If you use Time Machine for backups, read the post before you do a restore. Even better, do a verify periodically to make sure you are not backing up on top of a bad backup.
UPDATE: Turns out that the verify backup option is disabled (appears in grey) for USB drives. My sense is that this was designed for Time Capsule. Well here’s an article from a few years back that discusses this.
Tried this, but my Verify Backups is greyed out.
Did some searching and apparently this is because my backup drive is USB connected, not networked. Verify Backups is not available for USB connected drives.
Does it work for Thunderbolt connected drives?
This sucks because I’ve moved from network Time Machine backups to USB/direct connect because once a year Time Machine was telling me my space bundle file was corrupted and I needed to start from scratch. So, I moved from home-made Time Capsule to direct connect.
This is yet another example of Apple letting significant bugs remain in software they’ve shipped for many years. If you search online for folks with either Time Capsules or AirPort Extreme (latest version) with connected hard disks having this problem you’ll see it’s significant.
Argh!
I have little doubt that Apple would love all of its various users to do cloud-based backups of all their stuff but that’s not a viable option for those of us who have a lot of media on our machines. In my case, tens of thousands of RAW images.
We all read the rumor items claiming that the Airport team at Apple was disbanded, but when I look at Apple’s website Airports and Time Capsules remain available for sale. What eveidence do you have that they have been discontinued?
You are absolutely correct. I went to the Apple Store site and, sure enough, the Time Capsule is there. Edited the post. Appreciate your calling this out. Great to have comments turned on!