Backing up with Disk Utility

[riker1384]

This is lengthy but I hope I'm presenting some info that may be new to some. I want to back up my Emac (40gB) to my external drive. I've heard of SuperDuper, but it's not clear to me if you have to register and pay for its important features. I have Retrospect Express and I use it because I already have it, but I've read bad things about it at these two links:

http://blog.plasticsfuture.org/2006/03/05/the-state-of-backup-and-cloning-tools-under-mac-os-x/
http://blog.plasticsfuture.org/2006/04/23/mac-backup-software-harmful/

I've made a backup using Apple's Disk Utility, which they say works well. I use the "restore" feature to do it. The backup is bootable, I tried it and it seems to work. There might have been one glitch about what app was supposed to open one file, but I'm not sure. The only thing is, I have to leave the stuff where it was put, in the main directory of the drive. If I put the backup stuff in its own folder, it won't recognize it and boot off it. So, I put all the non-backup stuff in one folder instead.

I'd like to protect my stuff, so I was thinking of putting it all in an encrypted disk image. If I do that, I'll probably do the "restore" thing again, but I'll delete all the non-essential things. That way, I'll have a disk I can boot off of, but I have to open the disk image to get at my stuff and restore it.

So anyway, I was wondering if this is a good backup tool and if it's a good idea to put the backup into a disk image. Do I have to use the "restore" feature, or can I just make a new (preferably compressed) disk image of the internal drive? (Not using the "restore" function to make it) It seems that I can restore from an image.

I've been really conservative about downloading new software and stuff. I want to make sure I have a good solid backup and then I want to change a lot of stuff and do more.

Also I'd like to know if I could boot my backup on a different computer, say an Intel Mac.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Retrospect is fine but a little fiddly to set up. Gotta make sure you use the Tiger update version. I use it at work to do a network backup to a server.

And I also use it at home although for disk duplication, not incremental backups... and those disk duplicates have been perfect, bootable clones. Without fail.

Setting up your scripts properly in Retrospect is the key to making it work.

 

[emptyCup]

I've heard of SuperDuper, but it's not clear to me if you have to register and pay for its important features.

Also I'd like to know if I could boot my backup on a different computer, say an Intel Mac.

You can use SuperDuper! to clone your machine for free. That is what you are doing now. The advantage of paying for it is that Smart Backup just makes the changes necessary to make the two drives match. This saves a lot of time if you back up regularly.

Generally, the version of the OS that comes with the machine is specific to that type of machine. If your backup drive is bootable, you can't hurt anything by trying. I wouldn't restore a disk image on top of a different machine, though.