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Question about backing up data

steamboat26

steamboat26

macrumors 65816
Original poster
May 25, 2006
1,123
0
Arlington VA
Sorry in advance for the newbie questions, i have never used an external HD...

I just bought a Lacie 250 GB external HD, to back up the data on my mini. I backed up my user file, which contains all my documents, photos, videos, and music. Is it worth it to back up my applications (ie make a copy of my entire HD)?

Also, do i have to partition it if i want to back up my data and store other stuff on there?
 
steamboat26 said:
I just bought a Lacie 250 GB external HD, to back up the data on my mini. I backed up my user file, which contains all my documents, photos, videos, and music. Is it worth it to back up my applications (ie make a copy of my entire HD)?

Also, do i have to partition it if i want to back up my data and store other stuff on there?
Click to expand...

You don't have to backup your applications if you have the originals on some form of external media (CD, DVD). It is a good idea to backup the whole system. I use SuperDuper! but you can find many programs at Version Tracker. If you want to backup your internal drive, and keep things on the external drive, I would partition it (but then I only use my external drive from backup). Best wishes.
 
I find it usesfull to keep a backup of the apps or a clone of the actual install disk on my external drive. But its a waste of time to copy the same thing over and over again.

Are you using an app to backup stuff or just drag and drop? If you're just dragging and dropping you could store what ever on it.
But if you're using an app it depends on the app you use.

If you want a bootable back up of your drive use carbon copy cloner. Create a partition as big as the mini's disk and the rest for other stuff.
 
I have just been using the software that came with the HD.

If i want to partition it do i format it as FAT32 or something else? (the user guide recommends HFS+ but i have never heard of it).
 
steamboat26 said:
...Is it worth it to ...ie make a copy of my entire HD?
Click to expand...

To coin a phrase, 'it's never worth it till it's too late'. Whether it's worth it or not depends on what price you put on your peace of mind.

I bought an external la cie after a catastrophe with my internal. Not a catastrophe in that I lost anything but it took me about a week to fully rebuild everything and have it all humming along nicely.

With SuperDuper you can, with the press of a button clone your entire HD onto the La Cie and it will also be bootable as well which means you can take your La Cie drive (if it's firewire) and plug it into another mac and boot up from it and lo and behold you will be looking at your computer with everything exactly how it is.

Even if you haven't 'lost' your original software CD's, it can be very time consuming to restore everything as you will probably have to install updates and maybe a bunch of addons.

Also you can install system software updates with complete confidence. If something goes wrong with the update or if indeed the update is corrupted, instead of having a major problem you have no problem at all, you simply boot up from your external, then select SuperDuper and clone the external back to the internal and wa la, you are back to where you were before the crash.

Make two partitions on the external with DiskUtility, one as big as your internal and the other the size of what is left over to store extra stuff.

When using SuperDuper use the option to "Backup all files", not the sandbox.

Complete peace of mind against any disaster, is it worth it? You decide.
 
Can I use FAT32 for the entire drive in case i decide to back up PC data on my external HD too?

Or should i make the partition to back up my minis HD HFS+ and the other partition FAT32? (is this even possible)
 
fat32 is ok, i guess. Its fine I have a hfs+ partition and fat32 partition on the same drive. Fat32 just has a 2gb file limit maybe 4 and has fragmenting issues.
 
Sorry, last question :eek:

What should the format for my mini HD back up be?
These are my options:
Picture 1.png

Should my other partition be the same format? (i am just looking to store extra music and recorded TV shows on the second partition)
 
the backup drive should be the top one (really hfs+) and if you want to be able to plug that drive into a pc and share file on the other partition choose MS-DOS (really fat32). Otherwise just make it the top one too.
 
Thanks for your help.

I keep reading about these various limitations for HFS+ and FAT32, should i be worried about any of the file size or file number limitations?
 
I think it's worth it to back up the ENTIRE hard drive.
Every week, I fire up carbon copy cloner and make a .dmg of my hard drive. I don't wanna have to reinstall all my stuff. I'm lazy like that. :)
and when you do it like I do, you don't have to worry: Did I miss something? did I skip a file? Eegads! Etc!!
 
I downloaded super duper and am backing up my HD now, but i am only averaging about 9 mb/s for the copy speed (the external HD is USB 2.0). Why won't it get up to the actual speed of USB 2.0? Anything i can do to speed it up?
 
MegaBITS or MegaBYTES per second. The difference is a factor of eight. USB2.0 theoretically hits 480megabits per second or 60 megabytes. In practice you might get about half or 30megabytes. Write speeds of the drive are also a limiting factor. Try using xbench to test how fast the drive reads. Post if you need help with that.

also if you can go to firewire, its much better for some reason or another. I average about 28megabytes a second through firewire on my external drive.

I think I might use my external drive for entire backups of my laptop now.
 
Bummer, my external drive is USB 2.0 only (at least it only set me back $100). I was getting about 8 megabytes per second. The backup of my 43 GB of data took about 1 hour and 40 mins.
I guess i will try the xbench thing.
Is it worth $28 to buy the program for the smart backup or whatever it is called?
 
I use the smart backup feature, a backup for me takes about 10-20 minutes.

I could just leave the drive on over night backing up or while i am away from my computer doing things, so it is a matter of personal preference. i just dont see the point of rewriting the same data over and over again everytime you do a backup.
 
Did an Xbench...

I did an xbench on the empty partition of my external HD.
Scored 14.87

Picture 1.png

Don't really know what all these numbers mean...
 
dont worry about the score it gives you i was just interested in the MB/s speed.

At that speed You might want to invest into the smart backup program or get the process to automate it self say at 4am on sundays.
 
Rokem said:
dont worry about the score it gives you i was just interested in the MB/s speed.

At that speed You might want to invest into the smart backup program or get the process to automate it self say at 4am on sundays.
Click to expand...
If he is not THAT desperate, I say use SuperDuper (free version) every once in a while, and wait for Time Machine with Leopard...
 
If it's a Lacie then it should come with a disk that has SilverKeeper-a backup program. Just select your drive (or folder) and it will back up the whole thing (you can also set a schedule).
 
Make sure that whatever you backup you try to keep a copy offsite. If you house or office gets burgled then it's as easy for someone to take your USB backup disk as it is to take your MAC.
 
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