Using Time Machine with SuperDuper

The announcement of Leopard compatible Super Duper took some time. In
the meantime, I tried out CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner) and really liked
one of the features that SuperDuper does not have.

It can automatically create an archive of deleted and changed files in
a separate folder every time you run the program. It's sort of like
TimeMachine but in a much different way. So I now have CCC set to run
automatically every day.

Although I like Time Machine's "just let it run and don't worry about
the backup" concept, I really don't need for it to run every hour
(although the freeware such as Time Machine Editor and Time Machine
Scheduler let you change the time interval). Plus you cannot manually
delete Time Machine files to make room. If you do, you will get into
all kinds of trouble as I've done on more than one occasion.

There is nothing different or unusual about the archive folders
created by CCC. I must admit I'm from an old school. I just like the
fact that CCC gives me more control over how a backup is run and what
it does.

I have TimeMachine turned off, for now. But I have not given up on it.
I plan to turn it back on. as soon as I get a bigger drive. You cannot
have enough backups. Two methods are always better than one.

--
Ryoichi Morita
Coarsegold, CA
http://www.rjmorita.com

On Fri, 2/29/08 5:42 PM, "Ryoichi Morita" <Ryoichirjmorita.com> wrote:

> The announcement of Leopard compatible Super Duper took some time. In
> the meantime, I tried out CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner) and really liked
> one of the features that SuperDuper does not have.

I tried CCC, but when I used the erase disk option it would create new
partitions on other drives, always 200Mb, and then fail to run the backup to
the partition I had selected (I'm still running latest Tiger, 10.4.x,
version). SuperDuper! has always just worked for me.

When I move to Leopard (soon I think), I'll use Time Machine to manage
incremental backups and use SD for a bootable image.

Thanks! - Bob

On or about 2/29/08 3:42 PM, thus spake "Ryoichi Morita"
<Ryoichirjmorita.com>:

> Plus you cannot manually
> delete Time Machine files to make room.

You can manually delete Time Machine files and indeed entire backups (i.e.
individual snapshots) to make room. I've done this many times.

The trick is that you must have the Action (tool, get) menu present in the
Finder window's toolbar. The functionality you're after is available only
from the Time Machine app's pseudo-Finder-window Action menu, and it won't
have one if the Finder doesn't.

m.

On Mar 1, 2008, at 7:28 AM, Matt Neuburg wrote:
>
> You can manually delete Time Machine files and indeed entire backups
> (i.e. ndividual snapshots) to make room. I've done this many times.
>
> The trick is that you must have the Action (tool, get) menu present
> in the Finder window's toolbar. The functionality you're after is available
> only from the Time Machine app's pseudo-Finder-window Action menu, and it
> won't have one if the Finder doesn't.

This is news to me. I did a search on "Action menu" in Mac Help; the
"progress gear" cycled endlessly without producing a result. Since
Force Quitting Mail and Relaunching Finder didn't stop the cycling , I
restarted the machine. Tried the same thing again and got the same
result. Reported same to Apple.

So since Help file wasn't helpful, please say more about the Action
menu and how to use it.

Thanks,

Dick

On Mar 1, 2008, at 4:28 AM, Matt Neuburg wrote:

> You can manually delete Time Machine files and indeed entire backups
> (i.e. individual snapshots) to make room. I've done this many times.
>
> The trick is that you must have the Action (tool, get) menu present
> in the Finder window's toolbar. The functionality you're after is available
> only from the Time Machine app's pseudo-Finder-window Action menu, and it
> won't have one if the Finder doesn't.

Thank you Matt. I had missed that aspect of Time Machine. (I also
don't have any need for it at the moment.)

While experimenting, I found:
   1. Have Finder, not Mail, in front when entering Time Machine
(obvious after the first time)
   2. The Action menu appears *really* slowly on my G4 Mini, once its
icon is clicked.

   --John

On or about 3/1/08 9:22 AM, thus spake "johnbaxterlistsmac.com"
<johnbaxterlistsmac.com>:

> While experimenting, I found:
> 1. Have Finder, not Mail, in front when entering Time Machine
> (obvious after the first time)

Okay, but this is really a complete different issue. Time Machine gets
different interfaces from different apps. If you are in Mail when you enter
Time Machine, you are in the Mail version of Time Machine and all you can
manipulate is mail and similar. Same for Address Book, iPhoto, and any other
apps that support Time Machine. Think of Time Machine as an API that various
apps can support - not as an independent single application. m.

On or about 3/1/08 9:22 AM, thus spake "Richard Rucker"
<rruckerverizon.net>:

>
> On Mar 1, 2008, at 7:28 AM, Matt Neuburg wrote:
>>
>> You can manually delete Time Machine files and indeed entire backups
>> (i.e. ndividual snapshots) to make room. I've done this many times.
>>
>> The trick is that you must have the Action (tool, get) menu present
>> in the Finder window's toolbar. The functionality you're after is available
>> only from the Time Machine app's pseudo-Finder-window Action menu, and it
>> won't have one if the Finder doesn't.
>
> This is news to me. I did a search on "Action menu" in Mac Help; the
> "progress gear" cycled endlessly without producing a result. Since
> Force Quitting Mail and Relaunching Finder didn't stop the cycling , I
> restarted the machine. Tried the same thing again and got the same
> result. Reported same to Apple.
>
> So since Help file wasn't helpful, please say more about the Action
> menu and how to use it.

Not sure what more you want to know. It looks like a gear (incorrectly
spell-corrected as "get" in my above-quoted note). If you don't see it in
your Finder toolbar, add it by customizing the toolbar. m.

On Mar 1, 2008, at 9:22 AM, Richard Rucker wrote:

> So since Help file wasn't helpful, please say more about the Action
> menu and how to use it.

Have a look at:

10.5: How to delete objects from Time Machine backups
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071101005330768

Randy B. Singer • Mac OS X Routine Maintenance • http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html

On Sat, Mar 1, 2008 at 4:28 AM, Matt Neuburg <matttidbits.com> wrote:
> You can manually delete Time Machine files and indeed entire backups (i.e.
> individual snapshots) to make room. I've done this many times.
>
> The trick is that you must have the Action (tool, get) menu present in the
> Finder window's toolbar. The functionality you're after is available only
> from the Time Machine app's pseudo-Finder-window Action menu, and it won't
> have one if the Finder doesn't.

I had no idea.

I knew the icon was present in the Finder but never paid much
attention to it. I didn't even know it was called an Action menu.

I learn something new every day. Thank you, Matt, for an eye-opening
experience. :-)

--
____________________
Ryoichi Morita
Coarsegold, CA
http://www.rjmorita.com

Ryoichi Morita wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 1, 2008 at 4:28 AM, Matt Neuburg <matttidbits.com> wrote:
>> You can manually delete Time Machine files and indeed entire backups (i.e.
>> individual snapshots) to make room. I've done this many times.
>>
>> The trick is that you must have the Action (tool, get) menu present in the
>> Finder window's toolbar. The functionality you're after is available only
>> from the Time Machine app's pseudo-Finder-window Action menu, and it won't
>> have one if the Finder doesn't.
>
> I had no idea.
>
> I knew the icon was present in the Finder but never paid much
> attention to it. I didn't even know it was called an Action menu.

I just had to use it this morning. I came downstairs to find a dialog
box telling me that my latest Time Machine backup failed. This was the
first time I had trouble with Time Machine since I wiped my backup drive
and started over on February 8. As has been the case in the past, today
the backup drive was nearly full, and I had noticed a couple of days ago
in the dropdown in the menu bar that TM didn't know how much it was
backing up again, so it probably didn't clear enough space before trying
the backup this morning.

So I deleted the earliest two backups using Matt's procedure, and we'll
see what happens. I hate the interface, though. While you're deleting,
you can't do anything else with the computer. There's got to be a
better way, maybe some kind of dialog box where you can tell TM to
delete the earliest n backups without taking over the GUI while it's
doing it.

--
Paul Schinder
schinderpobox.com