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Data Backup Suggestions

glocke12

glocke12

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 7, 2008
999
7
I didn't really know where to post this, as it is not specific to any mac item, but I figured someone here can help me. I posted the time capsule specific issue in the mac peripherals discussion, but there have been >230 views and no one has helped, so I am broadening the question and bringing it here.

Here is the issue:

I have a macmini, MBP and an imac. Up until two weeks ago each one was getting backed up to its own USB drive using TM. I than had the (no so bright) idea of buying a 2 TB time capsule thinking it would be cool to have a wireless router and hard drive combined.

Initial backups to the TC went great. I than moved my iTunes library over to the TC. That worked great also. Than this week I started getting sparse bundle errors when my MBP backed up. Didn't have time to investigate what was going on so just ignored it. Yesterday I was listening to my iTunes library, located on the TC when the music just stopped....

Short of it is that AU was telling me there was an error on the TC disc..I played around with the settings and was able to get the error message to go away, but TC is not showing up in my finder or disk utility.

I had 300 gigs of music (CD's recordings of bands I was in, friends recordings, etc) on that drive.
To make matters worse the drive (LACIE) that I used as a second backup for my iTunes library has failed also...

Fortunately, I think I have much of what was on that library on another drive at a friends house so all is not lost...

Now, this kind of thing seems to happen every couple of years...I have some kind of hard drive error that results in data loss...

I need a suggestions for a something that is foolproof...Suggestions??? Do I need to start backing up my drives to individual USB drives again? Do I also need to start backing up those super important things such as iTunes and iPhoto libraries to MULTIPLE drives ??? Was actually thinking of backing iPhoto and iTunes up to 2-3 different drives, and than storing one in a bank safe deposit box...

Any advice is appreciated..I am so tired of having to restore files every year or two.
 
i agree with miles... there is nothing foolproof... but in the present and more so in the near future all your stuff will be on the cloud so if you lose something we can all blame apple...

i personally rely on storage such as dropbox and box.net for the small essential files and the rest I have a TC, my hard disk as well as an external HDD... so far so good
 
miles01110 said:
Cloud backups. Also, nothing is "foolproof."
Click to expand...

sigh...yeah i guess nothing is foolproof. i suppose I just need to go for multiple redundancy...cloud, usb drives, NAS, and individual backups of very important items..
 
We need to remember that the technology we use today has not been properly time-tested.
My old black and white negatives - and those from my father - are still looking good and will outlast me. Some images I put onto CDs and Zip drives about 10-15 years ago are cactus and lost forever - except for other multiple backups.
I don't trust iPhoto or my various hard drives enough to have these as the only storage facilities for valuable images.
Decisions need to be made about the importance or otherwise of the material to be stored. It can be annoying but I have to go for multiple backups, TM, DVDs and Flash/other USB devices.
Only time will tell, and I probably won't be around to care.
 
Any reco's on software I can use to back up only specific folders/files? Way back when, I created a batch file in DOS that when activated would do this and am curious if there is something similar I can use on my Mac.

Thanks
 
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