures too.

As of version 4.1 (or was it 4.0?) DiskWarrior is also qualified. But earlier versions are not. Just mentioning all this in case you happen to mount that disk somewhere else, where one of your older Macs might see it. I'm not sure if OS 9 can even mount a "HFSXJ" volume... but i could just picture you running Norton Disk Doctor (or an ancient copy of TechTool perhaps) on your Time Machine backup disk. One word: don't. It would be a disaster.

Even using Disk Utility from Tiger would probably destroy a Time Machine backup [trying to untangle that maze of hard links.]

I couldn't find it either so I want browsing in Help and came up with the following tidbit


Don't do this when you are in a hurry

Yes, that's exactly what I meant, re menulet in TM's menu bar icon. That's where it's greyed out. Still awaiting further info from Apple.

Thanks joe, now i see it. Apple hides too much stuff behind the option key [...the most egregious being 'Convert to ACC...' in iTunes (which lets us convert something that isn't already inside its library).]


Hmm, I wonder if that does anything different than a 'verify disk' using Disk Utility would (other than making the mounting/unmounting of the backup volume a bit easier).


EDIT:

Decided to consult teh google. A quick results scan produced these top hits...

• Why is “Verify Backups” in the Time Machine icon menu disabled?
  ^ that from August, as yet unresolved... which (in a sense) jives with grelber's Apple support experience.
  
  and...
  
  
• 10.6: Verify Time Machine Backups
  which contains this comment:
  
  Originally Posted By: e_whizz

  5/02/11 4:00:26 PM com.apple.backupd[1507] Backup verification requested by user.
  5/02/11 4:00:26 PM com.apple.backupd[1507] Attempting to mount network destination using URL: afp://charlie@TimeCapsule.local/Data
  5/02/11 4:00:35 PM com.apple.backupd[1507] Mounted network destination using URL: afp://charlie@TimeCapsule.local/TimeCapsule
  5/02/11 4:00:35 PM com.apple.backupd[1507] Running backup verification
  5/02/11 4:00:36 PM com.apple.backupd[1507] QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
  5/02/11 4:06:29 PM com.apple.backupd[1507] Backup verification passed!
  5/02/11 4:06:30 PM com.apple.backupd[1507] Ejected Time Machine network volume.
  

Seems to be a basic filesystem check (a la Disk Utility).

If you're still interested in altering the frequency of TM backups, I found a link to TimeMachineScheduler for Mac. I haven't used it myself so I can't say anything from personal experience.

Okay, here's the 'final' skinny on the issue from the senior advisor who just got word from Apple's engineers:

It seems that this (not being able to verify) is normal behavior in Lion, unless backing up to a network drive. The "local" backups on Lion (which include USB external hard drives) verify automatically.

That struck me as really weird, so I did some research and discovered why.

It's not the hard drive or enclosure; the drive works just fine with 32-bit or 64-bot OS X. It's the software on the drive.

The drive comes formatted NTFS (Windows format). It ships with Mac NTFS software that lets you use the drive without reformatting. By default, OS X can read, but not write, NTFS disks. The drive ships with a free OS X driver that lets you both read and write NTFS...but that software only works in OS X in 32-bit mode. Their NTFS driver isn't 64-bit clean.

If you plan to reformat the drive, or you plan to leave it NTFS but use someone else's NTFS software, you're fine.