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Best way to make a backup?

H

HD Fboy

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 13, 2008
79
2
Recently my MBP had to go in for service. They wiped the HD and I had some difficulty getting the time machine to recover. After several attempts and going back a couple of months I finally got there. Fortunately all the info that had changed was backed up in other locations. It was a nightmare.

I have 1tb of iCloud, Dropbox, and a couple of external hard drives.

What is my best approach to backing up my laptop?
 
I am sure you will get pages of answers and opinions on this, here is my 2 cents for a laptop back up.

I use (and recommend) Carbon Copy Cloner to make a back up on a dedicated back up drive (WD-ultra) just for back up storage of the MBP - I am not a fan of "time machine". Super Duper is another great option. That said, I use CCC to make weekly manual back ups

With CCC the first back up takes time but after that it is only the newer files that need to be updated so it is much faster for updating.

I find it useful to split my data from the system and have 3 separate backup's - 1) System 2)Data 3)Media (pictures and music) - i have the media files on a separate shared drive, not on the MBP so that is a separate back up.
 
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One more recommendation for CCC (instead of time machine). You might try SuperDuper (also a cloning app) as well.

Both are FREE to download and try for 30 days. SuperDuper will create a "full clone" forever without registering (you do have to register to do incremental backups).

CCC has the advantage that it will clone over your recovery partition, as well.
 
As mikzn says, use SuperDuper! or Carbon copy cloner.
I like Time machine for regular backup of files I'm actively working on, but have had it fail on multiple occasions. I'd not trust it as my sole method of backup.
You can get a 2TB USB3 drive for like $70 these days, so there's little excuse for not making a regular, complete backup.
 
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I've been wondering kinda the same question. I've used CCC for awhile now and never have done a TM backup.

Are there any advantages to the TM?
 
TM is more set it and forget it, works in the background. what I don't like is that it backs up every hour which is overkill if you ask me. Most of us don't need to back up files every hour. my view anyway. I'm still using carbon copy cloner.
 
Another vote for CCC and TM for me. The Time Machine backup is done automatically throughout the day to a 4TB WD Passport connected via USB 3 to my iMac ... the CCC backup is done nightly to another USB 3 drive (2TB WD Passport).
 
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Just to add to macgig - time machine is an "Auto BackUp" - it works in the background (hopefully) and in my opinion makes decisions for you - not always in your best interest.

I have many friends that use it and love it - but some find out later that (when they need it) after many years of faithfully backing up files and consequently slowing thier computers down "in the process" that the very back up they were hoping to have (when needed) was incomplete or non-existant.

CCC or SuperDuper can be configured to perform auto back ups at scheduled times - much better than "Time Machine" or and can even clone the complete drive on a regular basis - plus you can have control of how extensive the back up is and how much you want to monitor and participate in each back up.

That's why I like to do it manually weekly (or every so often) - make sure the important things are not missed and stored on a drive you know is working.
 
Another vote in for SuperDuper and TM.

SuperDuper once a month. TM every day, rotating the two external HDD every two weeks (one on, one off). Also do manual copy of my home account to an external drive every other week.

Once a month, most important files get compressed, encrypted, and saved to three different cloud accounts.

Once a quarter, export newest photos and save those to a cloud account. Music is in iTunes cloud.

Overkill, yeah, but insuring I can get most of my stuff back in case of disaster.
 
TM is nice if you're say writing a short story, you walk away, and the cat falls asleep on your keyboard.
Chances are quite good that TM will get you a version from 45 min before your cat started snoring on backspace key.
CCC or SuperDuper! are unlikely to give you that fine a granularity, but they both work reliably and completely.
Time Machine sometimes works reliably and completely.
 
I use both CCC and TM, in fact TM is running now, as I'm prepping to some work on updating OS X and wanted to be sure I have a fresh backup for both CCC and TM
 
Ok, got a couple of hard drives, downloaded CCC, formatted ont of the disks, ran CCC

No data copied, HD Recovery not present.

It states reinstall the OS to get HD recovery. I am way over my head. Can anyone help me here????
 
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