time machine
Latest
LG's 50PS70 and 60PS70 plasmas get 160GB Time Machine functionality
The jury's still out on whether inbuilt DVRs are good for HDTVs, but LG's obviously hot to trot on the whole idea. Nearly a year after first introducing sets with an integrated Time Machine, the outfit is hitting back with two new big-screen plasmas that each posses a 160GB internal hard drive. The X Canvas 50PS70 (50-inch) and 60PS70 (60-inch) panels also boast 600Hz dejudder technology and can record overflow onto external drives connected via USB 2.0. Additional details (price, screen resolution, availability, etc.) are scant, but we'll be sure to keep an ear to the ground.[Via Akihabara News]
LaCie hurdles the 10TB barrier, upgrades its 2big and 5big RAID drives
The kids at LaCie are clearly out of control. Every time we turn around they're unveiling another big, bad storage solution aimed at a world hungry for... well, more storage. If the old 8TB model was a little slight for your liking, the company has announced product upgrades for both the 2big Network and 5big Network devices, featuring Apple Time Machine and in the case of the 5big device, iTunes server support. While the latter rocks five hot-swappable drive bays for up to 10TB storage with models starting at $799.99, the 2big device sports a 'mere' 4TB of RAID action starting at $319.99. These are devices that speak calmly, in an eerie monotone, pronouncing that they still have the "utmost enthusiasm and confidence" in your mission. They clearly "want to help you." Available soon on the company's website.
LaCie adds to NAS catalog with Big Disk, d2 Network
Looking to add some color to your extensive NAS collection? Well, you find it here, save for the company's characteristic blue button. If you're willing to look past that cold, aluminum exterior, however, LaCie's Big Disk and d2 Network storage solutions should serve you well. The former sports up to 1.5TB capacity with eSATA port for expansion, while the latter goes up to 3TB by concactenating two drives in RAID 0. Both support the usual array of backup software, including Apple's Time Machine, and work with all DLNA-compliant devices. LaCie says they're on sale now, $190 for d2 Network and $380 for Big Disk Network.
HP MediaSmart LX195 boasts 640GB HDD, 1.6GHz Atom, $400 MSRP
Yearning for more info on the HP MediaSmart LX195? Here's some new concrete details for you to go along with the leaked images from earlier this month. As previously suggested, it's got a single 640GB internal SATA drive with 7200RPM, with the only option for expansion being via the four USB 2.0 ports in the back. We're also looking at a 1.6GHz Atom 230 processor, 1GB RAM, Windows Home Server software and support for Apple's Time Machine. Mum's the word on price, but if you're looking to start saving early, suggested retail price is just under four Benjamins.
Video: La Machine à Ecrire le Temps writes time, mesmerizes brains
There are horologes, and then there's La Machine à Ecrire le Temps, known less formally as "The Machine that Writes the Time" -- which is exactly, literally what it does. This stunning masterpiece was recently unveiled at Baselworld 2009, and while only those obsessed with time will really appreciate the 1,200 components needed to make this thing tick, anyone into whiz-bang gadgetry will find themselves impressed by the vid of just past the break. Oh, and if you're looking to buy one to dress up your new sitting room, you should be fully prepared to liquidate nearly $350,000 of whatever you have left to squeeze. [Via OhGizmo]
TUAW Tip: Swap out your laptop's hard disk for a spiffy new SSD
If you're looking for a significant performance boost for your middle-aged laptop, replacing your aging hard disk with a solid state disk (SSD) could give your computer a new lease on life. Solid-state disks (pictured, bottom) differ from traditional hard disks (top) in that they're not constructed with platters and heads. Instead, they're more like giant thumb drives, containing memory chips designed to be written and re-written without wearing out. The upside to this is that SSDs are much, much faster to read and write to, making booting and starting applications lightning-quick. I recently installed an Intel X25-M SSD, a 160GB drive, as a replacement for a 120GB Toshiba hard disk for my 2006-vintage black MacBook. Spendy, for sure, but for the performance increase and the extra life it adds to my MacBook, well worth it. Plus, I had my state tax refund burning a hole in my pocket. The performance is phenomenal. The old disk booted in a respectable one minute, 49 seconds. The new disk booted in a blazing 31 seconds. Ridiculous. Windows also boots in less than half the time it took before. Photoshop CS3 launches in five seconds, Illustrator CS3 in nine seconds. Getting the drive was simple: It's moving the data that takes time. Read on to see how you can migrate your data like I did -- including a Boot Camp partition -- with little fuss.
Backblaze for Mac officially launches
Back in December, online backup company Backblaze launched a private beta of its service for Mac users. Like its Windows counterpart, the Backblaze subscription service is $5 US a month (or $50 US a year) for unlimited backup space. Today, the company is officially launching its service for Mac users, along with an updated client, better support for external drives and enhanced recovery options. Configuration and setup Just like in the beta, Backblaze remains extremely easy to set-up and use. You just install the program (by default it will run in the background, though you can change this), enter in your e-mail address and password, and it will start backing up your files. The default setting has Backblaze running any time it finds an available internet connection. The backup process is constant and Backblaze stores multiple versions of a file for 30 days (so if you are frequently changing a document or spreadsheet, 30 days worth of revisions are saved to Backblaze). If you want to remove Backblaze, the company has made the uninstall process easier and more intuitive. There is now an uninstaller built into the install DMG image, just double-click on Uninstall (right next to the install option) and you can take Backblaze off your system. If you trash the DMG, just download it again off the Backblaze web site for easy removal. Backblaze won't backup your Applications (thought it WILL backup stuff in your User/Library folder, so many of your application settings will remain backed up), but it will backup your photos, movies, audio files as well as things like your iPhoto or Aperture database, various documents, and more. By default, .ISO, *.exe and *.DMG files are excluded from the backup file type list, but you can remove most of those extensions (*.ISO cannot be removed) if you want to backup that information. The maximum single file size is still 4 GB, but keep in mind this doesn't mean your iPhoto or Aperture databases won't be safe. Those databases are actually just folders with lots of smaller individual files, that's fine. If you have individual files over 4 GB in size, those won't be backed up with Backblaze. You'll need to split the files into smaller segments or make alternate arrangements.
Ask Joystiq Nintendo: Interwebs Edition
This week in Ask Joystiq Nintendo, we deal mostly with issues relating to the DS and the Internet -- how to get online with a DS system, and interfacing with the Internet once you get there. We also start the Countdown to New DSi Colors, for the benefit of those of you who are somehow unsatisfied with the blue DSi (or the Gyakuten Kenji white DSi).Do you have a question for the sages experts dudes at Joystiq Nintendo? Simply email your query to asknintendo AT joystiq DOT com, and we will stare at it until an answer becomes apparent!
Time Capsule disk corruption issues? Base station firmware may fix it
If you've been having issues with corrupted Time Machine images either inside the Time Capsule or connected externally to your base station, the 7.4.1 firmware update (for all base stations from 2007 to today) plus the 10.5.6 update might help, according to TidBITS. Apple says this update will fix problems that lead up to corruption issues, but TidBITS recommends you essentially start fresh just to make sure -- after using the Archive feature in Disk Utility to copy your previous Time Machine disk to an external drive. Don't have enough drives to do the data shuffle? You can always take your chances that you either don't have a corrupt Time Machine backup (which is pretty likely, honestly) or do a little soul/data-searching for anything you might want to preserve for posterity.I don't use Time Machine as a sort of universal undo, but I understand some might. In either case: update your system and firmware as recommended by the manufacturer.
Working with a robot: Drobo in action
We've talked about the Data Robotics Drobo storage solution here on TUAW a few times, but there hasn't been a hands-on review of the device on this blog...until now.The Drobo is a mass storage solution that takes advantage of RAID -- Redundant Array of Independent Disks -- to provide a single large volume by combining two to four "naked" (not in an separate enclosure) hard disk drives. Drobo uses a proprietary system called "BeyondRAID" to do this while eliminating a lot of the administrative headaches that are normally associated with setting up RAID arrays.Drobo uses a combination of RAID 1 (mirroring) and RAID 5 (striping) to provide relatively fast response times and redundancy. If a drive fails, you simply pop it out of the array and pop in a new one. Drobo takes care of rebuilding the new disk while the array is in use. While many traditional RAID solutions require all drives to have exactly the same capacity, you can mix or match drive sizes with Drobo. This makes storage growth quite easy to manage -- as new, larger capacity hard drives appear in the future, you just need to pull out a smaller drive or two and replace them with the larger drives. Drobo takes care of integrating the new disk or disks into the array. Click the Read More link for the rest of this post.
HP's MediaSmart works with Time Machine, iTunes
Earlier this week, HP announced the availability of two new home servers, the MediaSmart ex485 and ex487. It's true that both are based on Microsoft's Windows Home Server platform, but the interesting thing for Mac users is that they're recognized by Time Machine as backup targets, and they can act as an iTunes server. At $599US for the ex485 (750GB of storage) or $749US for the ex487 (1.5TB), that's not a bad deal.Other specs include a 2GHz Celeron CPU, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, gigabit Ethernet, four USB 2.0 ports, one eSATA jack and four internal HDD bays. Note that total storage on these units can be scaled up to 9TB.HP will begin taking pre-orders in January for shipment in February.For now, I've got a G4 iMac in my basement acting as a home media server, as it were, to the Apple TV. Two external drives are attached -- one for Time Machine and one for a SuperDuper! clone, scheduled to update weekly. A third, pocket-sized drive is updated via SuperDuper! weekly and lives off-site (read: my wife's desk in her classroom, don't tell!). Do you have a home-spun backup and streaming solution?[Via Engadget]
So you just got a hard drive -- now what?
All day on December 25, TUAW presents "Now What?" We've got first steps and recommendations for all the Apple gifts you (hopefully!) found under the tree today. Happy holidays! Some good soul gifted you with a hard drive for the holidays. I can't think of a better gift! There are two ways to use that extra disk space -- the right way, which I'll get to in a moment, and the way many people do it, which is to just expand their disk space because they are running out of room. I'm here to tell you that is the wrong thing to do with a new hard drive if you don't have a backup strategy already. Let's make a few assumptions here. The new drive has a USB 2.0 interface, or it has a Firewire 400 or 800 interface. It also is at least as large as your primary hard drive. Even better if it is bigger. Use that drive as a backup device, not for more disk space. Old hands around computers already know this, but if you are just getting started, it really is extra important to have all your files duplicated on another drive. With any computer, stuff happens, like a sudden power surge, a drive failure, or a kid in the house who loves to see how the Mac trash can works. Can you really afford to lose all those pictures, emails, documents and CDs you lovingly ripped to iTunes? I didn't think so. Getting a heavy duty back up is not too challenging. If you plug a brand new drive in, your Mac (assuming you have Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard) will ask you if you'd like to use it as a Time Machine drive. Time Machine is Apple's built-in backup solution, and it is great for people who constantly change or update files and sometimes have a good reason to go back and get the old versions. The larger your extra drive, the further you can 'go back in time'. Time Machine allows you to restore all the data, but it can take several hours and may require your original system DVD if your machine isn't bootable. Read on for more...
So you just got your first Mac -- now what?
All day on December 25, TUAW presents "Now What?" We've got first steps and recommendations for all the Apple gifts you (hopefully!) found under the tree today. Happy holidays! If you're a Mac veteran, send a link to this post to the switcher on your holiday list. Merry Christmas, new Mac owner. First of all, congratulations! Welcome to the family. There's some eggnog on the table, and feel free to put your coat on the bed. Setting up your new Mac is a famously easy experience. It should take about 10 minutes, depending on the kind of Mac you bought, and where you want to put it. Once you have your new Mac on your desk, it will take you through a short setup process to personalize your new machine. You'll choose a username, a password, and will be given the option to register your Mac and sign up for MobileMe, if you want. (You can register and sign up for MobileMe later, if you don't do it now.) If you bought any applications along with your Mac (like Microsoft Office, for example), you can install them very easily. Just insert the disc, and either drag the application to your Applications folder (on your hard disk) or double-click the installer application. You can eject the disc when you're done by dragging it to the Trash, or pressing the eject key on your keyboard. For Windows compatibility, get your Windows XP (SP2 or SP3) or Windows Vista disc ready, and double click the Boot Camp Assistant in the Utilities folder (it's inside your Applications folder). Boot Camp Assistant will walk you through the process of installing Windows on your Mac. It's not difficult, but it will take a little time. Once Windows is installed, you can hold down the Option key before your computer boots to choose which operating system to run, or select a permanent preference via the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences. You can read more switcher-specific tips in our Switchers category. If you're switching to the Mac platform from the PC, I might humbly suggest you read Part 1 and Part 2 of my experience introducing my dad to the Mac. He was a hard-core PC user until he fell in love with his Mac mini. Continue reading for a few best bets about how to extend and protect your new Mac.
LaCie 1U rack-mountable Ethernet Disk works with Time Machine
LaCie's newest Ethernet Disk isn't for the faint of heart... nor for those with just a few files to backup. Oh no -- this one's for the storage professional. Housed in a 1U rack-mountable enclosure, the NAS device can hold up to 6TB of data and can support up to 100 users on Mac, Windows or Linux platforms. Also of note, it functions just fine with Apple's Time Machine, which is more than Cupertino's own AirPort Disk can say (maybe). It's available this very moment in 2TB, 4TB and 6TB capacities starting at $749.99.[Via Slashgear]
Frozen in Time by Time Machine
There is more fallout from the current Leopard update to version 10.5.6. Many users are flocking to the Apple support forums to share their tales of woe about Time Machine failures after the update. (Ironically, Time Machine was on the list of items that received bug fixes). Upgraders are seeing Time Machine stall, fail to identify the target hard drive, lock up while Time Machine is 'preparing' to backup, and other assorted glitches. There is no guarantee that these issues were caused by the update to 10.5.6, but users are seeing a lot of problems in parallel to the software changes. MacFixit has quite a bit of guidance on the Time Machine issues. One of the most interesting observations is the long pause while 'preparing' to backup. It seems TM needs to do a deep traversal of the data because it sees a lot of file changes to copy, as would be expected with a major software update. The advice is to wait it out and and eventually TM is likely to get going. I had the same issue and eventually stopped the process, erased my TM drive and started again. That was after more than 2 hours of 'preparing'. It looks like I might have been better off to wait. I had hoped 10.5.6 would fix the occasional TM error I get telling me that the backup failed, but then when I try again, everything is fine. I spent a good hour on the phone with Apple support on this problem some months ago, but didn't get anywhere. Many others have seen this rather arcane message and reported it. Hopefully it will be fixed in the next OS update. It's good to keep in mind that most people updated without any dire consequences, but there are enough people grumbling that it merits a closer look by Apple.
Terminal Tip: Change Time Machine backup interval
Sometimes you want your Mac to be backed up more frequently than usual. If you want to instantly back up using Time Machine, you could click on the menu bar item and select "Back Up Now," but what if you want to change the backup interval indefinitely? With this Terminal Tip, you can do just that. Time Machine is set to automatically back up every hour, but if you would like to change it to every half hour, you can use the following Terminal (/Applications/Utilities) command: sudo defaults write /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-auto StartInterval -int 1800 You will need to authenticate as an administrator, since this command is run under a "sudo." The time interval is measured in seconds, so you can enter any time you wish there; just make sure it is in seconds. By default, Time Machine backs up every 3600 seconds (every hour). If you wish to revert to the original, just replace "1800" with "3600."Want more tips and tricks like this? Visit TUAW's Terminal Tips section!
6 easy steps to migrate your Mac using Time Machine
If you use Time Machine in Leopard, then transferring your stuff to a new Mac might be a bit simpler than you thought. With Migration Assistant, you can easily transfer Applications, Documents, Settings, and more. In this Mac 101, we're going to show you how it's done, and how you can do it yourself! var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/apple/6_easy_steps_to_migrate_your_Mac_using_Time_Machine; 1. Make sure you have a recent backupMake sure you have a recent Time Machine backup on the machine you wish to transfer your information from. To check, go to System Preferences (Apple menu) > Time Machine. If you see a recent backup, then you're set; if not, click "show Time Machine status in the menu bar." In the resulting menu bar item, click "Back up now." Time Machine will make a new backup. 2. Make sure you're not leaving anything behindIn the Time Machine System Preference pane, click the Options button. In the dialog box, you can see all the folders you have chosen not to backup -- check these to make sure you really don't want them. If you do, click the folder and chose the "-" (minus button) at the bottom. Click OK and backtrack to step 1 to create a current backup. 3. Getting the new machine readyFrom this point, you can deviate into two directions: If your Mac is new: Boot up the new Mac and go through the setup screens. When the setup assistant asks if you want to migrate information from your old Mac, choose "From Time Machine backup or other disk." If your Mac has an existing account, don't fret. Just open "Migration Assistant" located in /Applications/Utilities. 4. Connecting your Time Machine drive to the new machineOnce you have completed the above step, click continue. Migration Assistant will ask you to specify the backup you would like to transfer to the new machine. %Gallery-35574%Continue reading for more details...
Mission TUAWpossible: Back up your iPhone with Time Machine
Good morning, Mr. Phelps. The man you are looking at is Justin T. iPhoneuser, one of our loyal TUAW readers. Recently, Justin's iPhone went kablooey and when he tried to restore, he found that his backups were corrupted. He lost a great deal of data and time, all because Time Machine hadn't backed up his iPhone's data. Your mission, Jim, should you choose to accept it, is to help Justin back up his data with Time Machine so he never has to face this kind of data loss again. As usual, should any of your team members be caught by Apple, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This post will self-destruct in five seconds... [This is the part where the Theme Music usually plays.] Read on for your TUAWpossible Mission Briefing.
TUAW Tip: exclude your Time Machine disk from Spotlight indexing
Just the other day I noticed an odd thing: the Spotlight magnifying glass on my MacBook Pro had that little pulsating dot in it that means it is indexing something. That was odd, since I hadn't added any large files to my Mac, nor had I connected an external harddrive. Or did I?As you might be able to guess from the picture above, Spotlight was dutifully trying to index my Time Capsule's harddrive every time that drive was mounted by Time Machine (which is once an hour). This process was making my backups take a little longer than I wanted them to, so I simply excluded my Time Capsule from Spotlight's indexing.Here's how you do it: Launch System Preferences (or you can open the Spotlight preferences from the Spotlight dropdown menu). Click on the 'Privacy' tab. click the little plus icon () Choose your Time Machine disk (as you can see mine is cleverly named) That's it! Now Spotlight will ignore your Time Machine disk, your backups will run a little faster, and there will be a spring in your step.Update: As some commenters have noted, this tip does mean that you won't be able to use Spotlight to search your Time Machine backups. That's fine for me, since when I'm using Time Machine I'm restoring a file that I noticed is missing, or an entire folder. I don't need to search for something, however, if you find yourself routinely searching your Time Machine backups via Spotlight this tip isn't for you.
LG unveils four new HDTVs with built-in DVRs
'Tis a shame we don't know more about LG's latest bundle of HDTVs, but here are the facts so far. Apparently the outfit has dished out a pair of LCDs and a duo of plasmas to commemorate the upcoming Beijing Olympics, and the whole gang comes packing a 160GB internal hard drive. This "Time Machine" functionality will (predictably) enable viewers to capture content right inside of their set, though details beyond that (you know, port assortment, contrast ratio, etc.) are few and far between. That being said, we do know how much each of these buggers will set you back: anywhere between ???1,650,000 ($1,607) for the 42-inch 42PG31RD plasma and ???3,000,000 ($2,916) for the 47-inch 47LG50ED LCD HDTV.[Via AkihabaraNews]
