Resolved Time Machine Question

[ideal.dreams]

I have Time Machine making encrypted backups to a 1TB drive. I used Time Machine just a little bit ago and noticed two things since encrypting the drive: 1) The tick marks on the right of the screen are now alternating colors between purple and gray, why? And 2) the purple and gray tick marks differ in time by a 3-4 minutes each.

Can anyone explain why this is happening?

Edit: Found the difference: gray tick marks are local backups and purple tick marks are backups that have actually been stored on the external drive. I thought local backups were made only when the external drive was not available, and then as soon as that drive became available Time Machine would move the local backups to the disk. Has this changed? Or has that never been the case?

 

[ColdCase]

I don't think thats ever been the case. With 10.8.3, maybe earlier I dunno, you can set TM to use multiple drives and it will sequence through each when its time to backup. So if you have two drives, backups alternate between them. If the drive is not present you get an error notification. You can manually kick off a backup to the alternate drive.

 

[Weaselboy]

I thought local backups were made only when the external drive was not available, and then as soon as that drive became available Time Machine would move the local backups to the disk. Has this changed? Or has that never been the case?

No, it makes the local backups all the time, even if you have your TM disk attached. It has always been like this.

 

[ideal.dreams]

Alright, thanks for the answers. I disabled the local backups again so all has been solved.

 

[Weaselboy]

Alright, thanks for the answers. I disabled the local backups again so all has been solved.

Unless it is just bothering you that those backups are there, it is a nice feature to leave enabled IMO. If your disk reaches 80% full and you need the space for personal storage, OS X will shrink the local backups space automatically. There really is not a down side to leaving it on.

It can be nice to have a backup version available when you are away from your TM disk.

 

[ideal.dreams]

Unless it is just bothering you that those backups are there, it is a nice feature to leave enabled IMO. If your disk reaches 80% full and you need the space for personal storage, OS X will shrink the local backups space automatically. There really is not a down side to leaving it on.

It can be nice to have a backup version available when you are away from your TM disk.

I've had it disabled since the feature was released over a year ago and never needed it. It must have been reenabled when I toggled Time Machine off and then back on.

 

[Weaselboy]

I've had it disabled since the feature was released over a year ago and never needed it. It must have been reenabled when I toggled Time Machine off and then back on.

Yes, that will turn it on again.