timemachine kicks ass

[indigo196]

Originally posted by: Goosemaster
damn.

it actually works for system files

nice


<--NEVER EVER thought he'd use it

Yeah... it is good that Apple finally added that feature. Having those features in Windows XP has saved my bacon a few times. The improved functionality in Vista is just gravy. I wish Linux would have something akin to it, but I have not found it yet.

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: dclive

Originally posted by: kamper

Originally posted by: dclive
Then how would you mount those shares from a Leopard boot DVD? Think of the questions Apple would need to field.... easier to simply do it via local USB and HFS+ for V1.0.

Well, in theory it should be able to back up to any location in the file system with minimal added complexity. That's the entire idea of the unix filesystem layout. Also, the whole point of backing up over the network is so that I don't have to get another Leopard install running to get my files back.

That said, I wish they'd added at least the ability to write to a DMG file on an SMB/CIFS share, if not directly to SMB/CIFS plainfiles.

So why smb but not nfs?

Perhaps you don't understand what I'm saying - they won't support it due to the additional complexity of getting it working and supporting clueless users who are now dead in the water and need to NFS mount or SMB mount a remote filesystem, and are getting angrier and angier at Apple tech support by the minute as they try to figure out how to do the above. It's much easier to say "Hook up your USB drive, then try again."

I have nothing against NFS mounts.

I think I do understand, but I don't think it matters. There is no extra work to supporting backup over the network other than not purposely limiting backups to a usb drive. They don't have to support nfs or smb any better than they already do (which I think is actually pretty poorly), they just have to let you pick an arbitrary filesystem point to let you backup to. Heck, I'll even mount my nfs share in /Volumes if they want to require it to be there. In all the instructions they can guide people toward using usb drives and just put a tiny note somewhere that says "Btw, you can do this over nfs too, but only if you know how".

If by "dead in the water" you are referring to people who have lost their primary hard drive and are trying to remount the share to get their files onto a new mac, I also don't think that's too big of a deal because a) these people got the backup onto the nfs share in the first place and b) the point of using nfs or samba isn't to be able to seamlessly retrieve your files on a replacement mac, it's about being able to access them in a standardized way from other computers.

Making things like backup simple for non-technical people is awesome and I love how good Apple is at it, but I don't think that requires them to cripple their software for the more technical people.