Lesson 17: Manage Time Machine

Question 1

What can you back up with Time Machine?

Answer 1

Time Machine lets you back up your entire Mac, including system files, apps, music, photos, emails, and documents.

Question 2

Which backup destination disks does Time Machine support?

Answer 2

The most common format is HFS Plus but it also supports Xsan formats.

You can back up from an HFS Plus or APFS-formatted disk to an HFS Plus disk; however, Time Machine can’t back up to an APFS-formatted disk.

Question 3

How does Time Machine maintain a backup history of the file system?

Answer 3

Time Machine saves space by ignoring files that don’t need to be backed up — ones that can be re-created after a restoration.

Generally speaking, Time Machine ignores temporary files, Spotlight indexes, items in the Trash, and anything that can be considered a cache.

Question 4

Which types of files are omitted from Time Machine backups?

Answer 4

A previously backed-up item won’t be available if your backup volume filled up and Time Machine had to start deleting older items to make room for newer ones.

Question 5

Why is Time Machine inefficient at backing up large databases?

Answer 5

Time Machine is inefficient at backing up large databases because it must back up the entire database file every time any change, no matter how small, is made to the database.

Question 6

Which feature helps Time Machine restore data when your Time Machine backup disk isn’t available?

Answer 6

Time Machine creates local snapshots on your built-in startup disk to help when your backup disk isn’t available.

Question 7

What are the four ways you can restore data from a Time Machine backup?

Answer 7

Four methods for restoring from a Time Machine backup include the following:

1. Restore specific items from a Time Machine backup
2. Restore with Migration Assistant
3. Restore an entire system with macOS Recovery
4. Manually restore with the Finder