Time to write about Time Machine
One of the most highly touted features of Mac OS X 1
0.5 Leopard was Time Machine, but when the OS was first offered, it was clear that Time Machine was an imperfect technology. Many users reported frustration, more than a little bit tinged with irony, when they discovered that hard discs connected to Airport base stations — seemingly an ideal solution — didn’t actually work with Time Machine.
Apple’s solution was the Time Capsule. In a somewhat bitterly ironic echo of the irony of the problem we’ve just recalled, Time Capsule was, at its core, an Airport base station with a hard disc. But onward. I toyed with the idea of buying one, but was put off by the price tag. But then the lovely and talented Mrs. McCabe’s PowerMac G5 started to make somewhat disconcerting noises, and for a brief, slightly trouser-soiling moment, we thought her primary hard disc, the one with all her working files on, had finally decided to curl up its electronic toes.
That’s when I nipped over to the Apple Store in Tampa, where I once wore the black T-shirt of the Mac Specialist, and bought a one-terabyte Time Capsule. And began to back up religiously. Or at least automatically. Both our Macs now back up every hour. And last September, I found myself writing this post to the Tidbits mailing list:
I feel moved to share a personal experience with the assembled masses. On Monday evening, as I sat at my computer — a first-generation Intel iMac — wrapping up the day’s work, I was dismayed to witness the latest in what was becoming a disturbingly frequent chain of kernel panics.
I pushed the restart button, and waited. My screens remained grey; instead of the satisfying whirrs and clicks of a well-running computer, I heard a quite disconcerting series of “tok” sounds coming from behind my main monitor.
But wait — what’s this? Why the utter absence of panic? Why the lack of dread, why no puckering, no clenching of the bowels? The answer is simple. I own — and use — a Time Machine.
I went down to CompUSA (the least pleasant aspect of the entire process) yesterday morning, and bought a new 500GB internal hard disc. I came home and stripped down my iMac, and slipped the bugger in. Restarted from my Leopard DVD, reformatted my new half-terabyte, and installed my system. Fired up Time Machine, and there it was — 167GB of data, just waiting to be restored. I restored. I’m happy.
I’ve helped clients who’ve lost data before. But I’ve never lost a hard disc myself. I can barely believe how glad I am that I have a Time Machine. One of the most valuable devices I’ve ever hooked up to my network, without a doubt — my rump was well and truly hauled out of the fire yesterday.
I have little or no doubt that there will be discussions shortly about the value of off-site backup, and I have even less doubt about the validity of such strategies. Right now, though, all I know is that my Time Machine is worth *every* penny….
I was already convinced of the value and utility of the thing, but that episode simply cemented my belief that it was a very valuable device. I’ve been finding again this week how useful it is. I have, as has been mentioned elsepost, that I have a multitude of hard discs attached to the iMac that is my main work computer. In an attempt to rationalise them and re-organise them a little, I started moving files earlier this week. Of course, fool that I am, I allowed myself to get distracted, and ended up deleting, of all things, all of the applications I’d downloaded for my iPhone. So when next I synced (sanc?) my phone, all of my apps promptly removed themselves. Oops. But no worry, for I have a Time Capsule. Ten minutes later, they were all back on my phone.
I realise that this article must make me sound quite sadly and pathetically fanboyish, but so be it. I’ll be the first to admit that the Time Capsule is anything but perfect — for some reason, attempting to back up my Mac Mini server causes the little thing to crash and require a restart — but right now I’m of the opinion that it’s about the most critical component of my network.
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