External drive backup software?

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5160519

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I bought a Western Digital My Book WDG1C3200, a 320GB external drive to backup my music, pictures, and other personal documents from my ibook g4. I'm running 10.3.9 for my system, and here's my dilemma: the software included with the external drive is HORRENDOUS. The first thing I wanted to do was copy my itunes music files to the drive, and the external drive refused to accept anything that had certain characters in the song name, such as /, ?, *, etc. Basically, the same restrictions that versions of Windows apply when you try to name a file. Anyway… aside from that headache, the external drive's software is very confusing and obstacle-laden. I have a ton of space on the external drive obviously and I want to use it efficiently in the future.

Does there exist any third party applications or shareware that I can download to manage file transfers between my ibook and the external drive? More importantly, I'd love to have an application that would automatically recognize new files on the ibook that HAVEN'T been backed up on the external drive. Thanks in advance for any advice/suggestions!
 
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I use iBackup. It works great and has a very "Mac" feel to it, check it out.
 
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CarbonCopyCloner
get it from:
versiontracker.com

have a good one
-chris
 
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franklf

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Suggest Superduper! or drag & drop

SuperDuper! [exclamation point is in the name] is much easier to use than Carbon Copy Cloner. I have used it to duplicate a hard drive and make it bootable, which worked really well. I'm using OS 10.3.9, but I bet 10.4 is fine too. Superduper! is not free, though.

Idea number 2. To back up your Music Folder, why not just drag it to your new disk? Seriously.

Frank
 
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There should be a MUCH easier way.

It sounds like your shiny new external drive is formatted for Windows, not Mac, hence the restrictions on file name characters. Attach the drive, start Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder) and reformat the drive for Mac OS X. After this, you should be able to treat it just like any other Mac volume.

Now, that having been said, you don't need any backup software at all. All I do for backup of my personal data is open a Finder Window on my data and a Finder window on my external drive and just drag the one to the other.

For the most part, all you likely need to do is one drag and drop, that being your home account. For example, if you are user "blotzo", just point your Finder window to /Users and drag folder "blotzo" to your external hard drive. That should do it. If you have a lot of data or a slow external drive, this may take a while, but you have a new drive, so it should be fast from that perspective. I backup about 30 GB of data in about 1/2 hour. Who needs back up software?

A real benefit of this approach is that if you should fat finger a file on your main drive by mistake, you can just plug in your external and navigate right to where the file is and copy it back. No restore software to run, no cumbersome process. It is all right there, plainly visible.
 
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mac57 said:
There should be a MUCH easier way.

It sounds like your shiny new external drive is formatted for Windows, not Mac, hence the restrictions on file name characters. Attach the drive, start Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder) and reformat the drive for Mac OS X. After this, you should be able to treat it just like any other Mac volume.

Now, that having been said, you don't need any backup software at all. All I do for backup of my personal data is open a Finder Window on my data and a Finder window on my external drive and just drag the one to the other.

For the most part, all you likely need to do is one drag and drop, that being your home account. For example, if you are user "blotzo", just point your Finder window to /Users and drag folder "blotzo" to your external hard drive. That should do it. If you have a lot of data or a slow external drive, this may take a while, but you have a new drive, so it should be fast from that perspective. I backup about 30 GB of data in about 1/2 hour. Who needs back up software?

A real benefit of this approach is that if you should fat finger a file on your main drive by mistake, you can just plug in your external and navigate right to where the file is and copy it back. No restore software to run, no cumbersome process. It is all right there, plainly visible.

I am about ready to install a brand new hard drive into my macbook. Would i be able to just move the programs i need to my external drive, re install OS X and then copy them back? Should the above method work?

I've been doing some research on this site and with so many different backup programs and ways of doing it i think the above is alot easier.
 
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alucard said:
I am about ready to install a brand new hard drive into my macbook. Would i be able to just move the programs i need to my external drive, re install OS X and then copy them back? Should the above method work?

I've been doing some research on this site and with so many different backup programs and ways of doing it i think the above is alot easier.

The easiest way to do this is to use Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) or SuperDuper. The procedure would go something like this:

1. Clone your MacBook's hard drive to an image file on your backup drive
2. Install the new hard drive in your MacBook
3. Boot up using your MacBook's OS X install disc and use Disk Utility to format the new drive
4. Restore the image file from your backup hard drive according to the instructions in either CCC or SuperDuper

That's pretty much it. I just installed my new hard drive yesterday and it was a piece of cake (I did a fresh format though). If you're serious about backing up your MacBook's hard drive using images/cloning, I'd highly recommend purchasing SuperDuper. Carbon Copy Cloner is good if you're just going to use it once, but SuperDuper is easier and has more features like scheduling. If you only plan on backing up individual folders/files, then CCC should be great for one-time use. Also, you can toss your old MacBook hard drive into an enclosure for use as portable backup. See my hard drive section here for more info:

http://www.wiredbynature.org/comp/mac/macbook/mods.php#Harddrive
 
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Thanx, i'm in the middle of doing it now and wil let you know how it goes. :)

The backup went great and the extra ram install. but when trying to replace the HD i noticed the pins are pins its something else. so i need to run by the computer store to see if they have an adapter that will fit the pins on my new hard drive.

Thanx again for the backup info. the super duper program is great! :)
 

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