If you value your data, you must have a reliable backup strategy in place, because, sooner or later, you will lose data. It's "when," not "if." With Time Machine, Apple has included backup software with Mac OS X 10.5 that is both easy to use and reliable, so there is no more excuse for not backing up your data. How 'bout sharing some best practices for personal backups, then.
It's self-evident that Time Machine is easy to use: hook up an extra hard drive to your Mac, enable Time Machine, and you're all set ("There is no third step!"). Need to restore a file? Summon Time Machine, fly through space, find that file, and restore it. Done!
As for restoring not just a few single files, but an entire hard drive, James Duncan Davidson has put Time Machine to the test by doing just that, and his verdict confirms that "reliable" attribute:
In short, Time Machine passed the “Trust, but Verify” challenge with flying colors.
Them's the Golden Rules
As with any good backup strategy, there are some "best practices" that also apply to Time Machine. If you're just now beginning to employ your own backup strategy, here are some things you should keep in mind.
Back up everything: When people start thinking about backups, they usually wonder what files they should include in those backups. The right answer to that question almost always is "everything," and it's what Time Machine does per default, too.
In case of data loss, there is hardly anything more depressing than realizing that that one file you need was, for whatever reason, not included in the backup selection. By backing up everything, you can rest assured that you will not inadvertantly lose a file that way.
Also, if you need to restore a whole disk, this saves you the hassle of remembering what software you need to install, finding all those installation disks, and waiting through countless progress bars while re-installing all those programs.
Back up to dedicated hard drives: Hard drives are cheap these days. Don't put your backups at risk by saving your backup to a partition -- or "volume," in Mac-speak -- on the same physical drive as the volume that is being backed up. While this is technically possible, your backup will be completely useless if that drive's mechanism fails. Instead, keep your backups on a separate physical drives. Even better, yet, dedicate those drives to storing backups only.
Use external drives instead of internal ones: While, admittedly, this point is debatable, I prefer to use external hard drives that are hooked up to the Mac via USB or Firewire. If your Mac fails completely, you can just unplug the backup drive, connect it to another Mac and access the data from that other machine without having to swap the drive between the Mac's case and an external enclosure first -- assuming that you have a suitable enclosure at hand to begin with.
Take your backup off-site: If a major disaster strikes -- say, your house burns down -- and all your backups are in the same location as the backed-up machine, you may very well lose the backups together with the originals. To prevent this from happening, regularly take a backup off-site and store it in a deposit box at your bank or take it with you to your workplace. For example, by using two backup drives and regularly rotating them.
Even though your backup may be a few weeks old if the unthinkable does happen, at least you won't lose all your life's data -- kids' photos, anyone? (This, by the way, is my favorite example when trying to convince friends and family to back up their data. Mentioning kids' photos always gets them. That topic must hit a very special nerve with us humans, I guess.)
Automate your backups: Manually copying your files to an external hard drive is better than not having any backups at all. Yet, this approach is tedious, and you're more than likely to skip backups because you forget them, have something else on your mind, don't have the time "right now," etc. Therefore, delegate being disciplined to your backup software and let it make sure that your data is backed up regularly and properly.
A Personal Backup Strategy
As an example for how to put all this to work for your very personal backup strategy, here's mine.
My primary machine is a MacBook with a 120GB hard disk. This disk is backed up automatically to an external 250GB hard disk every night. Another 250GB drive is located in my company office (far enough from my home to fully qualify as "off-site"), and whenever I'm there, the MacBook is backed up to that disk, too.
For these backups, I currently use EMC's Retrospect, but I will probably switch to Time Machine in the near future. Like Time Machine, Retrospect creates "snap shots" of the stuff that's on my Mac at regular intervals, so I can "go back in time" to restore files that I may have deleted inadvertantly.
In addition to this setup, I use a portable 160GB external drive in a sleek bus-powered enclosure that's just a little bit bigger than an iPhone. The drive is partitioned into 120G and 40G volumes, the former of which is used for cloning the MacBook's internal drive, providing a bootable backup (once SuperDuper! has become fully Leopard-compatible, that is...).
Due to its small size and lack of external power adapter, I also take this drive with me while on the road, so I can backup all the data I acquire while traveling, e.g., photos shot during the trip, new emails, etc. Under Tiger, backing up the entire drive to a bootable clone with SuperDuper! would take about 10 minutes when run in "Smart Update" mode. That's a rediculously small price to pay for peace of mind.
On a side note, "off-site" works on the road, too: lock your Mac in the safe in your room and store the external drive in one of the hotel's central deposit boxes.
Got Backup?
What about you? Do you back up your data religiously? If so, what are your best practices? If not, what's keeping you?
Categories
Mac
Comments (6)
Read More Entries by Jochen Wolters.
TimeMachine is certainly a great backup system. However, if you are after more flexibility or want backups of your home directory while you are logged in as a FileVault user consider LBackup.
Please keep in mind that LBackup will probably take longer than TimeMachine to configure.
Chris:
Thanks for adding this perspective.
As for IronMountain, they had a booth at last month's Macworld Expo San Francisco, and a Mac client for their Connected Backup solution is currently in beta stage.
Doug, Orrin:
Thanks for chiming in.
As much as I like online backup services like Mozy, SpiderOak, and others as part of an overall backup strategy to store really important files off-site, there is one essential drawback: even when using an Internet connection with really fast uplink speeds, "backing up everything" may not be feasible if you are working with large amounts of data.
Also, even though these may be only an edge case, if your computer suffers a hard drive failure, having to re-install your machine from scratch, re-configuring your network connection (if you remember your ISP credentials, to begin with...), and downloading the proprietary software most of these services rely on, will be extremely time consuming. And that's not even taking into account, yet, that the Internet may not be quite as ubiquitus as we think it is.
With a cloned drive at hand, though, you're back at work in literally a minute.
Hence, as I said above, I think online backups are great way to add a bit more security to your overall backup strategy by saving the more important files there. But, in my humble opinion, you should not rely on them as the only part of that strategy.
Having said that, I really like that aspect of being able to share the backed up files via SpiderOak (and other services, too?). I guess I'll have to take a closer look at that.
Same thing about the DVD service offered by Mozy: excellent idea for those who can afford to wait until that DVD arrives. I just wonder: do you have to have an Internet connection to order that DVD, or can you also order it via phone? Hmm, another detail to investigate, methinks.
Thanks again for your comments.
Unfortunately, this article only covers the surface for a photographer.
It doesn't address the issue of incremental vs. replacement backups.
Incremental are best for data files; it creates copies each time a file is changed, ad infinitum.
However, the incremental approach is not practical for multimedia files (eg, multi-hundred megabyte photos, movies, etc.) where one little change to the file causes it to be backed up again.
Thus, even a simple IPTC tag change doubles the needed file space.
This is the biggest "flaw" in a Time Machine approach - even lots of 1TB drives will fill up too quickly.
What's needed is an OS-level, database program (like IronMountain) for Mac that only backs up byte-level changes.
I'm a long time Mozy user and just recently sprung for the $5 a month unlimited service. I've had my music, photos, and movie folders backing up for a couple of weeks now but as soon as everything is backed up once the regular interval backup will keep things up to date quickly. I highly recommend it. It is quick, easy, off-site, and super cheap for what you get. You can even have them burn your data to a DVD and mail it to you next day (at your cost) if you have a large restore. At $5 per month that is $120 for two years and in two years I'd need a larger external hard drive anyway (if I were doing the backup to external drive method).
(shameless plug) I back up enthusiastically with SpiderOak. (I'm a programmer at SpiderOak)
But seriously, we've spent a lot of time on the subject of how to get people to back up their files. And have no good answer. It's like flossing your teeth. Aging boomers like me do it, but it's not a very exciting activity.
Our approach is to add features that make the backed up files useful. Sharing over the web, accessing files from your other computers.
Also, there's good reason for a third party offline backup. You're probably not going to need your backups very often (hopefully never). This gives you little incentive to regularly check that they are actually working. A third party has the incentive and the resources for continuous QA.