Mac OS X User Thread

DodgerKing said:
Question about memory allocation. I allocated 1 gig of the 4 to Windows. Is this 1 gig only used when Windows is up and running, meaning all 4 gigs is still available for OS X when Windows and VB are not running? Or will there always only be 3 gigs available for OS X?

Only when the vm is running.

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I am creating this thread to be the running thread for max OSX (Lion, Snow Leopard, etc) discussions; how to's; questions; advice; suggestions for good mac programs. You name it.
Feel free to move my questions from the other thread over to this one

Moved a bunch of other posts from the Lion Poll thread to this one. Those that were not Lion-specific.
 
When you guys do a time machine backup, how long does it usually take?

I have a external drive I use just for TM, it is a firewire drive, but it is not connected all the time, so I probably do a backup every three to five days. Today the backup was about 20GB, and it took quite awhile. Probably an hour. Is that normal?
 
rockymtnhigh said:
When you guys do a time machine backup, how long does it usually take?
I tried it a couple of times but it crashed both times after an hour or so :(
Didn't have time to investigate. For now I just do backup from Windows...

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I tried it a couple of times but it crashed both times after an hour or so :(
Didn't have time to investigate. For now I just do backup from Windows...

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It does not crash on me, it is just slow. Plus I am rarely if ever using windows on my mac.
 
When you guys do a time machine backup, how long does it usually take?

I have a external drive I use just for TM, it is a firewire drive, but it is not connected all the time, so I probably do a backup every three to five days. Today the backup was about 20GB, and it took quite awhile. Probably an hour. Is that normal?

I don't use Time Machine for my backups. I manually copy the data that I want backed up to my server that I have setup.
 
What exactly is time machine and how does it work? Is it like Carbonite?

Time Machine is Apple's backup software built into OSX. You need an external hard drive (formatted in the Mac file system, NOT Fat 32) or a Time Capsule (an airport extreme router with a built in Hard Drive). You turn on the Time Machine and it will do a full backup, and if left on, will back up hourly. You can enter the Time Machine Software, and it looks like Apple's Cover-flow, but with different backups.
 
Time Machine is very slow by design.

If you want to change the backup timings, get Time Machine Editor. It is a free utility that used to be available on Apple's download section, but since they did away with that for the app store, I don't know where it went to. Aha, just did a Google search, here it is : TimeMachineEditor
 
Time Machine is very slow by design.

If you want to change the backup timings, get Time Machine Editor. It is a free utility that used to be available on Apple's download section, but since they did away with that for the app store, I don't know where it went to. Aha, just did a Google search, here it is : TimeMachineEditor

Thanks, useful tool.

Still wish it wasn't so dang slow. But good to know its not just my machine.
 
I do Time Machine backups to a NAS and it is normally pretty quick. I do exclude my Fusion VM's from Time Machine. The backup isn't usable if the VM is active anyway. I do a manual backup of the shutdown VM after Windows patches are installed.
 
klang said:
I do Time Machine backups to a NAS and it is normally pretty quick. I do exclude my Fusion VM's from Time Machine. The backup isn't usable if the VM is active anyway. I do a manual backup of the shutdown VM after Windows patches are installed.

What klang said. I use Time Machine on both of my Macs. The Mac Mini is backing up to a USB drive hanging off of my Airport Extreme in the basement. Those backups don't seem to take too long and I really don't notice when it happens. The Mac Pro has a second SATA drive installed that is used as the Time Capsule destination so Time Machine runs as fast as possible on the Pro.

Also, I tell Time Machine to ignore my Folding directory and VM repository. My VM was built on a 20 GB "drive" that takes up 8.5 GB in the folder. Every time I boot the VM, the whole file would need to be backed-up.
 
I long ago disabled the Parallels folder, and actually did the same with my Dropbox folder, and several others, but it is definitely not particularly fast. Maybe its the drive I am using; maybe it is that I still have something I should eliminate from it.


Anyways, different question: what other programs are you using for either backups OR disc images. I hear good things about Super Duper?
 
One reason why I decided to install an new harddrive and start all over with a clean windows install is because I noticed my PCs got slow after using the Macbook pro. Didn't realize how slow they got until I used something else to compare to it. Now they are running fast again and I created an image with a fresh install and fresh updates with basic added software. In fact they are now running faster than the Macbook. This is why I decided to create an image so it will be easy for me to start over.

I want to do the same thing with the Macbook. Does it too have its own imaging software or do I have to use something else?
 
Go to Applications and look for the Utilities folder. In there is the Disk Utility than can be used for all sorts of good things like repartitioning your hard drive or (what I use it for most) making a Disk Image.

Before I upgrade my OS X, I boot from the DVD that came with my Mac (I have Lion on a USB drive now) and run the Disk Utility from there so I get a clean system image (Standalone Backup). This will create a DMG file that you can mount afterwards when Importing Settings from another Macintosh.
 
My wife continues to surprise me, she came out and said her next computer would be by Apple. I will have some training to do. She is not a quick learn with new stuff (one of the reasons I never put Office 2010 on her machine; she was content with Office 2007's ribbon-less Outlook). But she seems determined this time.
 
Ilya said:
I tried it a couple of times but it crashed both times after an hour or so :(
Didn't have time to investigate.

Finally succeeded in doing Time Machine backup to a USB drive! The only thing I changed this time, was the power settings: I prohibited the sleep mode and the hard drive power down when plugged in. I suspect that's what was causing the backup crash on my previous attempts. Though I saw a number of other reports on the Internet about Time Machine backup failing half-way when writing to USB drives. I will keep an eye on it. Hope that was it.

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Ilya said:
Finally succeeded in doing Time Machine backup to a USB drive! The only thing I changed this time, was the power settings: I prohibited the sleep mode and the hard drive power down when plugged in. I suspect that's what was causing the backup crash on my previous attempts. Though I saw a number of other reports on the Internet about Time Machine backup failing half-way when writing to USB drives. I will keep an eye on it. Hope that was it.

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The first tm backup is always much slower too, since it backups everything.
 

Good SMART Utility?

is there any reason for me to keep my DSL?

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