Backup Utility for Apple's Mac: Time Machine

Time Machine refers to a Backup Utility introduced after release of Mac leopard or Mac OS X 10.5 . Time Machine is an inbuilt application provided with your Mac for Backups and Restore purposes. It works with device called “Time capsule” - a backup device that works wireless with Time Machine in OS X. 

What is Time Machine and how it works?

It keeps a copy of files at the destination drive (external hard drive, another internal drive, another partition at same disk etc.) that was designated by you in your hard disk.So, Time Machine protects you in case of any disaster or data loss situation.

It creates a folder on our selected volume.This folder name is saved as current date and time of process (by default). 

 

Things that Time Machine can do for your Precious Data: 

 

Keep incremental backups:

Incremental backup process updates only those files which have undergone changes since last backup.

Now, one question should strike to your mind is- is it possible to get my file back in previous form?

Answer is 'Yes' . All you need to do is just click that day from backup ladder. As it keeps copy of all your files for each of your backup sessions. Time Machine stores just one copy of a file but make it appear to be in several places in your machine at once. This is possible with help of Hard links. Due to this, your disk doesn’t fill up with multiple/duplicate copies of files that haven’t changed. Thus duplicate of files not occur and memory also not effected.

But, still we have not reached to how we get our previous data back. In Time machine you can set your preferences of keeping backups for hourly/daily/monthly/yearly basis according to your requirement. So, if you choose to keep hourly backups you can get back your previous hour data only.In case of daily backups you can get back upto previous day data only. While selecting monthly backups you can get back files that are older than a month and so on.

Easy to Restore Files:

Steps to retrieve a file from your backups:

• Click on the Time Machine icon in the Dock.
• Click on up and down arrows or use the time line on the right hand side to scroll through your backups list to look for specific items or folders.
• Older dates are appear in pink, indicating the data saved on your backup drive, while the most updated data on your Mac is indicated or visible in white.
• Click on the Restore button and your file comes back to the present.
  

Restores your Entire Disk (including OS X itself):

Although this one is somewhat time-consuming, but Time Machine can also return your entire hard drive (including OS X itself) to its state at some point in the past.

Runs Automatically/Manually both:
If you don't want to operate Time Machine’s hourly/daily schedule, you can turn it off and can run backups on manually basis at any time.
So, this post comprise all vital information related to backup utility of Mac. Beyond Time Machine advantages its have some limitations also. Soon, I will discuss upon why this utility is not enough for backup and let you know how to overcome this issue.