If you rely on a MacPro or MacBook Pro to run your small business the OS X operating system has a priceless bonus for you: It’s called Time Machine, and it’s the greatest local data recovery tool ever. It is your instant data insurance policy, and the only thing you need is an extra hard drive – preferably external – and take the extra time to do that first complete backup. The emphasis here is on the modifier “local,” because if your backup storage media is destroyed – well, you get the picture.
More about off-site backups later. First, let’s do a quick review of the Time Machine. Chances are your Mac has the Time Machine application ready to install. You need to be running OS X 10.6 (released August 28, 2009) or later. As previously mentioned you also need an extra hard drive with at least one terabyte of free space.
Plug in your spare hard drive and follow the prompts to install, configure and begin your first full Time Machine disk backup. The first full backup could require anywhere from 90 minutes to several hours, depending on the amount of data the Time Machine has to replicate for the first time.
After the first backup, the Time Machine flags only the applications and files that you added or changed since the previous backup. The backup system is always on and works silently and unobtrusively in the background. Time Machine’s backup schedule works like this:
- Time Machine does hourly backups of your system until the end of the day. The day’s backup is preserved for one calendar month.
- At the beginning of a new month, Time Machine saves the previous month’s weekly Friday backups.
- When the backup drive is full, the Time Machine discards the oldest backups to make room for the most recent increments.
The beauty of the Time Machine goes far beyond its ease of installation and effortless operation. After the backup system is up and running and has accumulated a few days, just click on the small clock icon on your main menu and select “Enter Time Machine.” Prepared to be impressed.
Restoring an older or deleted version of a file is as simple as finding the file’s existing or former location window. Just click on the file and tell the Time Machine what to do – restore it to its old location, etc. – and the system goes back in time to give you a second chance.
As previously mentioned, the Time Machine is only your first step in a smart backup strategy. It’s the convenient onsite way to do everything from restoring a deleted file to loading everything back to a corrupted hard drive. However, if a natural disaster strikes and your backup drive perishes along with everything else, you’ll need to have an off-site alternative. That’s where we come in. Contact us. Our data recovery service and facilities are efficient, reliable and reasonably priced.