BACKING UP WITH TIME MACHINE

BACKING UP WITH TIME MACHINE Keeping an up-to-date backup of your data is crucial. Computer equipment occasionally fails, breaks, gets dropped, and often at extremely inconvenient times. If you have a copy of your files on a separate hard drive, you can easily recover from what could be a disaster. Time Machine is an automatic backup tool built in to the operating system. After the initial setup, all you have to do is plug in your portable FireWire hard drive, and Time Machine will work in the background to back up any new files or changes you made. If you delete a file (even accidentally) after Time Machine has backed it up, a copy is retained on your external hard drive.

SETTING UP TIME MACHINE The first time you plug in your portable FireWire hard drive, Time Machine will ask if you want to use it as your designated backup drive. Click the button “Use as Backup Disk.” The Time Machine pane in System Preferences will open. Checking the “Show Time Machine status in the menu bar” will put the Time Machine icon in your menu bar. When Time Machine is backing up your files, the clock will animate and run backwards. You can also access the Time Machine preferences through this icon. The first time Time Machine runs, it will back up your entire hard drive. When your backup drive is connected to your computer, it will make hourly, incremental backups in the background while you work. This means Time Machine copies just the files that have changed since the last backup. Before Time Machine does its initial backup, we recommend that you set it to copy only the Users folder (which includes your Home folder). You do not need to maintain a backup copy of the applications on the SAIC software template. Your settings and preferences are stored in the Library folder in your Home folder. To exclude files and folders from the backup list: 1. Click the “Options...” button in Time Machine preferences. This will give you a list of files that Time Machine will not back up. 2. Click the + button. 3. In the window that appears, click the box next to “Show invisible items.” You’ll see a column appear with a list of files. 4. Click on one of the files in the list. The press z+A (the Command key is on either side of the spacebar). Pressing z and A together will select all of the files in the column. Don’t worry if a few files appear to not be included.

5. Now most of the files in the column should be highlighted. Using the scoll bar or arrows, scroll down to the bottom of the list. Find the Users folder. Hold the z (Command) key and click on the Users folder.

6. With all but the Users folder selected, click the “Exclude” button.

7. An alert will pop up. Click the button that says “Exclude All System Files.” Time Machine will now make a backup of your Users folder. Following this initial backup, Time Machine will make hourly updates to your backup, copying only the files (including preferences) that you have created, added, or made changes to. These incremental backups are made as long as your external hard drive is attached to your laptop. If you don’t have it plugged in for a while, Time Machine will wait until the next time you plug in your drive. It keeps track of the files that have changed since the last backup and backs them up the next time you connect to your backup drive.

RECOVERING FILES FROM YOUR BACKUP Time Machine gives you a visual interface to find files in your backup that you would like to restore. To access it, click the Time Machine icon in your dock, or select “Enter Time Machine” from the Time Machine menu icon. To find a specific file (or previous version of that file), you can search for it in Spotlight. Once you have found the file in Spotlight, click the Time Machine icon in your dock. Time Machine will open to the location of that Spotlight search.

Time Machine will show you the current state of your files, with versions from previous backups going back in time. You can navigate through time using the arrows at the right or the timeline. By selecting the Cover Flow button in the Finder, you can see a thumbnail image of the file. This will give you an idea of the version of the file you are looking for. Double-clicking on the thumbnail will give you a full preview of the file. You can browse through multi-page documents this way.

When you find a file you want to restore (whether it has been deleted or altered since the backup was created), make sure the file is selected and click the “Restore” button. Time Machine will copy the file into its original location. Time Machine may ask if you want to re-create one or more folders in order to return a restored file to its original location. If you are restoring a previous version of a file, Time Machine will preserve the current version as well.