Backup advice?

[GidbinN]

I got a new MacBook, I'm afraid of my data all lose one day, but I don't want to buy a giant hard drive and use time machine to back up my OS X.

Is there any other better way to back up my data, or a better question:

Do I need to back up my file at all?


Mid 2010 White Unibody MacBook, 2.4GHz, 4GB ram, 250GB hard drive

Thanks for all replies 🙂

 

[Hellhammer]

All hard drives will die, so yes, if you want to prevent data loss, you HAVE TO backup. Hard drives are not gigantic, there are high capacity 2.5" HDs available which are very handy. If you don't have a lot data or you have fast upload speed, you could use online storage

 

[GGJstudios]

No, you don't need to back up your data.... if you don't care about losing it! There are online backup services, but they depend on an internet connection. External hard drives are still a great choice, and many are quite affordable.

 

[sushi]

Yes, you need to back up your files.

Time Machine is one way.

Another is cloning to an external HD using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper. In your case, you would need a 250GB external HD. Would recommend using FW800 if possible. Get two external HDs and alternate on a regular basis such as weekly.

You might also look to cloud backup for really important files.

P.S. All HD's will fail at some point. That's why backing up your data is so important.

 

[GidbinN]

Thanks you guys very much, I'll combine Hard Drive backup and MobileMe iDisk for saving my data.

And I'm getting a small size external Hard Drive I suppose?

 

[GGJstudios]

Thanks you guys very much, I'll combine Hard Drive backup and MobileMe iDisk for saving my data.

And I'm getting a small size external Hard Drive I suppose?

Personally, I'd get the largest external HD you can afford. As time goes by, your data needs will grow and the larger the HD, the more versatile it will be. For example, one of my drives is partitioned, with one partition being a bootable backup and the other houses all my movie files, the overflow of my music collection that won't fit on my internal hard drive, backups from other computers, etc.

 

[Hellhammer]

Thanks you guys very much, I'll combine Hard Drive backup and MobileMe iDisk for saving my data.

And I'm getting a small size external Hard Drive I suppose?

Yeah, 2.5" is fine and they are big enough for your needs

 

[radicalcentrist]

NewEgg

I'd check out NewEgg.com for affordable prices on external hard drives.

My set up is this: My two iMacs and my MBP use Time Machine to backup to an external Seagate 1.5TB drive (connected to my Airport Extreme Base Station). I also run a daily secondary clone using SuperDuper to that same drive.

Then I back up the two iMacs online with Backblaze ($10/month I think) so that in a case where my house is broken into and I lose the computers AND the external hard drive, I don't lose any of our files (pictures, music, movies, work files, my wife's school files, etc.).

 

[GidbinN]

I'd check out NewEgg.com for affordable prices on external hard drives.

My set up is this: My two iMacs and my MBP use Time Machine to backup to an external Seagate 1.5TB drive (connected to my Airport Extreme Base Station). I also run a daily secondary clone using SuperDuper to that same drive.

Then I back up the two iMacs online with Backblaze ($10/month I think) so that in a case where my house is broken into and I lose the computers AND the external hard drive, I don't lose any of our files (pictures, music, movies, work files, my wife's school files, etc.).

I just hope that one day computers can do update internally, just in case the HDD crashes, or automatic online library back up service from MobileMe (we pay 99bucks a year!)

 

[alust2013]

I just hope that one day computers can do update internally, just in case the HDD crashes, or automatic online library back up service from MobileMe (we pay 99bucks a year!)

That's what the HDD is for... so, that won't be happening. The HD is the only place in a computer that is big enough to hold all of those files, now I suppose if you got a computer with dual HDs, you could use one as a backup, but then it would probably be just as likely to fail as the other one.

 

[Snowbound]

You really really need to back up your stuff. The poster above have a good point that for a backup drive just a large drive with usb and let time machine or something like Carbon Copy Cloner run automatically.

 

[ClassicBean]

I use Time Machine and Jungle Disk as an extra backup so I know my data is always safe.

 

[ChrisA]

I got a new MacBook, I'm afraid of my data all lose one day, but I don't want to buy a giant hard drive and use time machine to back up my OS X.

If you care about the data then you need to design a system that implements there rules

(1) At all times the data must be store on three different physical media. Even durring a backup opearation, so if your backup software first cleans off the disk, yuo need four copies, if yor software is incremental, then three will do

(2) At all times the data must be store in two geographical locations. So you could rotate one backup drive to (say) your office. But you must plan this so all the dat is not in the same location, even for a short time. You may need four copies to make this work.


Yes, you can go cheap and skip some of this but if you want a file or a photograph to last 50 years the above is the MINIMUM. Over them long of a period simple schemes like Time Machine will fail

Think about all the ways to loose data. The major cause is theft or loss of the equipment, Fires, spilled liquid, teft andf so on. So keep the data in at least two buildings

Hard disks are a very good staorage media. Today you can buy a 1TB disjk for under $100. So buy three. What's good about disk is you know when they fail. When you rotat the backup drive in and can't use it you know right away. If you wrote your backups to DVD what are the change you would test the DVDs periodically to see if they still work? About zero. But a disk drive, you WILL test when it comes time for the next backup.

Periodic testing is critical. backups are worthless if you can't read them and you can't know if you can read them unless you periodically read them.

My guess is that inn 100 years there will be no 100 year old photographs, except those printed to paper.

Very few people bother to do backups, except maybe just use Time Machine

 

[ChrisA]

. My two iMacs and my MBP use Time Machine to backup to an external Seagate 1.5TB drive (connected to my Airport Extreme Base Station). I also run a daily secondary clone using SuperDuper to that same drive.

Why backup twice to the SAME external disk drive? There is little point to that. Any redundent backup needs to go to an independent drive.

Your problem is that one day the TM disk will fail. Or maybe lightening will strike a power pole 1/2 mile from your house and fry both the Time Machine disk and your computers. Or a fire will take out both. You need to have a copy odf the data off-line, not plugged in and better not even in the same building

A simple way to do that is to rotate the TM disk. Have two or more and periodically swap them and put the disconnected one some place safe and far away.

 

[Deanster]

The ABSOLUTE MINIMUM is backing up critical files to MobileMe. But this is likely to leave you without things you want, especially as you add music, movies, etc. to your computer.

The minimum smart choice is an external hard drive either with Time Machine or as a bootable backup made with SuperDuper. I like the Western Digital My Passport series of small drives - they're about the size of a deck of cards, and I just got a 750 gig model for $89 at Costco. Back up with SuperDuper once a week or so.

A really smart choice is to get three of these drives, use one as a Time Machine disk for incremental backups, so you can recover a lost file easily, one as a frequent bootable backup disk, and a third one that you use with SuperDuper every 3 months or so, and keep at a separate location (parents, friend, wherever), so you still have most of your stuff when/if your computer and the backup disk you probably have sitting within a few feet of it are stolen, flooded, caught in a fire etc.

Hard drives fail, things get stolen, water pipes break, etc. etc. etc. etc. If you have data you care about, protect it. The hardware can be replaced in 10 minutes at the Apple Store. The data is very literally irreplaceable.