What is your backup plan for files, music and photos?

holystungun9

Hey all,

my head is wrecked trying to figure what is the best, cost effective system to protect my data no matter what happens (laptop dies, stolen, lost etc.).

I have a firewire external drive beside backing up with time machine but as we all know if the house burned down or someone robbed it all I have nothing.

Does anyone use carbonite or super duper. Do you use two hard drives or usbs and swap them every day or two leaving one at a mate's house?

Anyone use dropbox?. My biggest concern is my itunes library. But is that even an issue. I think you can just go buy again and it says that you have already bought it and it just downloads. Damn I'm so muddled I can't even put this post together!

So please, all your advice, what you do, weaknesses and strengths with your back up plan. Have you had to use it and did it all go OK?

Thanks guys.

Freddie59

holystungun9 wrote: »

Hey all,

my head is wrecked trying to figure what is the best, cost effective system to protect my data no matter what happens (laptop dies, stolen, lost etc.).

I have a firewire external drive beside backing up with time machine but as we all know if the house burned down or someone robbed it all I have nothing.

Does anyone use carbonite or super duper. Do you use two hard drives or usbs and swap them every day or two leaving one at a mate's house?

Anyone use dropbox?. My biggest concern is my itunes library. But is that even an issue. I think you can just go buy again and it says that you have already bought it and it just downloads. Damn I'm so muddled I can't even put this post together!

So please, all your advice, what you do, weaknesses and strengths with your back up plan. Have you had to use it and did it all go OK?

Thanks guys.

Why not give the drive to a family member in another household?

Sad Professor

I have most of my media files (minus music) on a 1TB external hard drive. For a while I was backing this up, along with the my 160GB startup disk, to another 1TB external hd using Time Machine. For obvious reasons (lack of space) this didn't work out and I'm now unable to backup my external drive at all until I get a new hdd.

The lesson I've learned is that, while TM is great for backing up a small startup disc, it's kinda useless for anything else. Once it runs it runs out of space it will start giving you loads of stupid errors and stop working, forcing you to wipe the drive and start over. So when using TM, whatever you do, make sure there's loads of space on the external hdd. The best solution for backing up my external media drive would probably be some sort of RAID storage. I was going to get the get the WD My Book Studio Edition II, but it seems WD aren't making them anymore.

My biggest concern is my itunes library. But is that even an issue. I think you can just go buy again and it says that you have already bought it and it just downloads. Damn I'm so muddled I can't even put this post together!

You mean like on the App Store? No, that doesn't work with iTunes store purchases. But in the event of data lose, if you contact Apple they usually let you download all your purchased music again. However, Apple are due to substantially improve their cloud services soon, and iTunes streaming will come online eventually, so this this kinda worry will become a thing of the past.

Tbh most of my data is replaceable. What isn't - photos, documents, etc - I upload to DropBox. In the event of my house burning down, I'd be more worried about other things.

holystungun9

Hey Sad Prof,
so I guess if you use dropbox for photos the free 2 gig is too small. Are paying for the 50gig? Are you happy with the service?

Does everybody have duplicates of their music on CD. I never bothered......sure til be grand:rolleyes:

The Black Oil

Good question. To be honest, I'm not all that fussed about music or photos, though I would prefer not to lose audiobooks, documents - CV, old college work and that kind of thing. Right now, I use Time Machine on a 1TB drive. So far it's fine, but external drives aren't perfect. I'm not particularly stuck for space and once TM keeps deleting old backups I should be fine, it's only half full at the moment, even with old backups. Prior to that I had was copying and pasting stuff onto another external HD which I hardly use much now...should really try it again as a secondary backup. I started using Dropbox a while ago, mainly because I've started a Masters and I definitely need something for backups related to it. I back up to there daily, not using much so far so I will see how it goes. Ideally, I should store one of the external HDs off site, but I don't really have anywhere to put them and the shed probably isn't a good bet! The only thing I've noticed about TM is I'm not sure it picks up all the software updates, but perhaps it's a little unrealistic to expect it to do so. I only noticed this after I was reinstalling Leopard and imported stuff with the external HD/TM. I'm open to correction on this and I still have a lot to learn about Macs.

I pretty much stopped using CDs to back up stuff when I changed from PC to Macand given the clip below, I'm not sure CDs or DVDs are all that reliable. I'd go with some external HD or two and definitely some online backup, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbon1MCiXa8

alexlyons

I have 2 1TB drives put together with RAID 0. They are in bays 1 & 2 of the Mac pro

150GB partition which is the boot drive, cloned to a 160GB in bay 4
1TB partition which is all data, 30k image aperture library plus docs, music, etc etc
500GB media partition, backed up to USB 500gb drive (allows portability also)
350GB spare, possibly scratch, allows any other partition to be expanded

1TB drive in bay 3, clone of the 1TB partition above

320GB drive in the lower optical bay, Time Machine for boot drive

2 external 1TB drives, all photos and family videos, both are only ever plugged in when being backed up, once a week or so. One is on site, the other is in an office off site. They stay unplugged to save on wear and tear.

2 160GB drives in a dual drive USB enclosure, raid 0, and have all photos until the end of 2009. It's pretty much full and just another backup instead of having empty drives sitting around.

I have a spare 160GB USB drive, not sure what to do with at the minute.

Just showing you what's at the complete other end of the scale and how far you can go to back data up. You can't have enough backups as I learnt once.

If you can, have your data, then back it up, then back it up again and put it offsite.

Most people store a lot of data on external drives and never back it up because they only hear of boot drives failing, which is total rubbish. If you have data stored anywhere, store it somewhere else as well. No question about it.

holystungun9

Hey, there's a question, and please forgive my noobness. So I like the relatively simple idea of using two external hard drives and swapping them out once in awhile. Can I set up both to work with time machine or neither? i.e. like in my windows days I just copy folders over and then un plug it. Grab the other and do the same. Or someone mentioned you can backup to time machine and then backup that back up. Can someone make sense of that for me?

And yeah I think i will download dropbox. THe 2gig should keep my homework and stuff backed up and available from any other computer with an internet connection.

alexlyons

Copying Time Machine form one HD to another won't work. I can't really remember the reasons, but if you try and copy the data, it ends up taking way more space than it claims it will. I think it's something to do with the way it stores incremental backups.

What you could do, is just have two TM drives. Plug one in this week, leave it in and let it do it's backup every hour, and next week, swap it out for another drive and let it do backups every hour.
Personally I think it's a horrible solution. You will be left with your incremental backups split up over two drives, which could prove to be a nightmare when searching for older files.

My suggestion is this. Use one for Time Machine. Leave it in as much as you can and it will keep backing it up.
Use the other drive as a clone. Use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper. Just have it and exact copy of the original drive. Back it up once a week at least and store it off site. That way you have an on site and off site backup and have an exact Clone that you can swap out, plus incremental backups so you can role back to older versions of files. It's also spread over two locations. ALl your data on three drives and two locations is an extremely safe backup.

If this drive isn't your boot drive, I'd suggest keeping a clone of it (not Time Machine unless you have another drive, the clone is more important). That way if the boot drive goes down, you can immediately boot of the clone and be up and running as if nothing happened.
If it is your boot drive then you're in an excellent position.

Gregor Samsa

I had my MacBook stolen while on holiday in Berlin in September 2009. Luckily I had been using TimeMachine to a USB drive at the time, and had a backup from 5 days before. So all I lost on it was some spam that was sent in the meantime. Insurance claim replaced the MacBook with a MacBook Pro, but nothing would have replaced all my music, all my photos, all my various documents, files and projects if I hadn't had that backup.

That experience got me thinking. Backing up hourly to a USB drive is all well and good to protect against data corruption, but what if someone breaks into the house. If they steal the laptop, they'll probably steal the USB drive hooked up to it too. Also, my wife leaves her MacBook all around the house, so it's never in a position where a USB drive can be connected to it all the time. I was manually backing it up every month or so, but this was getting tiresome.

So, I got a 1TB TimeCapsule (refurb, for a bit of a discount). Now both MacBooks get backed up hourly via Wi-Fi, so it doesn't matter where they are in the house. The Time Capsule is hidden away, so it's less likely to get stolen if someone does break in. I also got a 1TB USB drive. I back the Time Capsule up onto this once a month or so, and keep the drive in work. Documents of vital a importance have been also backed up to my MobileMe account.

I'm sure there's some holes in this strategy, but I think I've got most things covered in a fairly hassle free way.

alexlyons

TBH phutyle, as far as home backups go, that's a pretty secure one. I can't pick many holes in it on first reading. You have a hidden onsite backup and an offsite one. That's all your data secure.
The only think I would say is something I've said above. Make a bootable clone.
If the MacBook Pro gets destroyed or stolen, and the insurance replace it, you can then just copy the clone onto the new machine and it's as if nothing ever happened. TM is great, but it's not bootable. There's nothing like getting a replaced computer and an hour or so later it's the same as you left off. I've done it 9 times (all replaced by apple, not stolen!!) in the last 3 years and will do it again on monday with my new Mac. It's extremely beneficial.

Gregor Samsa

Actually, you can do exactly that with TimeMachine.

While TM isn't bootable, you can just plug your TM drive into the new Mac, and select "Restore System from Time Machine". Obviously how long it takes depends on how much data you've got, but it just copies everthing over and you're up and running in no time. Took me about 45 minutes last time I did it after the MacBook was stolen.

A bootable backup would allow you to just plug the drive in to the new Mac and boot straight off the backup - so you could access your data in the time it takes the computer to boot up, but it offers no advantage to copying your data to the new Mac over a TimeMachine backup.

alexlyons

Fair enough, I only use TM to get older versions of files, and app's etc aren't backed up. It's more personal files.

It depends on what Mac you use. Unless you have an external 2.5" drive you can get at out of a case then fair enough you don't need a bootable clone. But with something like a Mac Pro, where you can just swap out the drives, or even just hold option and pick a different drive, it's quite possibly the handiest thing in the world. You can also test updates etc on the clone to make sure they aren't buggy and cause you problems.

Sad Professor

holystungun9 wrote: »

Hey Sad Prof,
so I guess if you use dropbox for photos the free 2 gig is too small. Are paying for the 50gig? Are you happy with the service?

No, I'm still using the free service but have ammassed a fair bit extra from invites. Seriously considering the 50gb subscription but waiting to see what Apple's improved cloud offering is like.

Cabaal

My backup plan without any specific software.

On-line: I backup approx 60GB of data including my itunes library
External: I backup 400GB of data including photos, music etc, this drive is switched off and disconnected once the backup is complete
Internal: I backup 400GB of data including photos, music etc to this drive also incase the drives that hold the data die

For on-line I use mozy.com and it sets me back about 3e a month,

Gregor Samsa

Cabaal wrote: »

On-line: I backup approx 60GB of data including my itunes library

Can I ask, what kind of internet connection do you have? I like the idea of online storage, but uploading 60GB on my ADSL would be painful - .28Mbps is the best upload speed I get. I suppose I could take my laptop into work and upload at least the first lot from there - then the stuff from home would just be incremental, which would be more manageable.

Cabaal

phutyle wrote: »

Can I ask, what kind of internet connection do you have? I like the idea of online storage, but uploading 60GB on my ADSL would be painful - .28Mbps is the best upload speed I get. I suppose I could take my laptop into work and upload at least the first lot from there - then the stuff from home would just be incremental, which would be more manageable.

My upload is 384 kbps, its not as painful as you think to do the backup and the way I see it it is worth it.....as time goes by I've slowly added parts of my photo collection to the online backup and I'm upto 70GB (4GB of it added in the last 3 days).

If all goes to hell and my house is robbed and all that atleast I'll have something to restore, although I am considering putting my external drive in a safe in a family members house. (wife would kill me if the wedding photos were lost )

It sounds extreme but I don't want my photo collection being lost and as most of it is shot in RAW the files are large enough so limited backup options.

Cabaal

Right I had a think about backup solutions so I've checked a few thins:

On-line/Internal: I now have the Mozy software set to backup 70GB on-line, it also mirrors this backup to a internal drive only used for backups.

External: I have two 500GB drives which I'm backing up to, one will be kept onsite and one off-site.

Talisman

I have a 4TB raid box which contains the music and movies backed up from CD & DVD. It took quite a while to create the archive and if I lost it I don't think I'd be arsed recreating it.

In addition to hard drive backups and a usb system drive, I use cloud backups where possible. For off site storage of applications, documents and photos I use SugarSync and nightly backups use Mozy Home. I have been considering signing up for SmugMug to store the photos and home video clips - the Pro account costs $60/year and offers unlimited storage.

conor.hogan.2

it takes me a couple of hours - might as well leave it over night - to upload 2 gb sized zips of my music up to adrive (then i will have to create another account or try skydrive or something for the other 10 gigs or so)

its a pain - but that music is non recoverable and worth the time to upload.

I might pay for carbonite or mozy etc - because when you work out the prices they are all around 3 euro a month which is a coffee a month so well worth it.

conor.hogan.2

edit - bootcamp doesnt get backed up, nm.
edit - virtual machines are backed up but mine is 6 gigs so I would have to manually add it and it would be a pain for the amount I would be using the machine.
so dropbox for daily backups when in virtual box and then time machine for weeklys.

---

If I backup with timemachine - wipe and partition the drive and reinstall SL can restore the mac completely to the way it was before and then dualboot windows 7 from bootcamp? (not a clean install)

Does it save the dock settings, screen settings, all apps and their settings?
bookmarks
browser plugins and add ons
anything i edited - like disabling dashboard and other little tweaks like that

this is basicaly just a general question(s) about starting over with a new mac - as this macbook wont last forever

adox

Sad Professor wrote: »

I

The lesson I've learned is that, while TM is great for backing up a small startup disc, it's kinda useless for anything else. Once it runs it runs out of space it will start giving you loads of stupid errors and stop working, forcing you to wipe the drive and start over. So when using TM, whatever you do, make sure there's loads of space on the external hdd. The best solution for backing up my external media drive would probably be some sort of RAID storage. I was going to get the get the WD My Book Studio Edition II, but it seems WD aren't making them anymore.

I`ve been backing my disc up to an external HD using Time Machine and its been rewriting over older files once the external hard drive had filled. Havent noticed any issues with it?

alexlyons

AFAIK all the errors are due to having the box beside "alert before deleting old backups" ticked

The Black Oil

I'm probably going to get another external HD and store it off site, thanks to this thread.

Re Dropbox, whilst I'm taking this comment with a grain of salt, it has made me wonder. Is Dropbox not much more than saving a draft (with attachments) in your Gmail?

Dropbox is primarily a file synchronization program, not cloud storage/backup. It offers some backup functionality in that it keeps revision history and deleted files, so you could undo mistakes, but it's not "backup" in the sense that you leave a copy in the cloud and be done with it.
http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=11943

Sad Professor

I'd be inclined to agree with that comment. While DropBox can used as a backup, that's not really what it designed to do, at least at the moment. Until you can sync any folder, using it as a backup for a large number of files would be rather awkward. And even using it as cloud storage in conjunction with, lets say, a Macbook Air, isn't really ideal.

Apple's upgraded cloud storage offering, when it eventually arrives, might be better suited to these things though.

The Black Oil

Thanks SP. Would you recommend an alternative vehicle for things heading to cloudland? I'm trying Mozy, I'm not sure about its interface, but if that's all that's bothering me it might be better than DB.

conor.hogan.2

sugarsync
5 gb
any folders or files

Hobbes

1TB external USB using Time Machine.

For photos and stuff like that I use dropbox, along with a truecrypt drive file in dropbox.