External HD questions. Backup?

I have a powerbook G4 with an 80GB harddrive and it is running near its capacity. I want to buy an external.

A few I've looked at are the popular Iomega and this WD Mybook Premium which is cheap at Dell.com

Anyway, my question mostly involves backing up data.

I want to be able to back up my entire hard drive on there as well as be able to store some other stuff. What's the best way to backup like this? Like so it updates it everytime, but I heard you want to be able to go back and get previous versions of files (archiving?)

Any advice is great.

terpfan said:

I have a powerbook G4 with an 80GB harddrive and it is running near its capacity. I want to buy an external.

A few I've looked at are the popular Iomega and this WD Mybook Premium which is cheap at Dell.com

Anyway, my question mostly involves backing up data.

I want to be able to back up my entire hard drive on there as well as be able to store some other stuff. What's the best way to backup like this? Like so it updates it everytime, but I heard you want to be able to go back and get previous versions of files (archiving?)

Any advice is great.

Click to expand...

I've got two external drives on my mini. One, a Lacie 160GB firewire drive. I created two partitions on that, one for my iTunes song files, and the other as a bootable partition.
The other drive is a Samsung 200GB in a Mad Dog Multimedia Firewire enclosure. Half of that is for general file storage. Like the Lacie, the other half is a bootable partition.

I use SuperDuper! to create regular bootable clones of my internal drive. It's got a nice "Smart Update" feature, which basically ensures that the target drives are copies of the source, without having to do an entire backup each time. Actually, Disk Utility alone will allow you to create bootable partitions, as will Carbon Copy Cloner. I prefer SuperDuper! for it's ease of use though.

For just general file backup, iBackup is very nice, and is free for personal use.

Mark

Hi!
I had a similar problem and now use this solution:

I have 1 external 250GB firewire/usb harddrive that I've partitioned into 2 volumes:
One is 80GB, the other 170GB.

I use SuperDuper! to backup all the files on my internal drive to the 80GB partition and make it bootable. This way I have a rescue drive in case my internal one ever wigs out.

The other partition I use for keeping non-essential stuff...

I try to do an update about once a week...


This isn't ideal, because I can't go back and get versions of my files that are more than one week old, but I've never really had to, so if I accidently delete something, I can usually go back and grab it off my Backup...

to both thank you,

aptmunich, what you describe seems to be what I want to do. If I get a 250GB hard drive I'd use 80GB to back up my entire harddrive so I can boot to it if mine ever fails.
The rest I would use to store files that I don't need everyday for instance movies (that I don't need on the road) or old documents that I don't need now.
But I would like to be able to access them when I am at my desk. So say I have a movie and want to watch it but it is on the external HD, I can just watch it off of that? If I want to drag it to the internal HD I can do that too?

Basically the most crucial stuff and things I use daily would be on the internal AND on the bootable backup portion of the external HD.

Is it easy to divide it up like that? Can you access both sections when the hard drive is connected and appears on the mac?

As far as the backup of the entire system (the 80GB) that does it all once. For subsequent backups does it only backup files that are new or have been changed since the previous backup?

Finally, any experiences with harddrives? I have looked and see lots of good reviews for the Iomega 250GB black series.

Thank you so much!

But I would like to be able to access them when I am at my desk. So say I have a movie and want to watch it but it is on the external HD, I can just watch it off of that? If I want to drag it to the internal HD I can do that too?
(...) Can you access both sections when the hard drive is connected and appears on the mac?

Click to expand...

Yeah, both partitions are just treated as regular drives, so you can see the files on there, launch movies, music, pictures and even applications off there, without copying anything back to the internal drive. (But you can do that if you ever need to...)

Is it easy to divide it up like that?

Click to expand...

I just partitioned it up with Disk Utility:
You can select the number of partitions and the size you want them to be.
Just remember to choose HFS+ as the format, otherwise you won't be able to boot off your backup...

As far as the backup of the entire system (the 80GB) that does it all once. For subsequent backups does it only backup files that are new or have been changed since the previous backup?

Click to expand...

SuperDuper! has an option to 'Smart update' the copy, in which case it will only copy the changed/new files. This option is only available if you pay the Shareware fee, but it's worth it IMO.

Finally, any experiences with harddrives? I have looked and see lots of good reviews for the Iomega 250GB black series.

Click to expand...

I went for a generic enclosure with a Seagate (I think..) harddrive with 5 years warranty.
I'd try to get one with Firewire (important for booting off the drive) & USB 2.0 (so you're flexible in case you need to use a machine without firewire).
Ideally i'd also go for one with an on/off switch right on the enclosure itself.


Good luck!