External hard drive and time machine a "Must have".

[londonmystery]

After my experiences of the last few days I have to share the fact that in my opinion having an external hard drive and using time machine is an essential thing to do.

2 days ago I was burgled, they took my beloved uMBP and our Sony Vaio along with 3 PS3's and various other valuables. I have insurance who have agreed to pay out already so I replaced the uMBP yesterday.

Fortunately they left my WD external drive.

I unboxed the MB, chose the language and keyboard options on startup and then used Migration Assistant. It took about 2 hours but when done my new laptop looked exactly like the old 1, all my photos, music, work for university and everything else where exactly as before.

Well done Apple for this simple but essential bit of software, it has saved me days and days of work.

 

[JRoDDz]

Hope the burglar doesn't come back

 

[londonmystery]

Hope the burglar doesn't come back

Have had an alarm fitted that is linked to a Police station, so in a way I'm hoping they do, then they'll get caught.

 

[nazuk]

That's the great thing about time machine. You can set it and forget it. It does it's thing, without you worrying about it or having to remember to do a backup.

I personally believe it's an underrated piece of Mac OS X technology.

With the 2TB time capsule that I own, it's just fantastic.

I can backup my macmini, imac, and macbook pro - set it , and forget it.

However, I do sneakily 'check' it's still working now and then, cos' it's so seamless and idiot proof, you can't get your head round that it's working away.

 

[old-wiz]

I find it safer to have a double backup: time machine on one external HD, and a SuperDuper clone on another external HD. This allows you to recover if the time machine drive fails. SuperDuper clones are bootable and it makes it easy to recover, much faster than time machine.

 

[crazycat]

Glade to hear you got your stuff back (info i mean), external hard drives are so cheap now here is no reason not to get one. Time Machine is a good software but i would look into Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper, they work better for me.

 

[The SpinDoctor]

3 PS3's

Wow, 3?

Anyway, good to see that you got your stuff back

 

[londonmystery]

Yes 1 was mine and 1 for each of my 2 oldest children. Should have them replaced in a couple of weeks.

 

[optophobia]

If they are a 'must have' then you would have be SOL if the burglar had taken your HD too.
So really you should use an online TM backup....

Anyway, I also like the way you say MY uMBP and OUR Sony Vaio.....

 

[londonmystery]

If they are a 'must have' then you would have be SOL if the burglar had taken your HD too.
So really you should use an online TM backup....

Anyway, I also like the way you say MY uMBP and OUR Sony Vaio.....

Agreed, I was lucky and need to look into some kind of online backup.

It is my uMBP, lol. I use it for my studies and stuff. The Vaio is for everyone until we buy the new iMac. If it ever comes out.

 

[heliuscc]

I always keep a backup drive of some sort (normally an old 2.5" drive in a caddy) in an obscure place in the house with all my irreplacable (photos of kids and stuff) data. None of it's valuable per se, but to my family and I it can't be replaced hence keep at least two copies. Too many photos for mobileme unfortunately. Seeing the sidekick headline makes me doubt online storage as well. So what do you do? DVD backup, Blu Ray backup, portable hard drive, online backup, or at least two of the above? However you look at it, three copies of everything are needed, one 'live' and two backups, hard and 'cloud' based. 3 PS3s, now that's hardcore gaming, I'd be gutted to lose my launch 60GB with backwards compatibility, although the slim does look nice. Wireless time capsule under the floorboards may be the answer, I've got cat5 throughout my house, so an electric spur and an ethernet cable and youre good, til it dies or gets eaten by mice etc...

 

[Beric]

My hard drive failed under warranty. Took my Macbook in to Apple and got it replaced. Came home and plugged in my time machine drive. My computer was up and running again in under an hour.

It's probably the biggest thing I miss on my custom-built PC.