I’m learning some things I do not like about OS X’s included back up software called Time Machine.  If you’re like me, you don’t like to mess with things like this too much, because if they don’t work as expected, you’ve destroyed a perfectly good machine.  If they do work as expected, you don’t need them unless you’ve destroyed a perfectly good machine.

I recently purchased a new laptop, and I wanted to use my Time Machine backup from my MacMini to migrate my apps, data files, and system preferences.  The MacMini is three versions of operating system back, but it’s my primary machine, so it has everything.  It’s three versions of operating system back because there’s one solitaire program I like that is not compatible with newer operating system versions. Yes, the developer is working on a compatible version — maybe after the new year.  No matter, the MacMini cannot accept OS Mavericks (the current operating system version), so it’s nearing the end of the line as a useful machine.  When the new MacMinis are released (and I’m confident they will be in early 2014), this MacMini will move to a closet where it will provide a media drive if one is needed, and it will add a downstairs printer to the network.  Once it gets set up, it won’t need a keyboard, mouse, or monitor.  It can just sit there.  I can turn off all outside connections, and it can just work.

But Time Machine is a problem.  After at least four attempts to migrate from the Mini to the new MacBookPro, I abandoned my efforts when my brand new machine did not recognize any login information.  Fortunately, I’d made a Time Machine backup of the brand new machine before attempting to do any of this, and I had a version after I’d gotten updates installed, so I ran the Recovery Program and recovered my Mac from the Time Machine backup.  Thankfully, that worked flawlessly!

After what I term a “near death” experience, I abandoned all attempts to use Time Machine for setting up the new laptop.  In less time than I’d spent trying to do things “the easy way,” I had my mission critical software installed and mostly configured the way I wanted it.

From this experience, I’ve learned Time Machine is only good for limited purposes, and those purposes may not be what it’s been advertised to be good for.  I’ll use Time Machine for the next few months, but after I get a few financial matters settled, I’ll be seriously considering subscribing to an on line backup and recovery service in addition to the systems I already use.  I have all data files configured to go to Dropbox, and that minimizes any consideration for lost files, but redundancy has it’s value.

I have friends who use Carbonite and Crashplan+ and are happy with those solutions. What do you use?