Backing up Time Capsule

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I just installed a 2 TB Time Capsule for a small office of 8 apples. With the high failure rate associated with the Time Capsule what is the best method for backing up the Time Capsule.

Any ideas are appreciated.
 
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I just installed a 2 TB Time Capsule for a small office of 8 apples. With the high failure rate associated with the Time Capsule what is the best method for backing up the Time Capsule.

Any ideas are appreciated.

HIGH FAILURE RATE associated with Time Capsule? What?! This is the first I've heard of that...can someone please provide more details?
 
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Ask yourself the following questions:
1) If one of your 8 Mac's looses its data, how long can you live without that data ?
2) How much time and money are you willing to invest in recreating lost ( or corrupted ) data ?
3) What are the threats to your backup solution ? ( ie. fire, lightning, theft, ... )
4) If your office is not accessible ( for whatever reason ) and you need the data ... are you prepared ?

That will define your backup strategy and it may turn out that Time Capsule may not be bulletproof for what your business needs.

Some sound advise .... store your backup media off-site in a secure environment that is suitable for storing magnetic media.

Cheers ... McBie
 
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I guest my post wasn’t very clear. I have installed the Time Capsule for local backup, I need to know what’s the best solution for coping the information from the Time Capsule so it can be removed from the office on a weekly basis.
 
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To keep my TC a bit cooler i installed furniture protectors on the underside which lifts it a little.
 
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Since TM backups are stored in a SparseBundle on the TC ( 1 sparsebundle per Mac ) they can be copied of the Time Capsule using normal techniques.

However .... Time Machine uses a database locally to each Mac, and on the TC, to keep track of backups....

Better think what will happen to your RTO ( Recovery Time Objecive ) if those DB are no longer ' in-sync '.

TM is nice for some quick, on-the-fly restore activities, but I would not trust TM as a part of a professional backup strategy.

Cheers ... McBie
 
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McBie

I’m new to the neighborhood so excuse my ignorance. I have read a little on Super Duper, but that looks like a disc cloning program and it seems that a lot of people are using the Time Capsule, but what would you recommend. Just remember it has to be easy, the users of the 8 Apples have trouble setting up their emails and the automation of back ups from TC looked cool.

So what would you use in a commercial application?
 
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How about Superduper on each machine set for timed back up and a Voyager Q with 3 HDs on a rotational off site sequence.


Click for full size

Voyager here

NB back up can be set for just files that have changed.
 
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Kazer,
For your issue ( protecting the data of a small office ) I suggest not to jump on the technology immediately.
TM, TC, SuperDuper! are just tools that you can use to address a specific issue.

Take a step back and identify what exactly is your ' problem space ' .
A backup solution is only successful if you ...
a) can restore the data within the agreed time frame
b) can restore data with the agreed level of data loss.
c) define the scenario's that are likely to make data not usable
( Hardware failure, data deletion, data corruption, theft, fire, a strike, the swine flu, a disgruntled sys admin, ..... )
d) know how much money your company wants to spend on backups.

TM and TC are great tools and are automated, very useful to quickly restore a previous version of a file.
TM backups are not bootable, so if one of your 8 Mac's fail on hardware, you are looking at a complete install of the OS and then restore data from TM.
To prevent the complete re-install of a Mac, SuperDuper! can help, because you can have bootable backups ( a clone ) of each Mac.

How do you take your data off-site to securely store it ? It is easier to store tape media off-site than hard disks. ( Don't forget to store a copy of your backup application as well .... you need to be able to restore the data :)

There are so many responses to backup requirements, but don't focus on the technology without answering the basic questions above ( and in my previous post ) I have seen this go wrong on so many occasions.

Cheers ... McBie
 
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McBie

Thanks for your help.

It’s really easy to lose perspective when you’re over whelmed with new products. Backup at my office have been a joke. In the past I was lucky to get my people to backup their information once a week, so the thought of a product that does it on an hourly basis is just too cool. Most of our data is located on servers that are off site, and since the most important thing on our individual computers is email and I was considering moving to an Exchange server and I still may. I just have to weight all of the options.

Thanks again for your help.
 
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No worries mate .... success !

Cheers ... McBie
 
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How to Backup 1TB TC to 2TB Lacie External

For personal use I am trying to backup a 1TB TC to a 2TB Lacie External. The 1TB TC is simply a data drive. I don't need boot capability just an incremental backup of the TC on the 2TB Lacie.

How to I best accomplish this? Thank you in advance.
 
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to backup a 1TB TC to a 2TB Lacie External
Not sure what you have in mind here - are u usng Time Machine to back up to the TC and you want to make another copy of the TC?
 
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SpinningCompass

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For personal use I am trying to backup a 1TB TC to a 2TB Lacie External. The 1TB TC is simply a data drive. I need(...) an incremental backup of the TC on the 2TB Lacie.

Plug the Lacie into the TC. Open the TC and the Lacie over the network, as shared drives. Drag files from the TC to the Lacie. :) Surely that'll work? There are tools to synchronize folders, such as ChronoSync.
 
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chas_m

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+1 for ChronoSync

FWIW I have several clients using Time Capsule as their main (or sole) backup device and it seems to work exactly as advertised. We've had to do a few recoveries (some very small, like an accidentally trashed file, and some complete restores) from it, no issues at all.

I would personally back up my computers using both TC *and* a local external "bootable clone," but that's because hard drives are so stupid cheap these days there's no reason not to have extra coverage.

But I've seen no reason to have "trust issues" with a Time Capsule anymore than I would any other single backup source.
 
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Time to Ex HHD solution

A bit confused....

I have a 2 TB Time capsule that I have a ton of data on (completed video files/projects etc). I have copied everything across using the ethernet cable and go to go. What is the best wy to make a regular back up of the TC to a WD Mybook Studio so i can take it offsite???

I use superduper to back up my MBP drive as well as time machine for the odd file that i may delete by accident. Does anyone know of a way/program to be able to do a SD smart update style back up from TC to External HDD??? (this way if I have not changed anything then it will take no time at all)

Thanks everyone.
 
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Thanks mate, I was doing that before with superduper but needed to up capacity so bought 2 TB TC. I need a way to smart update the TC to External. I have tried a way using disk images (tiny in size for test) but wated to know if there was any pitfalls?
 
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But if you are doing regular SuperDuper Bootable back ups and have TM doing backups to an Ext HD why do u need to make copies of the Time Machine Sparsebundle, which in itself, is a sort of incremental back up.
 
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Ah I see now.... I am not using the TC with Time Machine (well I may use it one sparse bundle in future enough to back up main drive docs) I am using the TC to hold all my videos and projects for Final Cut Pro etc so i can stream to MBP or Apple TV. I would then copy a project across if I needed to edit again. So as things change on the TC I just want to hold a complete, off site, back up. So one every 2 days I would like to do a smart up date style back up....

Have I made any sense there. Like these forums buy the way. Really appreciate you assistance.
 

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