Working while backing up?

Hiya

Two questions :

I'm running backups with superduper to a Buffalo Linkstation Pro.

1. Can I still carry on doing my work while superduper does a full system backup? Or does this risk corrupting the files?

2. It's very slow, about 3mb/sec (this is via a gigabit cable from the gigabit Powerbook directly to the gigabit Buffalo Linkstation Pro, no routers or hubs in the way)

I just ran a test. A direct file copy runs at full gigabit speed, about 30-40 MB sec, but running a backup via SuperDuper runs at 3MB/sec. How can I speed this up? as backing up 80GB takes about 4 hours!

Hope you can help.

 

Superduper doesnt support doing a direct copy to a network drive. It has to do a sparse image on the network drive, which is what I'm doing.

Re-reading the instructions, it implies this is a fair bit slower than doing a direct copy

Thanks for the reassurance. Tho again, from the Superduper manual:

I guess my main problem at the moment is the sodding slow speed of the sparse image backup - that seems to be what is taking so long. I tried copying to a sparse image on the same disk - 1.5MB/sec!

We are all on laptops here with some non-technical users, so the idea was to have a central networked disk, and a simple command that everyone could apply to backup weekly to that central Buffalo 500GB linkstation. I could then clone that 500GB disk each month to an usb attached 500 gb drive and keep it offsite.

The problem is it's so slow to do a full backup (3mb/sec), and ties up the machine for hours on end. I'd like to do a differential backup, but supersuper needs to be registered to do that. I originally brought the Buffalo to run Leopard/ Time machine from, and then Apple put Leopard back!

With Leopard out very soon, need to conserve budget for buying everyone Leopard / Time Machine functionality.

I think what I'll do is just do a direct copy (30-40mb/sec) of everyone's home folder - never mind if it isn't bootable etc. In the event of disaster / laptop theft, at least the mailboxes and main documents will be there.