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flat6

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 24, 2004
244
0
I'm doing a backup of my stuff to CDs. Outside of the obvious Documents / Pictures / Movies / Music, what else do you guys make backups of? For example, where are e-mails stored?
 
My entire home folder (and thus everything associated with it) is backed up to an external HD. I used to back up my digital music to CD, but I haven't done that in three years. As an add on to your question - is it a good idea to create DVD backups as well?
 
Where your e-mail is depends on what program you're using. I use Mail...the messages are stored in ~/Library/Mail/Mailboxes.

As for backups, I regularly backup my Home folder minus my Music folder onto DVD-R. I also back up my Music folder, but somewhat less regularly given its size.
 
I have a script that creates a bootable backup of everything to an external at 6 a.m. every day. I can't afford to lose more than a day's work.
 
My home folder, gets backed up to an External HD every other day, and is also backed up to a dvd every month.
 
I backup any shareware that I use. You may ask why. Well, for isntance, KEYXING, the best hotkeyapp ever. The developer had to pull the software and luckily I had a .DMG still on my desktop that I have kept around since Jaguar. I love it and can't live without it.

I also backup porn, digital art that I make, fonts, etc. etc. Not so much emails because they're all stored on .mac and gmail's servers. I probably should though, just for risk prevention.
 
I have a backup. But only of my most prioritized files, since space is limited (I use my PC :D)

Usually of:

Bill payment confirmations [BTW, the print to PDF feature kicks ass]
Online purchases
Purchased music
Midterms
Finals

The rest of my files are pretty much disposable. Not that they wouldn't affect me if I was to lose them, but It wouldn't be the end of the world.
 
Add another vote for backing up everything to a bootable disk. If I were to have a crash I can still go on (not portably though). Then when I get a new hard drive it's just a short copy and I'm all ready to go. I can't spend time tying to get my stuff back where it belongs.
 
nbs2 said:
As an add on to your question - is it a good idea to create DVD backups as well?

Sorry, my mistake. I meant to type in that I'm using DVD-Rs, not CDs. You're right, having to deal with 0.7 GB CDs would be a horrible, horrible way to go about it :)
 
flat6 said:
Sorry, my mistake. I meant to type in that I'm using DVD-Rs, not CDs. You're right, having to deal with 0.7 GB CDs would be a horrible, horrible way to go about it :)
CD, DVD, it's all the same (actually, I hadn't noticed your typo :D ). What benefit do you, or others, find in having a physical backup in addition to/instead of an external HD. I've got a spool of blanks, but if there is no real benefit, why bother...
 
nbs2 said:
CD, DVD, it's all the same (actually, I hadn't noticed your typo :D ). What benefit do you, or others, find in having a physical backup in addition to/instead of an external HD. I've got a spool of blanks, but if there is no real benefit, why bother...

I guess the short answer, for me, is that 5 random DVDs are cheaper, and easier to store, and easier to deal with than an external HD. Personally, I don't use my PowerBook for work on a day-to-day basis, so if I lost everything and had to use 3-month-old-DVD-backups, it wouldn't be catastrophic. It's more of a music, e-mail, and internet machine. That's why daily backups are overkill for me.

But I can understand that some people's jobs mean that they can't afford to lose any data, hence an external HD being an investment that makes a lot of sense for them.
 
iGary said:
I have a script that creates a bootable backup of everything to an external at 6 a.m. every day. I can't afford to lose more than a day's work.


Did you write the script? Or do you know where I can find the script online?
 
i back up my entire HD to an external drive about once a month. then i back up important documents or pictures whenever i need them most. like if a big project is due in a class then i back it up often while im working on it and at least 3 copies once its ready to turn in (on my my HD, one on the external HD and one on my iPod shuffle) i like repetitive redundancy. i would love a RAID 1 external drive, so i would essentially have 2 backups automatically. but thats a little more expensive and well if there were some sort of major catastrophic failure of ALL of my electronics i am sure i would survive.
 
Le Big Mac said:
do you use a program or a script?

I backup intermittently my documents folder and my photos. Don't back up movies or music, except for itunes purchases.

a combination of Backup 3.0 and CCC
 
Every two weeks..


~/Desktop
~/Music
~/Documents
~/Pictures
~/Movies

And then misc. from my Library. I use iBackup so it's not every folder and file in those directories.
 
I back up ~/ every day using that LaCie utility, it runs and syncs the backup to the main drive, instead of just brute forcing and replacing everything, it just backs up any file that has a newer version. Runs automatically every day at 1pm
 
I back up copies of everything I have in /Applications (either apps or installers, my serial numbers), I back up my iTunes music collection, my iPhoto photos, email (both my GFs and mine), and finally I back up both of our ~/Document directories (from her iMac and my Power Mac) all to an extrenal drive. When I'm about to upgrade or install a new OS I'll back up both home directories to. How often do I do this all? Not often enough. ;)
 
nbs2 said:
CD, DVD, it's all the same (actually, I hadn't noticed your typo :D ). What benefit do you, or others, find in having a physical backup in addition to/instead of an external HD. I've got a spool of blanks, but if there is no real benefit, why bother...

an external HD can die unexpectedly so having additional backups gives extra protection....or suppose you have a fire at your house or apartment, if you've got a CD or 3 stored offsite, or if you have online backup, then you haven't lost your data
 
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