Backup Mac System (Redundancy) OS-X (x2).

[rdav]

Is there a way to have a complete, duplicate, operational OS-X system on another Apple machine (as a backup)?
A few weeks ago our Mac Pro was suddenly down. Almost everything was backed up, and it was covered by Apple Care but the machine was not available again for about three weeks. We used a much older MacBook to stumble thru in the meantime, but it was difficult and business suffered.
Would it be possible to purchase a new MacMini, and duplicate the systems somehow? Would this need to be via Snow Leopard Server? I understand that some third party apps may have license issues, and some setup parameters may have to be changed, but how well would everything else function?
Presumably, this is a very common business issue, with existing solutions. Even for a one or two person business.
Thanks.

 

[belvdr]

You could use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the hard drive out to an image. In case of failure, use CCC to clone the image back to another machine's hard drive.

 

[rdav]

SuperDuper Backup to Different System Specs.

We use SuperDuper. But can that copy just be restored onto another Mac with different specifications? Also, it is only run once per day at best, so would not be a complete match. How would Time Machine do?

You could use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the hard drive out to an image. In case of failure, use CCC to clone the image back to another machine's hard drive.

 

[belvdr]

I've never used SuperDuper, so I'm not sure.

If the hardware is different, you may run into some issues. It is something that would need to be tested to ensure it works. You never trust anyone's story when it comes to backup and recovery.

Time Machine may work, but I believe cloning would be the simplest and fastest. You could always try restoring from Time Machine to another Mac easily enough.

 

[Scottyk9]

If you are using identical machines, 'should' work by just booting off the cloned hard drive, but agree that this needs to be tested.

A better solution might be to use Time Machine or another method of backing up (such as CCC, superduper, Synk, etc.), then restore from that backup on your replacement machine. This would not be hardware dependent.

 

[rdav]

Restore from Time Machine to another, different Mac.

Wondering, has anyone tried this? Can you restore Time Machine onto another (Intel) Mac with different specifications, and how well does that work? Can't imagine it would just function correctly, right away without tweaking. There are so many system-specific setups etc. Likewise with SuperDuper.

 

[BertyBoy]

Presumably, this is a very common business issue, with existing solutions. Even for a one or two person business.

It depends on how much you want to spend, what you want backed up and how quickly you would like BAU (Business As Usual) in the event of certain failures.

An external disk system would be the cheapest. All the dynamic files are stored there so if your Mac Pro dies the local DNS sends all requests to the Mac Mini which uses the exact same external disk units as the Mac Pro did. If you have frequently changing data still on the Mac Pro, ie. user accounts, you may need procedures to ensure that acconts are mirrored.

Then if you're worried about the reliability of the external disk storage, you may have to look at a RAID system, it can provide resilience or performance, or both if you spend enough.