Set up a rock-solid backup strategy so that you can restore quickly and completely, no matter what catastrophe arises.
In this comprehensive book, backup guru Joe Kissell helps you pick the best backup strategy for your needs and understand the whys and hows of what you are doing, helping you go far beyond the false security of turning on Time Machine or copying a few files to CD. You'll find an at-a-glance comparison of different backup strategies (low-cost, easy, safest), along with advice for backing up digital photos and massive video projects. You'll learn the pros and cons of many types of backup media; discover how to pick the best backup software for your needs; and find time-tested recommendations for setting up, testing, and maintaining backups, complete with the essential instructions on how to restore after a crash.
Free online appendixes compare almost 100 backup products and offer step-by-step directions for Retrospect. Bonus! Includes coupons worth $30 off Data Backup, $25 off BackJack, 10% off CrashPlan. Covers Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.
Find answers to questions such as these:
How can I maximize the benefits of using Time Machine?
What's a hard link, and how does it relate to Time Machine?
What are the important gotchas relating to Time Machine?
How do I migrate an existing backup system to Time Capsule?
I'm running Windows on my Mac—how do I back up my Windows files?
How can I back up easily and safely while traveling?
Should I use an online backup service to back up to a different location?
What do I need to know to create my own command-line-based backups?
How do I minimize the amount of downtime I might suffer if my boot drive fails?
Book Info
186 pages
Version 3.0.1
Updated 27-Jun-08
1.8 MB download
Free sample with Table of Contents, Introduction, Quick Start, and section starts.
The data on every Mac should be backed up to protect you against theft, hardware failure, user error, and other catastrophes. This book helps you design a sensible backup strategy, make sense of the wide variety of backup hardware and software, and understand how to make your backups as painless as possible. This book was written by Joe Kissell, edited by Jeff Carlson, and published by TidBITS Publishing Inc.
Introduction
Nearly everyone understands why backups are important: hard drives fail, computers are stolen or damaged, and files are accidentally deleted. Backups are insurance against all these problems and more. If you've ever lost data—and I certainly have, on more than one occasion—then you know what I'm talking about. (And if you haven't lost data, you're computing on borrowed time.)
Apple feels so strongly about the need for good backups that they built a backup feature called Time Machine into Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. I talk about Time Machine quite a bit in this book, and all things considered, I think it's pretty good. But it's not right for everyone, and even when it is a good fit, it can't do everything you may need a backup program to do. It pays to know exactly what your choices are, how to set everything up, and what sorts of pitfalls you may encounter. That's what I aim to explain in this book: how to take control of your backups!
The options available for Mac OS X are so numerous that even the geekiest of us can find it difficult to wade through them and make intelligent choices. Which files should you back up? How often? Onto what media? Do you need to make bootable backups? How many sets of backup media do you need? Which backup software should you use? And how exactly do you restore your data if disaster strikes?
There is no single correct answer to any of these questions. However, you can follow some straightforward steps to come up with your own answers. Regardless of the details of which hardware or software you use, your biggest concern should be whether your data is safe.
What some people call a "backup" is simply copying files from your hard disk onto another volume—manually or using a utility of some kind. I firmly believe that something is better than nothing, so I don't want to make it sound as though this type of backup is useless. But let me be candid: it's not enough. Too many different kinds of things can still imperil your data under such a scheme. Helping you develop a well-thought-out strategy for data safety is one aim of this book.
Before we get started, however, I need to mention a few caveats:
I do not cover in any detail command-line software such as cp or rsync, except for one appendix (Appendix A: Unix-Based Backup Systems). Although such tools can certainly be used to perform backups, my goal is to make the process as simple as possible—ideally, without requiring you to open Terminal or know anything about Unix. So this book concerns itself mainly with software that uses a graphical user interface (GUI).
This book is primarily for people who need to back up either a single Mac or a small network—not for system administrators who need to back up dozens or hundreds of machines. As a result, I say little about the expensive, high-end equipment and enterprise-grade software typically used for backing up large networks—focusing instead on simpler products you can purchase at your local computer store at a modest price.
Because every backup system is different, I can't give you explicit, foolproof, step-by-step instructions for setting up every combination of hardware and software you might use to perform your backups. But by the time you've finished reading this book, you should have enough background information to determine, with the help of your software's documentation, the preferences and settings you need in order to achieve your desired outcome.
I've been writing about Macs for well over a decade and using them much longer than that. During that time, I've experimented with a variety of backup systems for my own Macs, and as a consultant, I've installed backup systems for individuals and businesses. I've also spent long hours researching backup software and hardware and discussing backup strategies with my colleagues. These experiences have led me to form some strong opinions as to what constitutes a good backup system. I don't pretend that the method I use for my own Macs is the only one that will work, or that it's ideal for everyone. Rather than explore every alternative exhaustively, though, I'm going to guide you gently but firmly into a fairly narrow set of options that should yield excellent results for the vast majority of Mac users.
While preparing this book, I tested lots of backup applications under Leopard and Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4)—but with the exception of Time Machine, which requires Leopard, almost everything you read here should be applicable to older versions of Mac OS X too. Although most of this material applies in a general way to machines running Mac OS 9 and Windows, I do not cover these other operating systems in any detail; but do see Windows Files and Volumes, which discusses backing up Windows when it's running on your Intel-based Mac.
Quick Start to Mac OS X Backups
You can read this book in any order, but I recommend starting with Decide on a Basic Backup Strategy in order to understand the rationale behind the hardware, software, and setup advice I give later. Here are the components of a solid Mac OS X backup plan:
Decide on a backup strategy:
Understand the crucial differences between a duplicate (a complete and usually bootable copy of your hard disk) and an archive (containing multiple copies of files as they existed at various points in time)—and why a good backup strategy includes both. See The Duplicate and The Archive.
Learn the value of using a single system to back up all the Macs in your home or office in Backing up a Small Network.
Find out how to deal with backup needs that don't fit neatly into the duplicate or archive categories in Consider Special Backup Needs. As appropriate, read about Dealing with Huge Volumes of Data, Version Control, Backing up While Traveling, and Windows Files and Volumes.
Choose your hardware:
Learn the pros and cons of each media type (from CD-R to hard disks) and how to estimate the amount of storage space you'll need. See Choose Your Hardware.
Discover what's new (or newly affordable) in the world of Internet Backup Services.
Choose your software:
Find out what to look for when comparing backup applications. See Choose Your Software for a feature overview, and then consult the Online Appendixes for details and sources (if you are reading on paper, note that the URL is given in Finding the Online Appendixes, p. 4).
If you're tempted to eschew commercial backup tools and create your own command-line backup script, read Appendix A: Unix-Based Backup Systems for a reality check.
Set up your backup system:
Make a bootable copy of your hard disk and test it to make sure it works with the advice in Set Up and Create Your First Duplicate and Test Your Duplicate.
Configure an archive for your most frequently used data files, and verify that you can retrieve stored files. See Set Up and Create Your First Archives and Test Your Archive. (If you're using Time Machine for archives, read the extensive new section Configure and use Time Machine, p. 132)
Put your backups on autopilot so your files are protected even when you aren't paying attention. Refer to Automate Your Backups.
Learn how and where to store backup media, and discover what to do with the media when it gets full. See Mind Your Media.
If disaster strikes and you need to recover files, be sure you're familiar with the steps in Restore Data from a Backup.
Version 3.0 of Take Control of Mac OS X Backups is a major revision from the previous version (2.1) with extensive modifications throughout. The biggest changes are these:
Complete coverage of Time Machine and Time Capsule
A new section on schedule-free backups
Expanded advice on dealing with huge volumes of data
Significant updates to the Choosing a hard drive section
A new section on RAIDs
Thoroughly revised and expanded information on Internet backup services
A new section called Hardware You Shouldn't Consider and Why
A near-total overhaul of the Choose Your Software section, with extensive new information, updated advice, and profiles of several popular backup programs
An expanded glossary
Finding the Online Appendixes
Some content that was previously in appendixes has been moved to the Web at:
Joe's Guide to Mac Backup Software: This appendix is now hugely expanded, and it compares nearly 100 different backup applications. It was moved online to make it easier to update.
Retrospect Primer: This appendix provides procedures for setting up duplicates and archives in Retrospect Desktop and Retrospect Express, along with a brief look at Retrospect's terminology, logic, and interface. It was moved online to keep the size of this book more manageable; now that so many more options exist for making backups, it seemed somewhat out-of-scope to devote over 20 pages to the aging Retrospect.
Does the book cover backups strategies for large businesses?
No, the book focuses on backup strategies for single computers and small networks but does not cover the specific needs of large, institutional networks.
Backups shouldn't be so complicated! Do you have anything that explains backups in a shorter, simpler way?
For folks who want to make backups in Leopard, but would prefer to not explore as many options, we have Take Control of Easy Backups in Leopard, also by Joe Kissell. It takes a focussed look at Leopard-based backups, covering Time Machine in detail, but also providing guidance if you need a backup feature not offered by Time Machine, such as a bootable duplicate.
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Tad Taylor writes:
An excellent resource for figuring out the best backup strategy for myself and my family. I really appreciate Joe's opinions on tradeoffs and choices. It makes the whole thing much more useful.
Robert Bowman commented:
This was just about the best money I ever spent... Joe's ebook gave me just what I needed.
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