Help - how to regularly mirror my backup TC drive?

[RedTomato]

Hiya

Could you help me set my backup system properly?

We have 5 mac laptops here, and all backup via Time Machine to a 1TB Time Capsule, which is also used to store some files. It's getting old and I don't fully trust it.

I've bought a second 1TB USB drive to mirror it. However, I want something that will automatically mirror the TC to the backup drive. Updating the mirror once a day or so at night is fine.

I know Airport Utility has an 'archive' function that copies the TC drive to the external, but it has to be done manually.

- Is there a way to make it do this nightly?

- Our TC is pretty full, and doing a duplicate seems to involve erasing the destination drive and doing a full copy, which is pretty long and hard on the TC. If the TC fails half way through, I'd loose both sets of backups!

Any ideas? Thanks and please let me know if my thread title is misleading.

 

[lie2me]

Tried SUPERDUPER?

I use superduper to create mirrored drives periodically.
I would try this with your TC drive to see if it can read it.
I have heard superduper is good to use if moving to a larger TC drive.
You can set it up to perform scheduled mirror backups. Not sure if you can use it in the quick update mode.

The other thing to try is contact SOFTRAID to see if their RAID software can be used to mirror a TC drive on the fly to another drive. You would probably need to use a wired LAN connection in this case so the mirrored drive is created quickly.

Lastly, call Apple Support. Ask them how you set up TC with a USB drive to perform a RAID with the TC drive.

Post your results of how you figure this one out as I am sure others may want to follow in your footsteps.


One other thing - sign up for an offsite backup service for your laptops as well. (e.g., Mozy, Elephant Drive, etc.)