Why you should use Time Machine Backup in MacBook

Apple Macbooks: Frequently Asked Questions about Time Machine

Time Machine in mac is something we should all being used for backup. However, you may have some questions like, why and how it works. 

Q1. Should we use Time Machine for Backup?

Ans. Yes, hard drive fails, the computer fails, disasters happen using a backup of your data is very important. Having a back of your data is very important.

Q2. Is it still necessary to use Time Machine if I am using iCloud to Back Up?

A. Often people argue you don’t need Time Machine if you are backing up your data in iCloud for all your data, e.g., documents, photo everything, it all will have a copy of all your data. But you still need to have a Time Machine back up to have that data backed up to another drive locally. Drives are cheap, so why not have an extra back up of your data. Plus Time Machine allows you to go back and look at the older version of your files. That is very important if you made a change that you regret or you have deleted a file and was it back. So, Time Machine backed up your entire drive and everything including system files, library files, things like fonts, all shorts of settings preferences backed, if your drive fails or your computer is stolen you can recreate everything on your computer by restoring from the Time Machine back up.

Q3. What sorts of drive do I need?

Ans. There are two ways to back up your Time Machine. One way to back up is directly connecting the drive to your Mac/computer. You can do that to that in your desktop computer like iMac, or you have MacBook but it mostly you sits in desk and not moved around, in that case, any USB 3 drive will work. You can find it on easily find it online on any website like Amazon etc. or you can get to your local computer store. 

Second, if you want to back up your laptop and you move your laptop a lot and most of the time here and there and rarely sitting on a desktop. You don’t want to plug in an external drive to your MacBook. So, in that case, you can connect an external diver to most Wifi drivers. You have a USB port plug it in connect to the Wifi Router, and then you can have access to the driver as a network drive, and you can choose that drive as your Back-Up Drive.

Q4. What should be the size of the drive do we need to use as Network Drive?

Ans. Generally, you should have a backup drive at least twice the size of your data. So, If you have the data of around 1TB size, you must need at least a dive of 2 TB size. Look, the drive are cheap these days, if you are using 250 GB of your MacBook still you should have a 2 TB driver, it will help you for longer back up. Larger the driver is, the lager the history would be kept, so it is recommended to have a larger driver 2 - 4 TB for back up. Where you can have a history of all the changes you have made, that can be easily retrieved going by months even years.

Q5. Who do I format a Time Machine?

Ans. So formatting a Time Machine is not really a thing that you need to worry about. It automatically formatting, when you choose it to be your Time Machine drive. Formatting of all apple systems all that Time Machine works with right away. 

Q6. Should I use an SSD as a Time Machine drive?

Ans. We got this question of whether we should use an SSD as Time Machine drive or old fashion speeding hard drive. You need to understand that most of the time, the back up is just wright on the back-up files into the drive and speed does not matter. So getting an SSD is totally waste of money because SSD drives the most costly. Therefore, using a Hard Drive is perfectly fine.

Q7. What Happens When the drive runs out of space?

Ans. As you change a file or delete a file or replace them with others, what happens if it fills off. Time Machine Back-Up starts deleting the older versions of the files and keeps the as older versions of files it can. But, Time Machine all ways going to keep around all the older versions of the file currently on the drive. So you have the complete back for Restore. It's going to keep as many old version and old files you have deleted or replaced. 

Q8. Can I use one driver for more than one computer?

Ans. Yes, You can use a single drive to back-up more than one computer. If you have a house of MacBooks, you can use a networked drive as back up, that is normal. Again use a large size (in terms of space) drive or big enough to handle all that. But, in case you use USB drive its very difficult. Therefore, it always recommended using separate drives for back-up considering the hard drives these days are cheap.

Q9. Can I put other things on my backup drive?

Ans. Again it is recommended that for using Time Machine backup you should always have a separate drive. However, you can stores other thing on the same drive, but you need to understand how Time Machine backup works. It always deleted the oldest version of same files and keeps as many orders files in the drive. If you put other things on drives and change or replace that it will affect the function of Time Machine backup. So you should use a drive exclusively for Time Machine backup.

Q10. Can I Backup to more than one drive?

Ans. Yes, you can do. You can plug in a second drive and assigned that as Time Machine backup as well. This is can be done in a situation, like, when you take your Mac around home and Work. 

How do I set up Time Machine backup?

Ans. Setting up Time Machine is easy. 

a. Got an external drive

b. When you plug in the drive it will automatically ask

Whether you want to set up the drive as Time Machine?

In case it does not ask automatically, 

Go to System Preferences…> Time Machine>Select the Disc and everything will be done automatically. 

You can Exclude things from Time Machine backup. 

Just got System Preferences>Time Machine> Options

Then the add or list out of the things you don’t want to backup.

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