http://www.macworld.com/article/132118/2008/02/timemachine1.html?lsrc=mwweekMacWorld has a list of "things Time Machine won't do". I'm curious as to how much of what is so bad about Time Machine are real issues? You have to approach Time Machine as a software with a specific purpose. Jobs himself at two different keynotes did this. He did not promise the world and come up short. He said "here's a neat tool that those of you who - shame on you - don't backup can use to give your data some security, and it's SO easy to use...watch this." Time Machine is aimed at a large population of users who do NOT backup their systems regularly. In filling that gap, I think it is a fantastic product. I just wish my wheel mouse would flow through the snapshots while I am in it. That would be extra special cool.
What Time Machine can’t do for youDoesn’t Make Bootable Duplicates[/B]
I don't know how important this is. If I am recovering a system, wouldn't I want to completely refresh at least the bootable and system portion? How many home backup solutions (which Time Machine absolutely IS) provide you with an easy to restore bootable archive?
Doesn’t Give You Much Control It backups so often, it's easy and free with OS-X. Who cares? And there are hacks for those who don't like the schedule.
Doesn’t Use Optical Discs Some really nice things about optical disks:
- they decay over time
- they would require that you label and swap out every few days.
- they do NOT work well with Time Machine's easy restore mechanism.
Huh...I wonder why Time Machine doesn't support optical media.
Simple Controls: The Time Machine preference pane has just a handful of controls, including a cartoonishly large on/off slider.
Didn't he hear jobs talking Time Machine up? Simplicity is exactly what Time Machine was supposed to be!
Doesn’t Use AirPort Disks This will be baked in soon if it hasn't already, and I am using (have been since day 1) a very simple but very effective hack to use a FreeNAS afp server for my Time Machine backups.
Doesn’t Compress Files Disk space is so stinking cheap, and the way Time Machine works with multiple links to the same file on the same drive fro files that never change or seldom do. That saves a lot of space already. And, I store most of my data on mirrored storage on the same FreeNAS box mentioned above. It's already backed up (RAID mirror) so I don't worry about it. I am using only 45GB of my iMac's drive because I offload pictures and music and podcasts and application specific backups to the FreeNAS box.
Doesn’t Use Encryption Again: Simplicity!!! You want encryption? Encrypt the drive that Time Machine writes to. Done. Now it has to mount that drive automatically so you'll have to cache the password somewhere and that defeats the purpose.
Doesn’t Work Well with FileVault Should it?
Doesn’t Include Off-Site Protection SIMPLICITY!!! If Time Machine works for you, you aren't too worried about offsite storage. And again...I don't know how Time Machine would work with offline media anyway (see optical)
false sense of security. After all, someone who breaks into your office and steals your Mac will probably pick up the hard drive sitting next to it, too.
Yep, all true.
Just feels to me like they are slamming Time Machine for being everything that Apple intended it to be, and nothing else.