Backing up to a dedicated partition on the same disk? That has to be the most useless thing ever. The whole point of backing up your data is so it won't be lost in the event of disk failure. I'm quite surprised Time Machine even lets you do that. That's just dumbfounding.

[ Reply to This | # ]

One possible reason to backup Time Machine to the same disk would be to utilize the functionality to retrieve accidentally deleted or modified files. This is even more helpful on a portable computer; when you travel and want this functionality, it's a hassle to carry an external disk. You're correct, of course, that it does not serve to secure your data from disk failure, but it can be useful.

[ Reply to This | # ]

You can back up to a disk partition FIRST, since that's fast, and then copy that partition to CD/DVD/tape, which is much slower.

[ Reply to This | # ]

> The whole point of backing up your data is so it won't be lost
> in the event of disk failure.

I take your point... But...

What about if you simply accidentally delete a file. Or Address Book entry? Or purposely delete a file and then, days or even weeks later on, discover that you shouldn't really have deleted it?

I think you'd find that a lot of users would say that these scenarios are the whole point of backing up your data...

[ Reply to This | # ]

I can see using a single disk for recovery of accidental deletes on the road... maybe. But if you're going to do that, then you'd better ALSO regularly backup to an external disk. As others have pointed out, there are very tiny portable drives available that'll do the job. That approach is going to be more reliable, plus you'd have your whole internal HD available to use.

When a hard drive fails, it's the whole disk, not just one partition.

Will TM backup to multiple disks? I don't know, but if not, then you should keep a regularly updated clone with either SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner in addition to your TM backup that's on a single disk.



[ Reply to This | # ]