Is my Backup method okay?

[adamlbiscuit]

Hi all, I just wanted to make sure my backup method is okay. Basically I don't really know how to do the big major backups like system etc. and I don't trust Time Machine after hearing pretty negative comments on it.

So Instead, I hooked up my MacBook to a new HD that I'd just bought, and I backed up my important stuff, Documents, Music, Pictures, Movies, Widgets, applications. Just simply dragged it to the external HD. I'm wondering if this is okay? Say for example I get a new MacBook and I send all this date over as it is will it be okay? What I'm concerned about most are the applications since I just simply dragged my whole applications folder to the External HD.

 

[Diseal3]

Hi all, I just wanted to make sure my backup method is okay. Basically I don't really know how to do the big major backups like system etc. and I don't trust Time Machine after hearing pretty negative comments on it.

So Instead, I hooked up my MacBook to a new HD that I'd just bought, and I backed up my important stuff, Documents, Music, Pictures, Movies, Widgets, applications. Just simply dragged it to the external HD. I'm wondering if this is okay? Say for example I get a new MacBook and I send all this date over as it is will it be okay? What I'm concerned about most are the applications since I just simply dragged my whole applications folder to the External HD.

I'm not a mac expert as I have not been using the system very long, however to my knowledge Mac dosent Use any "Registry System" as the Windows System does. However, I think the only thing you will lose in case of an emergency with your applications would be the License Information for certain apps as not all save them in there folder, .kext files are saved in different parts of the system to save that information.

 

[OllyW]

I would recommend using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to make an exact copy of your disk to an external drive.

 

[adamlbiscuit]

Thanks for the replies. As for the Licenses etc. I have jotted down all the codes I need so I can input them easily so it might not be that much of a problem. As for the exact copy of the disk, I'm seriously recommending doing this, but will it do anything to the date I already have stored on there?

 

[sickmacdoc]

I would recommend using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to make an exact copy of your disk to an external drive.

I could not agree more. Not only do the programs copy everything (leaving you with a bootable drive if it is a FireWire drive on a PPC based Mac or a FireWire or USB drive on an Intel based Mac) but the necessary permissions are also preserved making the data a virtual clone of the original. That way should your boot drive have any problems you can immediately boot from the backup and get right back to work- a feat you cannot do with a Time Machine backup.

Thanks for the replies. As for the Licenses etc. I have jotted down all the codes I need so I can input them easily so it might not be that much of a problem. As for the exact copy of the disk, I'm seriously recommending doing this, but will it do anything to the date I already have stored on there?

Is the data you have dragged to your backup drive no longer on your boot drive? If that is the case you can use the incremental backup of Carbon Copy Cloner with the "Delete items that don't exist on the source" (below) unchecked and it will not mess with the data on the backup. Keep in mind in doing this that if you delete files from your boot drive that have been previously backed up, they will NOT be removed from the backup, so the backup will no longer be a true clone, and using it to restore after a crash will restore files that you had previously deleted. Sorry if that is confusing but it makes sense after you start using a cloning program!

A more straightforward way to deal with this though is to partition the backup drive and do a straight clone of the whole boot drive to one partition (using the Incremental Backup with the "Delete items that don't exist on the source" selected) and use the other partition for files drug off the boot drive and anything else you want to store there. Since we don't know anything about how much data is on your boot drive or the size of your backup drive, you would have to determine if that is practical in your case.

 

[osin]

. and I don't trust Time Machine after hearing pretty negative comments on it.

Can you point me to those comments? (links)

I'm using TM right now, and would like to know what can get wrong with it...

 

[Batt]

Time Machine is not only fine, it's a no-brainer. Use it. It can't hurt to use CC or Superduper in addition to TM, also.