Leopard Preparations

um...backing up files.
That is it

I just realized. In japan we get Leopard BEFORE THE US!

shock

 

I am doing the same things, plus i will add a vista partition, not sure how yet tho, but i'll find out

 

• A RAM upgrade is useful.
• An external hard drive is required for Time Machine.
• Maintaining current backups is always a good idea.

The rest of it is just plain silly.

 

This is incorrect.

 

Time Machine requires a 2nd drive, internal or external. You could partition your main drive, but that would be pretty stupid. The point of a backup is to protect against data loss, if you are backing up to your main drive you are wasting your time. Backing up to an internal drive is a bad move (generally).

Think about it.

 

Optional, of course, but better safe & silly!

 

What version of rubber chicken are you waving? Will the version I used with Tiger work, or should I upgrade to the new Leopard rubber chicken? Is the upgrade free?

What if I accidentally waved my rubber chicken while upgrading a Windows machine? Will that render the rubber chicken un-readable for my Leopard upgrade?

I'm scared.

 

What part of your little rant here says that Time Machine requires an external drive?

Read it.

And there's certainly nothing at all wrong with using an internal drive as your Time Machine backup volume, but even if you subscribe to the notion that an internal drive would be a "bad move" (whatever that means) it is not in any way required. Time Machine will happily use an internal drive as its volume.

So... what's that mean? It means that "An external hard drive is required for Time Machine." is incorrect, exactly as I said.

 

I was going to say that too, and I'm planning to do so once I get Leopard. I'm confident that HD won't crap out on me so I'll be just backing up files in case I delete some.

 

Time Machine = version control, not backup

There is, to my mind, little value in backing up to two separate drives connected to the same computer - because, while drive failure is a risk, it is one of many risks: theft, fire, lightning strike, controller failure, etc. Mitigating these risks means copies that can be taken off-line and off-site, or at least created in another room. But there is no official indication that I'll be able to backup to an NFS, SMB, or even general AFP share - only, specifically, to another computer running Leopard (there are reports of being able to select SMB share by creating a particular file in root directory, but restore fails).

Time Machine is most valuable for fixing human error - I can move between versions of a file, retrieving code before I introduced a mysterious bug, a presentation before my awful 3am edits, or that photo I accidentally deleted when I was sure there was nothing worth keeping in some directory. I am reminded of VMS file versioning.

This could be augmented by a procedure that archives, say, a daily snapshot, and copies that to tape, to SAN, or whatever. And, if you're me, this gets taken farrrr away - because no backup solution is adequate if you lose more than a week's worth of data when your house is razed to the ground.

 

Only preparation I'll be doing is pouring a Jack Daniel's and Coke... And that's it. Even going for the upgrade rather than clean install. Oh may backup iPhoto library, if I lost the wedding photos my wife would kill me!

 

RE those who are going to use the same HDD for backup, do you just partition the drive???

The whole concept of having a backup like this does sound pretty good to me. Im forever deleting files and then having no way of getting them back.

How would you go about it? Getting the computer to realise that you want a separate part of your drive as backup ???

Mac novice here

 

• I'm going to use SuperDuper! to backup to my external HD.
• Burn DVD backups of iTunes, iPhoto, Mail, and Docs for both my wife's and I's accounts (been wanting to do this for awhile so I can keep a backup off-site...good time to do it, plus the paranoid one in me will be satisfied)
• Unauthorize iTunes
• Write down a list of apps I need, make sure I have all of the install CD's, URL's, and/or serial #'s.
• Clean Install of Leopard

Friday night is going to be a late one!

 

HD failure is an extremely common risk, and mitigating it is a good idea. I've had about 3 HD failures in my life on my personal computers, and yet I've not once been struck by lightening, had a computer stolen, had my house burn down or had a "controller failure". From this I believe that HD failure is probably a bit more common point of failure than the other risks.

Life has risks, for example I could store my backups offsite in a fireproof safe, but if I got killed driving back from the site, that wouldn't help would it?

Time Machine gives users a simple way to remove a major risk factor in computing: HD failure, I would hardly call that of "little value".