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Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,071
15,494
California
I see 3 categories:

1. Favorites , which includes dropbox, all my files, Applications, Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Movies, Music, Pictures

2. Shared, which lists my Time Capsule along with an external usb external drive connected to time capsule

and

3. Devices which includes "Remote Disk" (whatever that is), WD Smart, My Passport, and LaCie external drive

There's no sign of my internal SSD

Open Finder then hit command-comma and check the box I marked in the preference pane. That will make your computer show under Devices in Finder. Then in Finder click the computer name now showing in Devices. That will bring up Macintosh HD in the right pane, which is your main internal drive partition.

All the things you listed under Favorites above are different folders on your internal drive though.

1bAkD22.png
 

flynz4

macrumors 68040
Aug 9, 2009
3,242
126
Portland, OR
A newbie to the iMac Question if I may? How do I navigate to the files I should backup to Crash Plan since my internal drive does not show up as a drive in Finder? I'm assuming data, user files, anything else I would lose in case of a drive failure other than OSX and apps?

When you launch Crashplan... you will not actually be using "Finder" to select your files. The Crashplan app will give you a file view of your entire system... plus any external drives.

/Jim
 

ovizii

macrumors newbie
Jul 9, 2013
3
0
Not wanting to open my own thread I'll append my question to this one as it is complementary info to what the original poster asked.

I've taken care of my data backups and would like to backup my system settings.

Let me explain:

I recently got my main working machine a Macbook Pro stolen and when I got a replacement I had to update it, install all my apps (which is not a problem) BUT then came the big deal: I had to set everything up as I like it. So I'm looking for a backup solution of all settings, starting from my favorite wallpaper, power saving settings to my browser preferences, etc.

What would I need to backup to capture all of that?

Remember, data and apps are already taken care of, I only need to figure out how to backup all preferences.

Any advice or info? Googleing didn't yield much :-(
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,419
43,307
Both Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner will do that as your preferences are stored in the ~/Library folder. A full restore by either software will result in you have a computer exactly like you had before, preferences and settings included.
 

ovizii

macrumors newbie
Jul 9, 2013
3
0
Thanks, but I don't really care about the tools, I just need to know WHAT to backup. As I said, most of my stuff is already backed up. I have the proper tools, I jsut don't want to backup too little and neither duplicate anything.

So you're saying backing up ~/Library is all I need and all settings per user and system wide are in there?
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,419
43,307
You may need to back up /Library as well, as applications like photoshop put stuff in there.

I think if you're manually and selectively backing up folders you may run into issues or headaches as you may miss some things. My recommendation is to use the software and the backup software do what its designed - just my $.02
 

ovizii

macrumors newbie
Jul 9, 2013
3
0
Thanks. The reason I'm asking for specific folders is because I synchronize my data to multiple machines and would like to backup the settings only to a cloud service like S3 and I'd like to avoid paying too much for duplicate stuff.
 

MacTribe

macrumors member
Dec 26, 2010
72
0
London
If I repeat anything users have said above, apologies.. Does anyone else feel this thread is way to complicated for something as simple as running backups?

My two cents:

  1. As long as you backup your data to two separate locations, you're golden..
  2. You *can* run two separate hard drives for time machine, i.e. it can backup the same data to two different locations, you can also backup to two different time capsules as far as I've seen..
  3. Your best backup solution is a simple one. How I would do it is a time machine backup for my 'local' backup, and online backup for my 'offsite', and I would definitely use Crashplan, home or pro (like time machine on steroids - google it)
  4. If you have budget for it, getting a decent company to manage your backups for you is also an option i.e. this sort of thing

There a billion options for backing up locally, and online / offsite - the reality is there are only a few that can handle tons of data. Check out another thread posted on the forum based on this problem:

4TB Network Backups - MacRumour Thread

I don't know if this info above helps, just adding my opinion - I've dealt a lot with failed backups and rubbish software enough to know what works and what doesn't, and seriously - simpler is better!
 

flynz4

macrumors 68040
Aug 9, 2009
3,242
126
Portland, OR
Thanks. The reason I'm asking for specific folders is because I synchronize my data to multiple machines and would like to backup the settings only to a cloud service like S3 and I'd like to avoid paying too much for duplicate stuff.

I use Crashplan+ for off-site backup... and it is unlimited. You can either buy it "per machine"... or "family plan". I still have 4.3 years left on my family plan... and I paid $6/month to back up all of my machines. I currently have 9 machines being backed up (soon going down to 7). The largest is 1.5 TB.

This is by far the best deal that I've seen. Crashplan seems to be the most popular of the offsite backup programs for Mac users. I've found it to be bulletproof.

I personally use Time Machine/Time Capsule to back up each computer... and I use Crashplan+ to backup just user data. Normal restores are performed via TM... and Crashplan+ is offsite disaster recovery.

I just (by necessity) did a disaster recovery using Crashplan+ on a computer last night. It went flawless. I think I'll start a new post on that one.

/Jim
 
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