Feed
 

Backups

Avatar Graham Caves
I have had an interesting disscusion with Euan recently about Time machine/Time capsule.

I don't think he is a big fan of it so I would like to ask members how do you backup your systems?

Do you even bother backing up? Please say yes to that question otherwise Euan will go nuts!!!!

I have Time machine running say twice in the evening after I get home from work and I am thinking of cloning Mac HD to another external HD for a second backup.

I have heard of people burning everything to DVD but sounds very time consuming.......

An external HD must compare well to say buying 40 to 60 DVDs and having those hanging around in the way.

I think my system is good so any thoughts or suggestions would be most welcome please.

Re: Backups

Avatar Trevor Hewson
I run time machine once a week to backup all user data to an external drive. Although I do clone the system before doing an OS change, e.g. Snow Leopard to Lion, I don't routinely back up applications or the OS installation on the basis that it should all be retrievable from source. Yes Euan, I know this would be a pain but basically my attitude is that I am prepared to risk the inconvenience but not prepared to risk the loss of irreplaceable data such as photos, e-mails, family history etc.

I feel that my main vulnerability at the moment lies in having no off-site backup other than what's on my own website.

I look forward to hearing other approaches.

Re: Backups

Avatar Lionel Ogden
I do regular Time Machine backups and then occasionally do a full clone to an external disc using SuperDuper. Ideally, I suppose I should have a schedule for my clones, but I haven't got round to it yet. Nevertheless my clones have rescued me from the occasional difficult situation caused by tinkering with things that wiser people leave alone.

Re: Backups

Avatar Eleanor Spenceley
I think TimeMachine concept is fantastic. But it's 'horses for courses'.

If you need to be able to recover any file over the past few hours, days or weeks. It is invaluable.
An added bonus is the ability to recover and rebuild your last setting but it does take time to do and you cannot boot directly from a TimeMachine 'partition'.

My setup is:

TimeMachine on a Drobo device. (So even if one hard disk fails, my time machine files are still backed up and recoverable).
Two separate external hard-dives located off site to do a full (about) monthly backup using Carbon Copy Cloner. Used in rotation.
 
Feed