Backing Up

[Paul G]

Hi, I'm relatively new to Macs and I'm constantly seeing articles about backing up. The point is I wouldn't know where to start. What do I use? Back up to what? I understand why I should back up.

Any help will be appreciated.
Paul

 

[m1k]

I don't really back up regularly, because Macs never crash. That's one of the reasons I got a Mac .

They mean either back up to a CD-R or to a FireWire/USB 2.0 external hard drive. You don't really need to, though, in my opinion, because Macs are notoriously stable, and they never get viruses from the internet.

So don't worry about it, unless you're working for some multimillion dollar animation company and your PhotoShop creations are worth hundreds of thousands and losing them could potentially destroy your career. Even then, I would trust my Mac with them

 

[schweb]

Yeah, I normally back up to an external firewire drive using Carbon Copy Cloner which is about one of the best programs for making sure you get a complete backup. And it's free

 

[m1k]

I can't remember which company has this (I think Lacie), but there's this one FireWire drive where there's a OneTouch system - you just hook it up and push a button on the drive and it backs up your entire hard drive onto the external one. It's pretty neat

 

[technologist]

Even though "Macs never crash," there are still reasons to back up your data. Hard drives fail, buildings catch fire, laptops get stolen.

I'm personally a fan of the "randomly copy the Mail folder to a USB flash drive" method. If I wanted to be rigorous about it, I'd set up an event in iCal to remind myself every week or so.

If you're a .Mac subscriber, there's Apple Backup

And for those who need a "serious" backup solution, there's Retrospect

 

[Avalon]

I agree with technologist...
Backing up your data has nothing much to do with a system crashing, it's just an additional security in case of a hardware failure (which can happen to EVERY piece of hardware, including Apple's ;-) ) or a user error. You can't imagine what kind of things some users do, ending up with deleting all their mails, settings, data, etc. and when you (as an administrator) ask what's the last thing they've done, the answer is always "Nothing!!".

To make things short, if you have important data you want/need to keep, you should back up regularly, no matter what kind of computer or OS you use.

 

[Erik]

I just got a Seagate 160gb external hard drive with the one button backup. It's USB and Firewire. Comes with 2 firewire ports for stacking multiple units. Has a 8mb buffer too. Looks nice on the desktop. I like it.

 

[ghenrytaylor]

By all means back up. You never know when a HD may go or someone knocks your iBook or desktop to the floor. I use a firewire external HD and use CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner).
Back up, back up, back up.

Henry

 

[vuschejan]

By all means back up. You never know when a HD may go or someone knocks your iBook or desktop to the floor. I use a firewire external HD and use CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner).
Back up, back up, back up.

Henry

I back up over my network to an internal 80 Gb on my PC. However, I'm now using my Ipod for it.

 

[Cloudane]

Complacency is very, very dangerous!

Never assume that any computer will "just work", even Macs, especially at the expense of making backups. A hard drive can die at any time, yes even those chosen by Apple.