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[?] Backup before upgrade

P

pancakeparty

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 20, 2008
20
0
I just received my Snow Leopard DVD in the mail (WOO!) to upgrade my late-2006 MacBook running Tiger. Unfortunately, my power cord is broken, and I'm waiting on a new one before I can install.

Sadly, I do not own an external hard drive. I really don't have a purpose for it. However, I want to do a clean install. Could I backup my files to an online service (I'm looking at Jungle Disk). Would this work? Do you think I would lose any data? I also have some spare DVDs; if Jungle Disk is not recommended, would it be possible to burn all my data to DVDs? Thanks!
 
External hard drives are really not that expensive these days and getting one would serve as a drive for Time Machine backups.

Trust me, not having a backup regime will bite you at some point in the future.

Backing up to an online service isn't really viable (unless you only have a small amount of data (less than a GigaByte) to save (think about how long it's going to take to upload and download that data).

Backing up to DVD disks would be the best interim option for you, I think, but back up twice if you can).
 
Jungle Disk is only $0.15 per gigabyte. Not counting the OS, I would say I have around 45 GB worth of data on my HD. It would cost around $7 to store everything, if my math is correct. I have a broadband Internet connection. Would it really take a long time to upload and then restore everything? Would it even be possible? I really don't want to run out and buy a new external hard drive.

If my math is correct, I would need 10 DVDs to backup everything. Is this about right?
 
It will take you longer to back up your data via broadband then it would to drive down to your local bestbuy (or what ever electronics store), buy an external disk and back it via FW or USB.

You'll spend more time trying to get a partial backup uploaded then just backing up everything on an external disk.

Keep one thing in mind, regardless of you having broadband, upload speeds are always slower, so trying to backup your HD via the internet is really an exercise in frustation.
 
^ I have tried to Google numerous times, but I'm having a lot of trouble finding one. The only ones that I can find are around 300 GB.

Come to think of it, I do have 2 iPod Videos that have 30 GB storage space each. If I can delete enough data from my HD so that all my files can fit onto a 30 GB HD, would that work? Would it be advisable to back up to an iPod in Disk Mode?
 
Just go to bestbuy.com and you'll see how cheap they are.
Also check out newegg.com and amazon.com They're extremely cheap and easy to buy.
 
Well, if I can use my iPods as external hard drives, then I won't have to spend money for new ones. iPods in disk mode work exactly like external hard drives, right? I think I'm gonna try to use those. I just hope they work.
 
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