Trying out TimeMachine
Since it is so new, I didn't want to turn on TimeMachine too early in my using Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) because I didn't know if I was going to have issues with 10.5 in the first place, or exactly how they built TimeMachine and how it would function. My initial questions were pretty basic: What would happen if I disconnected the drive between backups? Would it error on me when it tried to run? How fast was it going to be? Basic things that you want to know before you invest a lot of time into using a tool like this.
I was initially pretty sad to see that the initial backup of my MacBook Pro was 64.64GB, and took about 3.5 hours on a FireWire 400 external drive. Yeah, if I had a FireWire 800 drive it would have been faster, but this is the guy I got a while back to do my own backups on. So it's not fast for the first (initial) backup. But it seems to be complete. The real question to me insofar as 'completeness' is: Does it backup /usr/local/ as well? I'm going to have to dig into it and see what it's got. Maybe it does, and maybe not. Certainly, it's not a crime if they don't, but then I'll have to maintain my own backups of /usr/local/ when I install new things, etc.
When it was done with the initial backup, I was pleased - nay, very pleased, to see that if you unmount (disconnect) the external drive, then TimeMachine sees this and says that the next scheduled backup is when the drive is connected. Very nice, guys. Very nice indeed. This means that I can use it as I want - keeping it connected when I'm at work - most of the time, and then when I roam, I'll be without backup or restore. Not a bad trade-off, really.
I'll have to see how it runs for the rest of the day taking backups every hour. I'm hoping that I don't even notice them being done. That would be ideal. On my G5 iMac at home where I've had TimeMachine running since I upgraded it, there's a noticeable activity on my LaCie 500GB drive, but that's the drive and not the machine or TimeMachine. I can live with that.
So far, very nice. We'll see how it runs, now.
UPDATE: it's great to know that the backup includes /usr/local/ - that's a big load off my mind. Super.