dinmypants
Date: Mon Dec 17, 2007 9:38 pm ((PST))
One of the better Mac programs for backing up is called "SuperDuper." it do=
es smart updates, incremental backups, whatever.
keep in mind that your backup drive can also die, any any given time. most =
likely when it's most inconvenient for you.
i've worked for years at mac repair facilities and for what's it's worth, h=
ere are some personal, general backing up guidelines:
Have AT LEAST another backup at all times. really. it will happen to you. y=
ou will cry. i have cried.
this can be done automatically by using any RAID disk set up as a RAID 1. a=
ny well designed RAID will let you choose a few different options. RAID 0 i=
s really fast but does not back up data. in fact, it's twice as likely to f=
ail since both internal dries are splitting the information. RAID 1 duplica=
ted all data onto both drives, giving you a redundant backup if one of the =
two fail. JBOD is just like one giant hard drive, no backup. all of those m=
ajor brands make very high quality stuff. i have had good experiences with =
glyph, OWC, and gtech in that order. anything with a good product and good=
warranty will be fine.
you can also just buy another external hard drive and use it to manually co=
py over your files. i use mine only as a backup drive, meaning i never spin=
it up or plug it in unless i'm doing a backup.
to be extra crazy, i also keep a hard copy of any important project burned =
to multiple dvds. usually after i finish a project or i just get that feeli=
ng that everything is about to go sour. this can really save the day when a=
power surge or brownout wipes out all your drives and your computer at the=
same time. sigh.
hope that's helpful
jeremy
For those on a tight budget may I suggest an alternative to Raid backup.
There is an excellent piece of software called 2nd Copy for Windows. With t=
his software
you can point it at a source drive and a destination drive and then let it =
do its thing. At
regular intervals, set by you, it will scan the source drive and any change=
s will be copied to
the destination drive which can be USB, FireWire or a NAS drive. It has man=
y configurable
options to give you plenty of options to play with. You can even evaluate i=
t free of charge,
take a look here:
http://www.centered .com/
We use it at work to provide backups and it is a really useful bit of softw=
are just sitting
there in the background creating 2nd copies. We even have a copy on our ser=
ver which
wakes up in the early hours of the morning and makes copies of any new file=
s added to
the server. Wish they did it for the Mac!
Phil
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