![how to activate time machine on mac how to activate time machine on mac](https://cdn.osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/set-up-time-machine-backups-on-mac-os-x-5.jpg)
- How to activate time machine on mac how to#
- How to activate time machine on mac mac os x#
- How to activate time machine on mac password#
It's important to understand that if you encrypt a backup, if you lose your password you will have lost access to your backup. And if you're the ultra-paranoid type, you hopefully are well aware of the risks and would much rather lose everything than have it fall into the worng hands.) (Of course, experimenting with non-critical data can be fun and educational - my cautions only apply to people who actually care about the data they're trying to protect. You're almost guaranteed to wish you hadn't. If you're reading this hint and you're thinking this might be cool to try.please don't. If you're one of those few, then you've already got well-established mechanisms in place for removing backups to secured offsite vaults or the like.
How to activate time machine on mac mac os x#
I'm willing to bet that only a vanishingly minuscule percentage of Mac OS X users are better off encrypting their backups than not. Apparently, the only way to get TimeMachine to encrypt backups is with a local disk that will be in the same physical location as the original data. The *only* context in which encrypted backups even theoretically make sense is if the backups will be in a physically insecure location - and there's almost no circumstance where it makes sense for an individual to leave backups in such a place.
![how to activate time machine on mac how to activate time machine on mac](https://cdn.osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/set-up-time-machine-backups-on-mac-os-x-3.jpg)
If you're going to your backup, it's because the original is already toast.and now so is your backup as well. If there's even something slightly wrong, your data may well be rendered perfectly unreadable. The idea is to prevent access unless it's guaranteed that everything is okay. Encrypted files are extremely fragile by design. The whole point of encryption is to make sure that nobody *including you* can get to your data if something bad happens.Īnd it's that "including you" bit that people misunderstand the most. The whole point of backups is to be able to get to your data even if something bad happens. Indeed, it's all but guaranteed that this is something you really, really don't want to do. May I please take a moment to most strongly encourage people to think very, very, very hard before encrypting backups. It's a modern API addition none the less, so it probably shouldn't be construed as momentum in that direction, just that steps have been taken to improve Apple's offering. The song and dance of setting up logical volumes and such with community betas seemed to have similar components, but more complicated (read: unpolished) steps to construct. If I can add a speculation, Core Storage may have come out of Apple's efforts with ZFS. (Disk Utility in Lion allows you to format HFS drives encrypted now too) This would probably be most useful to users who have multiple drives, and want to encrypt more than just the boot drive without reformatting. You could use the command line interface to convert any qualified drive, but I won't provide details here (mostly because I don't know them). Simply put, it adds encryption between the hardware and the filesystem, so the filesystem itself is unmodified, just filtered thru encryption.
![how to activate time machine on mac how to activate time machine on mac](https://images.idgesg.net/images/article/2017/10/1-100739763-large.jpg)
The encryption layer, which is used by FileVault2, is implemented with Lion's new Core Storage, which is a Logical Volume system to you Linux types. All old drives won't show up since they don't use it. Some nitty gritty details for the really geeky, you can see details at the command line using 'diskutil coreStorage list'. When I rebooted the machine for another purpose, it did ask for the password when I logged in, and if i wanted to store it on my keychain. My 1TB drive just finished "converting" (encrypting) the drive (~24 hours). Yes, this does require a physical connection to the device, so network disks won't work. Just to be safe, have another good backup on another disk. It is taking a while too, so it might encrypt the whole file system, which will block recovery from anything older than Lion. When I enabled it, it did a long 'preparing for encryption' step (probably a check disk), a quick backup, and now its sitting there encrypting. I'd speculate it uses the same method as FileVault2, but I don't know. Requirements for encryption are just Mac Extended (Journaled) file system on a GPT-partitioned disk.
![how to activate time machine on mac how to activate time machine on mac](https://nascompares.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/QNAP-NAS-APPLE-TIME-MACHINE-NAS-2.png)
You probably won't need it ever again unless you recover the backup from a different machine, so remembering it would be tricky. Give it a good password, and never lose it. Check the checkbox in this dialog to Encrypt backup disk. and select the disk you're currently using for backup.
How to activate time machine on mac how to#
Time Machine finally supports encryption here's how to activate it.Īt the Time Machine preference pane, go to Select Disk.