macmacbook protime-machine
I have two questions about Time Machine:
I haven't found any documentation for this feature yet, so I don't have any specific answers for your questions about interactions with external Time Machine drives.
However, I did do some playing around with the feature while using my laptop on battery. The first thing I noticed is that local snapshots were not enabled by default – for me, at least. I know that because "entering" Time Machine while my backup drive was detached resulted in the usual error message — until I executed the following from a command line:
sudo tmutil enablelocal
After I did this, a hidden volume called MobileBackups was created (in /Volumes) and I was able to "enter" Time Machine. (Perhaps local snapshots weren't enabled on my machine because I have less than 10% free disk space?)
Unfortunately, the feature seems a little half-baked. I tried the following, with pretty unsatisfactory results:
~/Documents/Test.tmutil snapshot./Volumes/MobileBackups/Backups.backupdb/hostname/Latests/drivename/Users/myname/Documents.Test folder.Test folder was not there in any of the backups.Update: I installed Lion on a second Mac, and without any explicit action on my part, this Mac has a MobileBackups volume. And restoring deleted files from a local snapshot works on this Mac.
No, the backups will not be encrypted automatically, but it's very easy to enable for directly attached disks. Just check "Encrypt Backup Disk" in the Time Machine disk selection settings.
If you're backing up to another Mac, you can use Disk Utility on that Mac to erase non-boot drives and put an encrypted partition on them:
Best Answer
Some versions of files are stored temporarily locally, when you're away from the TimeCapsule. These are on your MacBook and can therefor be accessed without the TimeCapsule present. As soon as the Mac syncs back with the TimeCapsule, they are longer stored on your local drive, therefor you'll need a connection to the TimeCapsule to restore them.
"Mobile Backups" in the Library It won't keep so much files forever, as it deletes some after a time. Hourly versions are only kept for a week I believe. From then on it's daily versions.