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- Monkeyget, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9My solution : buy a second harddrive and mirror EVERYTHING.
Easy to do, don't need to think about it anymore and doesn't cost much. - neoform, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I just mirror my drive with ROBOCOPY (built in windows command)
- Xanium4332, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7that's not quite the same as a backup. If you delete something, (and I assume your using a RAID 1 setup), then it instantly gets deleted from both harddrives.
With a backup, you could delete a file, go get your backup disk/tape/hdd/floppy/usb stick, and restore the file... - silvrrwulf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I'm a computer consultant who travels around my fair city daily and sets these things up. EZ backitup is okay, but it's failed me a few times. So far Cobian Backup (http://majorgeeks.com/Cobian_Backup_d4739.html) is my tool of choice for raw data backups. You have to watch it, though, because a new "feature" in version 8 is set, by default, to timestamp your backups and not overwrite - which will fill up your external hard drive quickly. You'll want to disable this feature - it's on the first "page" when you set up the software. To overcome this, I usually buy a hard drive that’s more than twice my space needs – so I can set a daily backup and a weekly backup of the same items. Cobian, like and good backup software, won’t erase a file from the backup if you’ve deleted it from your Hard drive, but it will overwrite one that has changed properties. If you make a mistake in “ImportantDocument.doc” and let the backup run, your stuff’s gone. The “weekly” backup helps defend against those types of accidents.
There’s also Driveimage XML (http://majorgeeks.com/DriveImage_XML_d4919.html), if you’re looking for a freeware imaging tool. An imaging tool takes a picture of your system as it’s operating, so if you replace your hard drive, like ghost, you no longer have to install your OS, programs, etc. It’s not for the faint of heart, though.
I have to agree with a previous poster’s Mozy plug (www.mozy.com). They give 2 gigs for free, and that’s invaluable when it comes to an easy, offsite, secure backup solution that costs my client nothing. The survey takes two minutes, and the interface is brain-dead simple. AOL’s Xdrive (www.xdrive.com) isn’t nearly as user friendly (though it gives you 5 gigs), and I’m never been able to get AMD’s 25 gig Live Vault to perform properly, although either of those could be a viable solution should you get it to work. I give Mozy to all my clients who don’t have a ton of data, but those spreadsheets need to be recoverable. That, however, is always a secondary solution to and external hard drive and Cobian.
What the Article DOESN’T mention is backing up Outlook Express, and a good 50% of my clients use this. You can drag and drop the files to Cobian by doing a search for “*.dbx” (no quotes), and your address book for Outlook Express by searching for “*.wab” . Almost all quicken data, FYI, is saved in a file called *qdata*, money files are *.mny , and I also usually set my client’s desktop folder to back up automatically as well.
Hope some of this information helps a few of you. - Tredici, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4That's all well and good, but with HDD capacities these days you'll have to fill out a heck of a lot of surveys for it to be worth it.
- mercan01, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3There's always Norton Ghost, which would take a complete image of the system.
- kottkrig, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Are there any good applications for scheduled backups and synchronized folders in osx?
- BigJuiceMan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3in other news...don't eat fire
- leopardhunter, on 02/18/2009, -3/+5Windows has SyncBack
http://www.2brightsparks.com/
freeware under downloads - volsung, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I second the recommendation for Super Duper. My laptop HD failed last week and discovered my crappy, sporadic backups were not as good as I thought. After looking around for a better solution, I settled on Super Duper, because it does a full disk backup to an external HD that is also bootable. (Plug in you Firewire disk and hold the Option key when you boot, and you get a nice menu to pick which drive to load the OS from.) It costs $28, but the free, unregistered version lets you do a full disk backup. If you like the free version, you can pay and enable the Smart Backup which just updates the changed files. (2 hrs to do full backup and 8 minutes to update on my 60 GB laptop)
To do network backups, Super Duper creates a disk image on the on the network folder (to ensure it can store all the HFS+ attributes and such). So anything that OS X knows how to mount (AFP, SMB, NFS, Webdav?) can be used, as long as the file server can handle large files (HFS+, ext3, reiser, NTFS, etc, but not FAT32). Super Duper even remembers where the disk image was stored and will remount the network folder automatically when it starts.
Carbon Copy Cloner is completely free and does the same sort of thing, but has a much clunkier interface. For network backups, you have to make the disk image yourself with Disk Utility and mount it. When copying, it is hard to tell what is going on, and you have to install psync to enable smart updates that only copy changed files. There also hasn't been any development on CCC in a while. It also seems to miss some of the file metadata during copy (see below).
This guy goes through all the various things a good cloning solution needs on OS X (the fusion of BSD and old HFS ideas have made things very messy):
http://blog.plasticsfuture.org/2006/03/05/the-state-of-backup-and-cloning-tools-under-mac-os-x/
He also does a review of GUI tools here:
http://blog.plasticsfuture.org/2006/04/23/mac-backup-software-harmful/
The result was that Super Duper was the only tool that copied all the metadata properly. - Amything, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I must recomend EZBack-it-up. http://www.rdcomp.net/ezbackitup/ Tiny, very simple, no frills, free.
- SaciPerere, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2My backups are kept away from home. There's no point in having a backup connected to your computer all the time if you get a burglary or a fire.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2xcopy command in a batch file will solve a lot of these problems.
Open text editor for windows.
xcopy [source] [destination] /c /d /e /i /y
File/Save As/filename.bat.
Scheduled Tasks in control panel, run every x amount of time.
Done.
Or use Robocopy if you want more features. - smohan123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@Monkeyget
That's what I did -- bought a Western Digital MyBook recently. I plan to just mirror my whole C: drive and use my other hard drive for other data that doesn't necessarily need to be backed up.
I had to go through an install of XP because I carelessly overclocked my system in a fit of spite at lag and ended up corrupting some Windows files on my main partition. Luckily I had backed up my movies, music videos, etc. on optical media, so I had enough space on the second drive to copy everything over, wipe the C: drive, install XP, and copy everything back. Just a big hassle though, as you can imagine. This'll make things easy. Plus I get to be rid of system restore and spyware/adware/virus removal becomes a lot easier (though I don't usually get anything but tracking cookies on my scans).
Sweet. - cquinnd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1On Windows XP you can use the File and Settings Transfer Wizard.
(Programs -> Accesories -> System Tools), which works to backup
about 90% of a users profile, files, and settings to restore on another system.
Vista will have a better tool, called the Migration Wizard, which does a more
complete job of profile backup and restore. (about 98% complete in current
versions). It should be available as a seperate download when (or shortly before) Vista is released. - JohnboiWaltune, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Will not protect you from power surges where both drives fry. Will also not protect you from computer theft.
- leopardhunter, on 02/18/2009, -0/+1Regarding backup of Outlook Express, here is a good MS tech support article.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q270670
Scroll down to "Copy Mail Files to a Backup Folder". - Smily, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yeah I know, I just use it for stuff I really don't want to loose (ie music that I'll hardly get back, flash files that I'll never be able to rewrite, doc files I'll never write again, php and other scripts, basically small text files). I have 2.6 out of 2.8 GB full, so I'm good for now :)
If you really want to backup a lot of data, they have a paid version too, although I'm not sure how prices would compare versus just buying a hdd (I guess it would be safer to store it offsite, if you have some really important files) - blueribbon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1What I'd like to know is a way to backup not only my data but also the entire OS settings (WinXP), so that I could deploy the entire system in another machine (e.g. because the hardware is broken and there's no equivalent replacement).
Do you have any idea how? - jwestbrook, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1+digg
I'll also throw my 2 cents in, Drive Snapshot is a good drive imaging utility for Windows. I've used it several times to put my computer back to right after I finished installing all the drivers, apps and windows updates.
http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/ - Smily, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I don't want to be an ad, but you can also use Mozy to backup 1 GB for free (which you can increase by 1 GB if you fill out a survey and you can get an additional 256 MB more for every other survey/referrer you get, of course you don't have to take any of those)
You can go to http://www.mozy.com or if you are feeling generous, you can go to https://mozy.com/?code=F7AJT5 and get me and yourself 256 MB more space. :)
I think it's a nice alternative to having to buy another hdd. :) - johnnyrotten, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2This article is hardly a backup guide at all, let alone the "ultimate" backup guide. It reads like a subliminal ad for one product. Also, most of the article is just preaching to the choir. Those of us who care about this already backup their data, and others don't.
Still, the fundamental problem that I have is that no matter how much I back up my data, if my computer dies, I'm going to have to reinstall a ton of software and get all of my settings back onto my system. Even if I ghost my system drive, it does me little good if I can't put the ghosted drive into a new PC. - kottkrig, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Sorry about that, what I meant was if there were any good applications for osx.
- hakujin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I agree w/you 100% on this article. It belongs on the back of a milk carton or cereal box, for real.
Question:
Why wouldn't you be able to put the ghosted image on a new PC? There are workarounds, such as sysprep or rebuilding your windows dir if you get BSOD. There's also slipstream which can be used on ANY pc.
late - 511pf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Keep their data on the Exchange server and use OST files instead.
- hakujin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1For total backup 'flexiblity' to be used on another machine try:
http://blog.hishamrana.com/2006/02/22/how-to-image-windows-xp-with-ghost-and-sysprep/
The key is sysprep... you can use any 3rd party imaging tool you like (i.e. ghost, true image). But you can't just do an image and migrate it. You'll have problems (i.e. HAL, WGA etc.)
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::OR:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
There's always slipstreaming.
http://www.nliteos.com/
By the way... thumbs down on the article... much too amateurish for the likes of the digg audience. ;) - jleclerc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think the best backup and simplest backup solution for os x (including scheduling, etc.) is SuperDuper! (http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/). I believe it backs up the entire hard drive - you cannot choose only individual folders to backup.
- hakujin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"The “weekly” backup helps defend against those types of accidents."
How so? Whether it be a differential or incremental since [I assume] your last 'weekly' full backup, those changes in the diff or increm backups will take precedence will it not? Unless you take all your data back a week but then what about all the other more recent changes that you want to keep? Perhaps your software allows some way to plug in (or explore) the initial backup to restore certain documents but without doing its formal backup routine.That's the only way I see to accomplish what your saying.
Myself, I don't like differential or incremental backup routines for the fact they DO retain what's already been delete, hence wasting space. I just to keep important data away from the system partition and do sporadic full images of 2 drives plus notebooks onto my server across my LAN . Meanwhile I keep uber-important docs on dvd-ram media in a safe.
Somebody said power surges as a threat! Isn't that myth created by those power strip people (j/k)? I've never had a power surge in my life. I seriously care about my data, but me thinks my strategy is careful enough. In order to lose everything, there' would have to be data failure on both the backup computer itself, the server images; plus no raw data recovery possible on any of the drives. Less fire or natural disaster, not too likely. But then, that's what I have the most important stuff on a 9GB double-sided RAM disc. - hakujin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Next time try command line and REBUILD.
- hakujin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hardly economical for the masses if you're talking any large, full backups. Though it would be nice if I could afford a SAN Fibre Channel and offsite data restoration. But I digress... you're probably just talking about physically taking the tape or dvd backup offsite. :)
- Boondoggle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1or fire
- joshman5k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Ouch, i just formated today :O
I don't think i missed anything, but this would have helped!!! - kevgig, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Anyone have a suggestion for backing up outlook PST files remotely (synchronizing type) for laptop users in the field?
Must be able to work seamlessly while Outlook is open. - nmeadata, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I bought an iomege black series usb/firewire external drive that came with very good backup software for windows, and I believe it works onMacs also.
- frukt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0How can you corrupt files by overclocking your CPU / memory? Or do you mean something else by overclocking?
- frukt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0You can always do a low-level copy of your windows partition. You'll need a free partition to hold the resulting (compressed) image. Pop in a linux livecd and do (assuming your NTFS partition is let's say /dev/sda1)
dd if=/dev/sda1 | bzip2 > /mnt/someotherpartition/mysystem.bz2
Keep it on another HD or burn to a DVD (or several DVDs depending on the size). Restoring is exactly the reverse. If you don't have a separate partition to write the image, you can mount a network drive over samba with mount.smbfs. And viola, a perfect backup.
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