Thanks Lady! I haven't added SL to my Mac yet so I'm going to check MM out and when/if it ads SL stuff I'll get a copy (it's available for pre-order). Maybe before then if I find it too good to pass up. Sounds like I need a trip to Portland Powell's Book store. I could get some coffe and donut and read the whole book in one day on one of their comfy chairs .

I just went to Powell's link and am not sure which book you are referring to. The books are cheaper at Powell's than on the link you provided.

Ha! I pharted around so much time that I've bought two books!

I understand what your saying

Was thinking something like Photoshop layers but like you said cannot be done

I just checked my TM to see how far back I could go.
I can still resurrect files from Oct. 29, 2008!
Which happens to be the date I bought my iMac. It's a miracle.
There are a lot of folders I don't feel the need to backup, so my 500GB external is only 320 full.
It is truly FM.

Crikey! Acumowchek or anybody else -- Give me some ideas of things I might not need to back up!

Oh, I'm sorry, kate, I only meant to point you to the titles. Hands down, you can snag 'em some place else for less. They make those pups for everything from iPhones to iPods to iDidn'tEvenKnowiNeededThat.

I'm certainly not one to give any advice, but I don't backup anything if I have access to the physical media.
That includes movies, music and applications. I've only got bit once by not having these, and it was a quick reinstall.
Every year I backup important files and documents to 3 DVD's (one for home, one for work, and the one for actually using), then delete them from time machine. Or, at least, that's the plan.
I've only had it a year
Every three months or so, I delete unneeded backups from TM to clear space.

Yeah, the Photoshop file only changes a bit in size when adding a layer but TM sees it as a whole new file and recopies it.

Re: what to backup. I back it all up in case I have to rebuild. I do have a SuperDuper bootable backup that runs daily also.

The Movies folder is okay to exclude if you don't care to lose what's in there.

Most people process movies into the Movies folder which is why it is recommended not to back it up. What happens is, if you're processing a movie that ends up being 3G in size for example, and it takes a couple of hours or so to process, every hour Time Machine sees a changed file and backs it up again.

So if you want to backup your Movies folder but not waste disk space, you can make a separate folder to process, (Save) movies in, exclude it from TM, and then move them to the Movies folder when done.

If you work on pictures out of something other than iPhoto you can choose one folder to put the pics in until you're done manipulating them and them move them to the folder you want when you're done.

To save space another thing I do is when I'm for example downloading updates and updating I turn TM off until I'm done. It speeds things up, plus you're not backing up files you're going to throw out when done updating anyway.

Do you use Toast? Even if not I'll explain, of course. If you use Toast you want to exclude the Roxio Converted items folder. In Toast 9 and 10 by default Toast puts it in the Application package so you need to choose the Toast application to exclude, or you can make a new folder, name it whatever, place it wherever, but exclude it from TM, then go to Toast's preferences and under Storage choose that folder for converted items.

Come to think of it, the easiest thing actually is to get a 1 or 2TB drive and not worry about any of that. Hmm, I probably should.

Every three months or so, I delete unneeded backups from TM to clear space.

Why don't you just set TM to auto delete backups as the drive fills up?

Because I don't know what I'm doing?
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?


I only have one external HD that I use for TM and lots of other crap that I accumulate.
I wish that I had partitioned it when I got it, and let TM fill up half, and keep the other half for crap. I try to keep my start up disk as clean as possible with Apple and use other partitions or hard drives for 3rd party apps and storage.

Don't ask me why.
Figured I could reinstall, or update, or even wipe the partition clean, and reinstall the core OS without having to reinstall apps and files.

Anyway I look at it, I need more hard drives