Working on source drive during backup

[webatomic]

Is that a bad idea? I realize that changes I make on the source drive are not likely to get copied over to the clone if I'm working during a smart update. but other than that is it ok to do, or will it kill the backup process?

[dnanian]

The best thing to do is to quit all apps and not use the Mac. You can lightly work if you'd like, but yes - you can cause problems, especially if working on large files or with apps that have large data files (eg VMWare, Entourage, Parallels, download programs, iTunes, etc).