Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Time Machine Lessons: Deborking your Mac

Ars Technica recently had an artlcle Time Machine Lessons: Deborking your Mac. It's pretty good. I've yet to restore more than a file or two from Time Machine. I wish it was easy to practice this before it's a critical task, but with only one mac around, that's just not the case.

The more I think about Time Machine, the more impressed I am with how apple approached the problem. The fact that old versions are preserved has a big advantage over merely keeping one mirror copy of your data. If the data is corrupted and not caught before the mirror is updated, you're backup would be corrupted as well. Not so with Time Machine. Just go back further in time.

1 comment:

The Dad said...

I actually just restored my very first file from Time Machine last night, and it was a very odd circumstance. My wife called me in a panic because she was writing a long email and, since it wasn't finished yet, she saved it as a draft. However the drafts folder, usually on the left side of the email app, was nowhere to be found. I tried everything I could think of short of going to Apple Support's site to find the missing folder, but I could not. So for kicks, I clicked on TM. Lo and behold there, in a backup from a half hour previously, was an iteration of Mail, with a draft folder showing. I clicked that draft folder, found her message, and clicked restore. Exited TM, and there was the message, and there was her drafts folder. Wierd, but worked!