I'd have to second that recommendation for Acronis. Been backing up to a secondary hdd for years. Acronis has served me well and saved me on I don't know how many occasions.
Speaking of backups, does anyone have any familiarity with Apple Time Machine? My son picked up a new MacBook Pro with a 500G drive. His old MacBook had a 120G drive. He has a supported Verbatim drive 120G I believe, that he used for bsckup on the old machine. He wants to use that 120G drive to backup his new laptop. He's only used 30G out of 500G. So in theory I'd think it would work. But Apple says no. Can't backup a larger drive to a smaller drive. Anyone have any experiences with this? Thoughts or insight? Bill Sent from my iPhone On Sep 20, 2011, at 12:15 PM, Joshua MacCraw <[email protected]> wrote: > Where to backup is likely to external hdd given how cheap drives are. Don't > waste time on fastest drive since its offline storage. > > Software I'd recommend Acronis TIH. There is a free version but it lacks > compression. > On Sep 20, 2011 11:22 AM, "Bino Gopal" <[email protected]> wrote: >> Soooo.yes I know I'm going to sound like an idiot, but let's just say I > have >> my own idiosyncratic ways of doing things and I get set in them, but I am >> trying to make a change and be better about some of this stuff (it's slow >> going, but at least it's going!). >> >> >> >> To that point, I haven't really backed up my stuff, and I have 5 laptops >> with data on them, and 1 home PC (well two if I count the really old P3 > from >> 2000 that still has stuff I need). Figuring I should really get on this >> before things get worse (I thought my main PC had died the other day, and >> the drives are configured in RAID 0 and I realize reconstructing that >> would've been a major pain, right Tim? ;P) and get this stuff backed up! >> >> >> >> So what's the easiest way to do this? I guess I could use a cloud service >> and let it run in the background, but I've got TBs of stuff, and there's >> that Seattle guy who got shut down by Comcast b/c he exceeded his quota by >> uploading stuff to the cloud >> http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/07/seattle-comcast/, and I don't want > to >> run afoul of Time Warner b/c they're the only fast internet game in my > town. >> >> >> >> Which leaves me with local backup options. I figure I can get like a 2-3TB >> drive and use my BlackX external USB (tho eSATA would be preferable but > most >> of my laptops don't have it-in fact none do *sigh*) and just backup over > USB >> (at least the newer laptops with more data on them are USB 2.0!) and > that's >> my best option. >> >> >> >> The only question at this point is what software (if any) I should use? I >> don't mind paying for something if it's that much better and will make my >> life easier-ease of use is worth it for me now, so good features are >> welcome! Or should I just copy C:\ in Explorer over to the new drive and >> backup each computer separately that way? Thoughts, advice, comments, >> opinions all welcome guys! >> >> >> >> >> BINO >> >> >>
