For the more tech-minded, you can get hold of some other tools that make it more configurable.

So off it goes, working its magic in the background.

And then you get an error message and after spending some time investigating it, you find that you have suffered Error 109 which basically means that your Mac cannot mount the drive that is home to your Time Machine.

“No problem, Google must have the answer!” No, sorry, only a wealth of links to forum posts from people in the same boat. Resolutions range from “It just started working” to delicate operations using the command line that are still unlikely to work.

I have gone through two of these, both times the least stressful approach was to wipe the drive and start again. Not ideal, as I would not be able to restore my Mac back to its state as of three months ago, but I can always at least rebuild my Mac from scratch and get it back to how it was yesterday.

Bottom line – do not use Time Machine as your only backup method.

For your important files and folders, just use Dropbox and for complete security, back up your entire drive regularly with CC Cloner.

That’s your base. On top of that you can add external drives, Mobile Me, whatever other cloud storage you choose but go for these as a minimum and you will at least have your important files available and recoverable as well as get your Mac up and running again in the event of a crash.

Do not trust Time Machine as your belt and braces, it is less reliable than the machine you are backing up.