Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Backups
- Thread starter Washac
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Or if you want to make an exact clone, you can hook up an external hard drive and run either SuperDuper or CarbonCopy Cloner. They both work great. 
Need another choice- that being both. I among others use both types for only my boot drive for various reasons, but I just use Carbon Copy Cloner for automatically scheduled backups of my additional drives.
I too, use both
I partitioned an external drive
One partition holds my Time Machine backups
The other partition holds a bootable Carbon Copy Clone of my drive
Woof, Woof - Dawg
I partitioned an external drive
One partition holds my Time Machine backups
The other partition holds a bootable Carbon Copy Clone of my drive
Woof, Woof - Dawg
Time Machine of course. Easiest way to do backups, just turn on my external and BANG! all my files have been backed up.
I use Silverkeeper; it's simple to use and free from LaCie. I can choose to backup all users home directory or individual.
One thing to keep in mind is backups will safeguard against loss but you may want to check on some individual files such as your address book, bookmarks, pop mail boxes and the like.
The files are all in your home directory but if you don't know where to look they can be a bugger to locate. The biggest issue I had when I installed Leopard was restoring all my mailbox folders and messages. It was kind of fickle at first but eventually all the bugs and glitches worked their way out.
I haven't done anything with a bootable cloned drive but I should.
One thing to keep in mind is backups will safeguard against loss but you may want to check on some individual files such as your address book, bookmarks, pop mail boxes and the like.
The files are all in your home directory but if you don't know where to look they can be a bugger to locate. The biggest issue I had when I installed Leopard was restoring all my mailbox folders and messages. It was kind of fickle at first but eventually all the bugs and glitches worked their way out.
I haven't done anything with a bootable cloned drive but I should.
I went with SuperDuper for my start volume and WinClone for my Boot Camp partition. I don't bother with a bootable drive for my clone, I just make disk image files on a USB HD which I also use for Windows machines with Acronis TrueImage. I just restore with the OSX boot CD.
Very easy to use and effective software, not too crippled to try it out properly, well worth the small cost to register/donate.
Very easy to use and effective software, not too crippled to try it out properly, well worth the small cost to register/donate.
I too use both. I use Time Machine for ALL my HDD's - my internal drive and both externals that hold photo and video. I also use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone just my internal boot drive drive daily. And now that I am running Boot Camp, I use WinClone to clone my XP partition to an external drive, but only do that on occasion as I really only have Boot Camp "just in case" as I am a switcher.
Both!
(I added that choice).
I use Time Machine to be able to restore the odd file gone missing or corrupt.
Then I use SuperDuper! on two separate external disks, one of which is stored elsewhere, for full system restoration (since I don't trust TM 100%).
The SD! backup saved the day when the HD on my MacBook died without any warning a while back. I had a shiny three day old clone that I could migrate in when I got my machine back with a new HD (replaced within warranty). The only thing I lost was 3 days worth of mails from a few pop accounts. Just a minor inconvenience (but I later changed most mail accounts to IMAP and change the settings one the POP remaining accounts to keep the messages in the server for a week).
(I added that choice
).I use Time Machine to be able to restore the odd file gone missing or corrupt.
Then I use SuperDuper! on two separate external disks, one of which is stored elsewhere, for full system restoration (since I don't trust TM 100%).
The SD! backup saved the day when the HD on my MacBook died without any warning a while back. I had a shiny three day old clone that I could migrate in when I got my machine back with a new HD (replaced within warranty). The only thing I lost was 3 days worth of mails from a few pop accounts. Just a minor inconvenience (but I later changed most mail accounts to IMAP and change the settings one the POP remaining accounts to keep the messages in the server for a week).
I guess I kind of need something other than both too. I use Time Machine with Time Capsule and I back up most of my main hard drive on a WD My Book using Super Duper--I feel a bit more comfortable with the ease of creating a bootable hard drive with their product. I also manually back up most of what is on my WD My Books to another My Book.
Currently in the process of setting up my new system that uses Time Machine to back up clients to my NAS, and then further replicating the most important data to Amazon S3 via Jungle Disk. Data on the NAS that is important, but not essential (ie. many gigs of movies) is occasionally backed up to a USB disk.
I'm sorry to say there should probably be another choice called "Backup? What's that?" or something too seeing all the threads posted concerning recovering data that people say is "essential"- but they have never gotten around to doing a backup.
Yup, Time Machine is the easiest way to go... But, having a bootable driver with SuperDuper is also very nice in case of emergency....
Where's the "I don't backup" option?
Main reason that I don't backup, I dislike TM, and I'm to cheap to purchase a different program.
Don
Carbon Copy Cloner is free
Can't get any cheaper than that
Woof, Woof - Dawg
Carbon Copy Cloner is free
Woof, Woof - Dawg
I'll have to check that out. Thanks MacDawg!
(I should edit my previous post, and add laziness to my excuse list)
Don
You can schedule it to do backups/clones on its own
Can't get any lazier than that
Woof, Woof - Dawg
You can schedule it to do backups/clones on its own
Can't get any lazier than that
Woof, Woof - Dawg
No, I meant not looking for backup software.
Don
I use carbon copy and my Time Capsule does a time machine backup, sometimes carbon copy's useful if you broke your hardware, time machines better for software faults. The problem with Time Machine is it backs up errors as well.
