Time Machine and General Backup Questions

Hi,

I've recently switched to a 2011 iMac with internal 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD. My old Mac (2006) just had a 500GB HD.

My iTunes library (350GB) is on an external drive. Everything was backed up with Time Machine to another external drive. However, Time Machine drives me crazy by backing up every hour. It used to take so long and slow my Mac down. This may change with this newer Mac though.

Is it wise to backup from external drive to another external drive? Will this slow things down? Is there some kind of throughput issue when doing this?

I'm now attempting to devise a better backup strategy and now that I have a 1TB internal drive, would it be better to move the iTunes library to that? I have moved my pictures and movies folders to it.

I've thought about using Time Machine to backup the SSD and SuperDuper to backup iTunes but I'm not sure SuperDuper is ideal. The smart update option is dangerous if I was to unknowingly delete the iTunes folder itself, or a large chunk of folders as the next backup would mirror that.

So, I'm looking for some advice from you backup gurus.

I have 2 1TB external drives. My SSD has about 160GB of data, my pictures and movies have 140GB and my iTunes lib is 350GB.

Thanks.

Macman45 said:

You need a drive that's capable of backing up the size of storage you have on your new Mac...so, I'd recommend a 2TB maybe the WD USB3 or similar.

From there, set TM to backup every day if you wish, this will keep local backup file sizes down.

As for you iTunes library, I'd back it up either via Tm or via export to an external drive.

I have 4TB of iTunes and movie files that are backed up to a Pegasus R4 and then to a 4TB USB 3 Seagate drive for extra safety.

You can also choose to exclude large folders that you don't want TM to backup when you set it up.

Click to expand...

In order....

Yes, but if I backup iTunes separately I don't need 2TB. This Mac doesn't have USB 3.

How do I get Time Machine to backup every day? Or only once a day?

Macman45 said:

All the information you need:
http://osxdaily.com/2012/02/02/change-the-time-machine-backup-schedule/

Click to expand...

And what about the location of files? Better to have them on the internal?

Macman45 said:

I'd keep my documents and stuff I work on daily on the Mac...Obviously OSX too. All large collections of data..Itunes, Aperture ( or iPhoto ) which take up the majority of space on the externals.

Click to expand...

Ok, but I have the SSD and an internal HDD, which I assume has a faster interface or throughput.

So, will internal HDD backup to ext HD via Time Machine be faster than ext hd to ext hd? Or is it negligible?

Weaselboy said:

I would just attach a USB drive big enough to hold your TM backups and turn TM on and let it run. That first backup will be slow like you said from USB2, but subsequent, incremental backups should not be bad.

Click to expand...

This is what I've done. Hopefully, I can maybe get a Thunderbolt to USB 3 hub