Backing up a Mac

[Rob Hilding]

I know there are a lot of Mac experts on this board ....

So f*#king thieves broke into my office and removed ALL of my computers, printers, routers, etc., etc.

I have been using "Back Up" mac software to my idisk and running it regularly - due to me inadvertently deleting
some files and allowing my machine to "sleep" I've got basically nothing for about a year!!!

So - don't cry over spilled milk and all that - what suggestions do you have for "off site" backing up for the present and future.

My Mac guy says to take the laptop home and plug into an external hard drive. Daily. The iDisk method is very slow and one thing suggested was Carbonite - but it is only a beta for Macs and I don't want to chance losing data again.....

One good thing my accounting info was at least saved (directly from MYOB to iDisk)

TIA for your great ideas

[jdubbs32584]

Depending on how much information it is, you could use DropBox.

www.getdropbox.com

[derby]

it really depends on how much you want/need to backup...

i've looked at these guys:

http://www.rsync.net/

[iDuc]

How big are the backup files?  I just backup to a flash drive at night and take it with me, and archive to an optical disc monthly.

[derby]

How big are the backup files?  I just backup to a flash drive at night and take it with me, and archive to an optical disc monthly.

don't trust optical media for long-term storage:

http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/storage/story/0,10801,107607,00.html

[the_Journeyman]

Start engine, depress clutch pedal, put shifter into reverse position, slowly release clutch while giving  a small amount of throttle. Voila, Mack backed up...  Oh.  Nevermind.

JM

[Jarvicious]

The online solutions are actually a pretty good idea if your data is worth anything to you.  It's gonna cost a bunch more, but like the article said, there's really no good and reliable way to store data that doesn't have its risks so it's better to put your data into a system designed with redundancy in mind.  I think the guy's estimation on burnable media longevity is a bit off, as I have CDs from the late 90s that are still viable but with the amount of data I have to backup, burnable Blu Ray disks aren't even enough.  Just because I've accumulated so many hard drives over the years, I just came up with a new solution, though for a daily backup plan like you're looking for it's probably not the best idea.  I took all the spare drives I have with the exception of the one that runs my desktop and my new 1Tb Network Storage drive (Merry Christmas Paul  ) and burned all the data directly to those drives.  Then all I have to do is chuck them into some sealed anti static bags with some silicone for moisture control and I've got a fairly archivable storage system.  The article was right about HD fragility, but they have a tendency to last longer when they're just sitting in a controlled environment in a closet as opposed to being run 24/7.

Wow.  Ok, back to your post.  It really depends on the size of your backup files.  A couple of word documents?? Flash drive saved to some other device periodically (always have multiple backups).  Digital medical imaging (x-ray, mamogram.....) you're gonna need a ton of storage (though I don't know why you'd put those on your lappy anyway).  If you have the scratch, go with online storage.  Maybe just right it off as a business expense?

[minkman]

If you're using Leopard(OSX 10.5), then I would suggest Time Machine. It's part of the OS and can be configured to perform schedule incremental backups. You can use and external hard drive as the destination. Just take the drive with you each night. If you Mac is stolen or destroyed, the install disk can restore from a Time Machine image.

Ken

[il d00d]

How many machines do you have to back up?

You can also do  Time Machine + Time Capsule - wireless automatic updates.  If you want to keep updates in-house (physically), this may be a good option for you.

And here are a couple other online backup services:
http://mozy.com/pro
https://www.backblaze.com/download_mac.htm

It sounds like you are leaning this way anyways, but I would go with the online service.  At $10 or even more a month, it would take a while to offset the cost (including your own time installing, maintaining, troubleshooting) of buying a SAN thing like Time Capsule.  In terms of convenience, online backup is probably going to be about equal with local/external backups for most people.  Also an external hard drive is still a single point of failure (unless you do RAID) - online storage is going to be more redundant.  And there is nothing like the comfort of knowing that you can call and yell at someone if something happens to go wrong with your backups.

[iDuc]

don't trust optical media for long-term storage:

http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/storage/story/0,10801,107607,00.html

Actually, I read that article before. I took a 5 year old CD and it worked fine, but I'm sure there is variation. Recently, I've been using an external HDD but that's mostly for convenience (be interesting to see how the new solid state drives work for long-term storage). But most of my stuff is accounting databases and my storage term is only 7 years for most of it, so his needs may be quite different.

A bigger problem was finding a working OS 9 machine with the older version of my application, to read the archive! I think "bit rot" may be more of a problem than media degradation for me.

[cbartlett419]

Start engine, depress clutch pedal, put shifter into reverse position, slowly release clutch while giving  a small amount of throttle. Voila, Mack backed up...  Oh.  Nevermind.

JM

you forgot to check your mirrors

[Le Pirate]

same method your using except amazon S3 instead of iDisk?

[Rob Hilding]

Thanks, everyone, for the input - I think one of the redundant offsite things will work best -
for me.

I'm paying over $100/yr for the iDisk space now - If the others have faster transfer rates than the iDisk My 10 -15 Gigs of data will go quickly

[mihama01]

I am looking at www.jungledisk.com.

Pay only for what you use. Or there are couple of file systems that can access Amazon S3 storage directly so that you can use your own backup program. Just do a search for Amazon S3 and Mac OS on google.

http://aws.amazon.com/s3/


Again pay only for what you use, from what I have heard more reliable than disk storage on me.com which seems to have problems with large files.

Also www.mozy.com

There is some discussion of this exact topic at www.macintouch.com with peoples experiences.

Also remember that advertised ADSL speeds are download speeds, the upload may be significantly slower, something else to factor in.