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Backing up using CCC and TM?

Tyler23

Tyler23

macrumors 603
Original poster
Dec 2, 2010
5,664
159
Atlanta, GA
Hey everyone,

I have a 2009 MBP running Lion.

I currently have a 600 GB WD Passport external HD. So far, I've been backing up by cloning my HD to my external using CCC. Manually plugging in, then cloning my HD using CCC takes quite a bit of time, so I don't get around to it very often.

I was wondering if I could use Time Machine as well to help with smaller, incremental backups. Useful being a college student at the end of the semester constantly working on various papers.

If this is a good solution, how should I set it up? I went to use Time Machine earlier and it started doing a full back up. I guess I'd need to use this, then could I just plug it in a few times a day for smaller backups?

If so, now would I have several versions of my entire HD stored on the external?

Thanks in advanced, I know it's a lot..let me know if I need to clarify anything :cool:
 
Tyler23 said:
Hey everyone,

I have a 2009 MBP running Lion.

I currently have a 600 GB WD Passport external HD. So far, I've been backing up by cloning my HD to my external using CCC. Manually plugging in, then cloning my HD using CCC takes quite a bit of time, so I don't get around to it very often.

I was wondering if I could use Time Machine as well to help with smaller, incremental backups. Useful being a college student at the end of the semester constantly working on various papers.

If this is a good solution, how should I set it up? I went to use Time Machine earlier and it started doing a full back up. I guess I'd need to use this, then could I just plug it in a few times a day for smaller backups?

If so, now would I have several versions of my entire HD stored on the external?

Thanks in advanced, I know it's a lot..let me know if I need to clarify anything :cool:
Click to expand...

CCC does incremental backups
 
Tyler23 said:
Hey everyone,

I have a 2009 MBP running Lion.

I currently have a 600 GB WD Passport external HD. So far, I've been backing up by cloning my HD to my external using CCC. Manually plugging in, then cloning my HD using CCC takes quite a bit of time, so I don't get around to it very often.

I was wondering if I could use Time Machine as well to help with smaller, incremental backups. Useful being a college student at the end of the semester constantly working on various papers.

If this is a good solution, how should I set it up? I went to use Time Machine earlier and it started doing a full back up. I guess I'd need to use this, then could I just plug it in a few times a day for smaller backups?

If so, now would I have several versions of my entire HD stored on the external?

Thanks in advanced, I know it's a lot..let me know if I need to clarify anything :cool:
Click to expand...

You can do incremental backups with either CCC or TM. While some prefer to have two different backup methods, it's not absolutely necessary. I prefer using CCC to create a bootable backup (which TM can't do), then keeping that backup current with incremental backups. You can schedule those backups to occur at certain time intervals, or automatically, whenever the backup drive is connected.
 
That's what I have it set to now, however it seems to me that it still goes through and clones the entire HD, which is too time consuming..
 
Tyler23 said:
That's what I have it set to now, however it seems to me that it still goes through and clones the entire HD, which is too time consuming..
Click to expand...
If you have it set up properly, it won't keep cloning the entire HD. It will only backup those files that changed since the last backup.
 
Tyler23 said:
That's what I have it set to now, however it seems to me that it still goes through and clones the entire HD, which is too time consuming..
Click to expand...

na you can tell, next time you do it watch data copied number it wont go up as it scans the source until it hits a new or changed file

what is you external drive usb or firewire?

mine is firewire 800 and my internal hard drive has just over 500GB on it and my backups are usually done when I have about 15-20GB of new/changed data and it only takes about 10 minutes
 
Thanks a lot for the info.

Now, would there be any benefit to me having the whole HD cloned using CCC and doing incremental backups with that, while also backing up my HD using TM and doing incremental backups from there as well?

Edit: I use a firewire 800 to connect my external to my MBP.

Wish I could afford a Time Capsule, would make frequent incremental backups so much simpler..
 
Tyler23 said:
Thanks a lot for the info.

Now, would there be any benefit to me having the whole HD cloned using CCC and doing incremental backups with that, while also backing up my HD using TM and doing incremental backups from there as well?

Edit: I use a firewire 800 to connect my external to my MBP.

Wish I could afford a Time Capsule, would make frequent incremental backups so much simpler..
Click to expand...

personally I have no use for TM, from what i read its very slow on the restore process, and its not a bootable backup

im not on my mac so i cant see what settings you should have ticked but with firewire 800 you should be cloning close to a GB a minute, so once the whole drive is done you incrementals should not take long if you cloning often
 
Tyler23 said:
Now, would there be any benefit to me having the whole HD cloned using CCC and doing incremental backups with that, while also backing up my HD using TM and doing incremental backups from there as well?
Click to expand...
Not really, other than redundancy.
Tyler23 said:
Wish I could afford a Time Capsule, would make frequent incremental backups so much simpler..
Click to expand...
You can backup to any external or networked hard drive, just like you can to a Time Capsule. The Time Capsule doesn't give you any added backup capabilities.
 
I know this is little off topic, but I highly recommend for your college stuff use dropbox! Thats what I do for mine and it works wonders. Auto syncs as well you can access older versions from their site!
 
MacDawg said:
I prefer to use both TM and CCC
I have them on different drives just in case :)
Click to expand...

That's what I do. I use TM on my NAS, for those oh crap moments when I really shouldn't have saved a document or when I deleted a file that I ought not have.

CCC on a different external drive for those times when a full system restore is needed, and I also run CCC on a portable drive that I take offsite just in case :)
 
GGJstudios said:
Not really, other than redundancy.

You can backup to any external or networked hard drive, just like you can to a Time Capsule. The Time Capsule doesn't give you any added backup capabilities.
Click to expand...

I meant for the ease of wireless syncing :) having to plug in my external means far fewer backups than I'd like..
 
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