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View Full Version : A different angle on SD & Time Machine integration

badlydrawnboy
10-25-2007, 03:49 PM
Hi Dave,

I'm thinking of upgrading to 10.5. I've read your "Time's Arrow" blog post and all of the threads here concerning SD & Time Machine integration. I realize SD for 10.5 isn't complete yet, and I'm perfectly willing to wait.

However, my question is related to how Time Machine and SD would work together in a Sandbox / Hard Drive configuration. That is, right now in my Mac I have a Sandbox running on a fast boot disk, and my normal "Hard Drive" on another internal disk. I've really grown to love this set-up for its flexibility and security, and another significant advantage is that apps like Photoshop seem to run much faster on a dedicated boot drive without the user directory and other files on it.

I'm confused, though, about how this configuration would work with Time Machine. It seems like it wouldn't... because if Time Machine is running on the Sandbox, it's only going to back up what's on the Sandbox - right? Which does not include any user files, preferences or really anything else except applications & system changes.

And yet Time Machine can't be running on the Hard Drive, since I'm booted on the Sandbox.

So it would seem that if I choose to use 10.5 and Time Machine, I'll have to abandon the Sandbox configuration... which is a real shame. Unless I'm missing something?

But I guess the whole idea with Time Machine is to negate the need for a Sandbox, since one can easily revert to an earlier "snapshot" of the drive with Time Machine in the same way one could do it with Sandbox.

What Time Machine can't do, however, is make my OS install and apps run as fast as they did on a dedicated sandbox drive.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, Dave (and anyone else facing the same dilemma!)
dnanian
10-25-2007, 03:53 PM
Time Machine can back up any attached drive, so I don't see a problem there...
badlydrawnboy
10-25-2007, 04:48 PM
Dave,

So that means I can tell Time Machine to back up both the Sandbox and the Hard Drive to two separate internal or external drives?

And then I could use SD in the normal way I do now to create a bootable clone of the Hard Drive to yet another drive?

Boy, the amount of drives is sure adding up in this strategy!
dnanian
10-25-2007, 05:15 PM
No, from everything I've read Time Machine backs everything up onto one drive.
badlydrawnboy
10-25-2007, 05:48 PM
Very cool. That makes things a lot simpler!

I have a Sandbox, a Hard Drive, a Time Machine drive, and another drive for bootable clones of the Hard Drive. I can continue along as I'm doing it now, except I'll have the added benefit of Time Machine too.

That said, since I've gotten in the habit of backing up nightly, I don't imagine Time Machine will be that big of a deal for me. Maybe I won't even use it.

Thanks Dave for your prompt replies (as always). I assume we'll get an email from you when SD is ready for 10.5?
dnanian
10-25-2007, 06:11 PM
No, no email about new version -- SD! itself will let you know.

No promises that the Sandbox will work on Leopard -- it should, but don't use it between Tiger and Leopard, eh?

As I've always said, more redundancy is never a bad thing... so, I wouldn't necessarily be reluctant to use Time Machine. Just recognize what it is and isn't good at.
badlydrawnboy
10-25-2007, 07:09 PM
No, no email about new version -- SD! itself will let you know.

No promises that the Sandbox will work on Leopard -- it should, but don't use it between Tiger and Leopard, eh?

As I've always said, more redundancy is never a bad thing... so, I wouldn't necessarily be reluctant to use Time Machine. Just recognize what it is and isn't good at.

I guess my brain isn't working too well today. Thanks for reminding me that I won't be able to use SD to create a Sandbox on 10.5 until SD is available for 10.5! Obviously.

So in the meantime, I guess I'll just do the one-drive thing.

You're probably getting tired of being asked this question, but in terms of the update of SD, are we talking days, weeks or months?

Thanks.
dnanian
10-25-2007, 07:25 PM
It all depends on how our testing goes. Not months.
MMM
10-26-2007, 01:54 PM
We have a similar question. It's really the only thing that worries us about SD/Time Machine. Right now we have SuperDuper backing up to our external Firewire drive. The ext. drive is set up into partitions, and SuperDuper puts its backup into one of those partitions. The other partitions currently aren't being used. Here's our question; will we be able to tell Time Machine to put its data into one of those other partitions, or will Time Machine want to hog the entire external drive, forcing us to buy a second drive for SuperDuper. According to everything that we've read there is no way to tell Time Machine to use a specific partition on the ext. harddrive, just which 'drive' to use, and this concerns us :(
dnanian
10-26-2007, 02:32 PM
Yes, you direct Time Machine to a volume (partition). The other partitions won't be touched.
MMM
10-26-2007, 08:37 PM
Thank you dnanian ;) We just finished setting up the hard drive for Time Machine and SuperDuper! Looking forward to having both backups :)