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Time Machine volume not dismounting after backup is complete under Lion.

I use Time Machine a little differently than the default. I backup to a Time Capsule to which I connect via wifi, not Ethernet. Due to the many other redundant backups I use, I don’t have Time Machine set to automatically back up every hour. Instead, I just manually initiate a backup once or twice a day, or just before I install something important or do something that might bollix things up.
My issue is that, since I installed Lion, the volume on my Time Capsule hard drive onto which Time Machine writes its data is not automatically dismounting once “cleaning up” is complete. The volume remains mounted until/unless I “eject” it with a finder command.
Is it behaving this way because Lion wants to have continuous access to the Time Machine backup volume as part of the new Auto-Save and Versions features in the OS? Or is this, as I suspect, some new glitch? Either way, have you noticed this behavior yourself? Should I allow the volume to remain mounted all the time (even during system sleep), or is there some way to get it back to automatic dismounting when the backup is complete?
Thanks for your help, Gary. I appreciate having you available through Twitter and the MacMost website.
—–
John M. Hammer

Comments: 6 Responses to “Time Machine volume not dismounting after backup is complete under Lion.”

    13 years ago

    I have never used TM that way -- doing occasional network backups. I'm actually surprised that it unmounted the drive. I would simply leave it. No hard letting the drive stay mounted.
    As for backing up only manually -- I would advise against it. One of the most powerful parts of TM is the ability to undo a mistake. If you mess up a document or delete one, you know you can turn the clock back an hour to get the file back. But doing it manually means going back to yesterday's copy, or perhaps not being able to retrieve a document you spent all day working on.
    Since TM does an incremental backup, hourly backups should be short -- it would just be whatever changed in the hour.
    And if the backups ever get in the way, you can easily cancel one. I do that when filming the videos. So I may only have 23 backups in a day instead of 24. But that's a lot better than 1.

    Clif Watson
    13 years ago

    A Google search brought me here since I am having the same problem as John. Us Mac users like to keep things clean and simple and it does bug me a bit that the Time Machine Backup image stays up on the desktop now as I'm not sure how the connection is treated when I close my MacBook Pro.

    What i do know is this morning when I opened it Time Machine popped up a window that a backup couldn't be completed although I'm almost positive it was not doing one when I closed the laptop last night so I suspect it is that there was still a connection when closed.

    I hope this is something that can be fixed with a Lion updated but I plan to hit the Apple.com forum to submit if not already over there.

    Dennis
    13 years ago

    I also have the same problem. It started after upgrading to Lion. I'm using Time Machine the standard way and it makes me creepy that my backup connection stays open when not using it. Did anyone found a solution for this?

      13 years ago

      I think some have reported that it is due to Spotlight indexing your drives, including some cross-over between TM and Spotlight functionality. I have heard from at least one place that it goes away over time as Spotlight catches up with its indexing after the Lion upgrade.

    Michael Kaye
    13 years ago

    Same here. Issue is with Lion only. Wouldn't be a problem except that when waking from sleep my machine will lock for 90+ seconds - it seems to be trying to find the Time Capsule. No Time Capsule Disk mounted, no delay

    Ali
    13 years ago

    same here, time capsule won't eject, and makes all the noises as if its till doing a back up when it isn't. Takes ages to prepare too. Been on to Mac support but after disk repair, repair permissions rebooting whole machine without T.C. connected, then re connecting, then upgrading latest Lion update, same problem.

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