Time Machine: Leopard's best feature?

Filed under: Utilities, Macintosh, Apple

Time Machine: Leopard's best feature?

by Ted Wallingford Oct 20th 2007

After having a peek at Apple's new guided Quicktime tour of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, we're convinced that Time Machine alone is worth the upgrade price. Time Machine is Apple's new backup and recovery software, but it's actually quite a bit more than that. The program makes use of external storage devices (like, say, a USB 2.0 hard disk) to create backups of your entire file system.

You can later browse the Time Machine copy of any folder by navigating a useful timeline. In this way, you can regress through previous versions of the folder. This is a fantastic way to keep from losing files or just do a simple form of revision control. If you need more time range in your Time Machine, it's only a matter of slapping on a new external drive.

Now, we realize this kind of backup and recovery has been done before, but when you see how sell it integrates with Finder and Spotlight, we think you'll be just as anxious as we are to get your hands on the new OS X.

Tags: backup, leopard, mac, time machine, TimeMachine

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Niclet said 10:07AM on 10-20-2007

"... but when you see how sell it integrates..." Isn't "well"?

Anyways, I'm with you on this: just for Time Machine, Leopard worth the cost (and the wait).

michael said 10:27AM on 10-20-2007

How about Leopard's "ONLY" good feature?

I'm still quite amazed that many Apple fanboys are just going to update for like 1 really good feature.

All the other 299 new features aren't that cool.

ThwartedEfforts said 1:59PM on 10-20-2007

Acronis True Image and its rivals have given PC users this feature for years, albeit in the form of third party utilities. True Image will backup your entire system to HDD, USB, network, or even (in more recent versions) to an FTP server. With a scheduled task creating incremental images, you can mount any given date as a drive and work with the system's files from that time as though they were on any other local volume. As michael says above, this sort of thing is reminiscent of the fuss people made about the iPhone, in that the excitement is limited to fanboys whose technology radar misses anything that doesn't have an Apple logo on it. It's why Mac owners seem locked away in their own little world. They are.

Tanner said 6:19PM on 10-20-2007

Does anyone know if you will need a external drive for backing up or can you just backup to the internal hdd?

RP said 1:57AM on 10-21-2007

It's all about the seamless integration -- such that my Mom could use it without calling me.

robbyrob said 3:03AM on 10-21-2007

this is awesome!! right now the only concern is back up. will this take up alot of space?

http://www.spymac.com/details/?2276113

Pete said 12:39PM on 10-22-2007

>> All the other 299 new features aren't that cool. >>

So you couldn't find ANYTHING else among the 299 other features that would make Leopard worth buying?

Puh-lease.

Matt M said 3:27PM on 10-22-2007

@ThwartedEffects:

Acronis is a great utility. Used it myself for a while but I beleive that even though time machine may DO the same thing as Acronis, Apple has done a fantastic job of making it not only more visually appealing (meaning more people are likely to use it). Not only that - it's coming bundled with the operating system which is $129, compared to $49 for Acronis True Image alone. I won't even mention the obscene price for Windows. And I use a mac mini so don't even think about telling me that I spent too much on my computer.

I'm a switcher and have been using macs primarily for a few years now. I am definitely what you'd call an "apple fanboy" but I really resent the harsh generalization you've made about Mac owners being locked away in our own little world. I'd say that the exact opposite is true. our "technology radar" works just as well as yours. And it's true that we do get excited when companies like Apple do something right that may or may not have been done before. Is that a crime?

And why is it that Mac haters have to pollute the comments section of every tech site I visit with hate rants and untrue generalizations? You don't see Mac users taking pot shots at the PC community for being windows or linux lovers?

It's haters like you that make reading the comments less and less enjoyable.

Z Monster said 7:34PM on 10-22-2007

And its fanboys like you who make comments pointless to read.

Alex said 8:40PM on 11-18-2007

"Z Monster" - You are an idiot. While you will probably never read this, (you posted almost a month ago) fanboys like you, who flame posts like this one are just stupid. The second poster "michael" is just as pointless, as Time Machine is by no means Leopard's "Only" good feature. The new desktop look, the upgraded applications (there are a lot of them) the ability to transfer files to and from FAT32 disks, multiple integrated desktops integrated into the system, and overall better performance of systems running Leopard are but a few of the new features.

Don't anyone dare spam me as a "fanboy", as I only switched to Mac's two months ago with my MacBook. I have used horrific PC's with Windows 95, 98, ME, XP and Vista, and upon realizing the horrible performance of ALL Windows Operating Systems, I began my shift to Linux. Using Kubuntu and Ubuntu, I happily used my PC for several months. I then saw that Mac OS X offered everything that Linux did - and more. I have had not ONE crash of my MacBook in two months, not ONE boot up less than 30 seconds, not ONE application freeze up, causing me to lost important data, and not ONE moment of frustration at using a half-hearted attempt at an Operating System like I did on Windows machines.

I am not a fanboy. I am just not stupid, like "Z Monster" and "michael".

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