Setting up Time Machine

Article, Mac OS X, Novice, Time Machine | March 6th, 2008

For those of you with the latest Mac operating system called Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) comes a great, easy to use backup tool called Time Machine. This tool really is a life saver for many of us who need to backup, but just can’t always remember to do it. The best part…it’s super easy to setup!

Requirements: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), an external hard drive

The very first step to setting up your Time Machine is making sure you have an external hard drive. This will plug in to your computer through one of the ports (Firewire or USB). Because every external hard drive is different, it would be very difficult to tell you exactly how to set it up. Your hard drive should come with instructions, however 95% of external hard drives just require you to plug them into a power outlet and connect it to your Mac with a cable.

1. Once you have the external hard drive plugged in and turned on, Time Machine will automatically detect it and ask if you would like to use it to back up with Time Machine.
2. After selecting “Use as Backup Disk”, the Time Machine preferences window will be displayed. If your drive isn’t formatted for Leopard to use as a Time Machine drive then you will need to click Erase to use the drive. Keep in mind that this will erase anything that is currently on the hard drive. Once your drive is properly formatted for Time Machine to use it, you will see a window much like the one below. This window will tell you everything about the status of your Time Machine backup’s.
3. Shortly, Time Machine will start doing its job and create an initial backup of your Macintosh HD. After this backup is done, Time Machine will run every hour and backup any changes that have been made since the last backup. This is all done in the background and won’t interrupt any of your daily use.

And there you have it, Time Machine is all setup and doing its thing. Be sure to check out two more of our lessons on Time Machine. Using the Time Machine preferences pane and Using the Time Machine restore interface.