Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
if you're running out of space on your backup disk and you already
have a bootable duplicate or two (see
Create a Bootable Duplicate
),
you could exclude the system files to save space. You may especially
want to do this if you're backing up several computers over a
network, because those additional files can chew up a lot of disk
space and network bandwidth.
To exclude system files, add the folder
/System
to the Exclude These
Items from Backups list. The alert shown in
Figure 9
appears; click
Exclude All System Files.
Figure 9:
When you tell Time Machine to exclude your System
folder, this prompt asks if you want to exclude all of Mac OS X.
•
Other local volumes:
Time Machine doesn't back up other
network
volumes mounted on your Mac. However, it normally does
back up other local volumes, including external USB and FireWire
drives and additional internal drives. If the data on any of these
volumes isn't particularly valuable—I'm thinking, for example,
of disks mainly used as scratch space for Photoshop—you can save
a significant amount of space on your backup disk by adding them
to the Exclude These Items from Backups list.
•
Downloads:
Your
~/Downloads
folder may contain a number
of large files that disappear quickly (after you install software
or relocate the files to other folders). If so, exclude that folder.
•
Developer:
The
/Developer
folder, which contains Apple's Xcode
Tools, probably doesn't need to be backed up, because you can
restore its contents quickly from a downloaded Xcode installer
or from your Mac OS X Install media.
