Leopard's Time Machine should have been better tested, drive maker says

By Gregg Keizer

November 7, 2007 12:00 PM ET

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In other words, a hard drive named "My_computer's drive" could cause problems because of the underscore, comma and space used in the name.

"Apple gets an 'A' for making a backup solution that's easy to use and a standard part of the OS," said Mihalik, "but it gets a 'C-' for not anticipating the problems people would have with Time Machine."

Even so, Mihalik downplayed the extent of Time Machine's problems. "People look at the messages and think, yeah, there are a lot of problems reported, but [what's there] are only in the tens, or maybe hundreds at the most," he said. "That's a very small number compared to the number of people trying out Leopard."

And of those who have problems, Mihalik rejected the idea that a large number of drives, LaCie's or those from any other seller, were flawed or somehow incompatible with Leopard or Time Machine. "The major manufacturers all make sure Apple has their equipment for testing, so if there were firmware surprises, [all the manufacturers] would be surprised at the same time." He said that while in contact with other drive makers to disk drives.

That, however, has happened. Within days after Apple released Mac OS X 10.3, a.k.a. Panther, in 2003, it acknowledged a bug that wiped data on drives connected via FireWire 800, and less than a week later, Apple issued an update to fix the problem.

That may be why Mihalik, when asked to rank Leopard against other recent Mac OS X upgrades, gave it better marks than Panther. "Overall, I'd say it's not as bad as 10.3, but it's not as solid as 10.4 [Tiger]."

Apple did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

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