A Paradox: Apple’s Time Machine Showing a Few Faults

There is nothing worse than losing data, not even a flat tire or paper cut between your toes.  There are a variety of ways to keep your data from being swallowed by the ether.  One such way, that is touted by Apple is Time Machine.

It works by taking an image of a hard drive, copying every file except for select root directories and itself.  Then it transfers the image to an external hard drive, such as the brand specific Time Capsule.  After the initial image is taken, every hour Time Machine takes more hard drive images.  To save time, it compares the new image to the old one and only keeps files that are different, i.e changes you’ve made in the last hour.

However, like with their new, but defunct, mapping application Apple’s new Time Machine is showing faults.  One such fault may be a sign of a bigger problem.  The blog Mac’s Performance Guide has report on Time Machine not backing up partitioned drives.  Evidence suggests that when a drive is unmounted, mission critical files can be excluded from Time Machine’s backup list.

Why is this important?  Well, although one can argue that Mac’s have a lot user friendly features, no one can argue that there’s a plethora of software made with them in mind.  This causes individuals to partition their drives with Bootcamp, software that allows another operating system to be live on your Mac.

The fact is that if you want a well optimized office, you need your Macs to have Windows on them.  It is well known that the Mac’s versions of the Office are inferior to those of the Windows’.  However, this bug could mean none of the Microsoft Word documents and spreadsheets are being backed up.

If you really are feeling antsy, I’d suggest that you backup all your critical files to the cloud. Find out more here.