At 11/12/03 5:45 PM -0500, Charles Martin wrote:
While I am mightily heartened to see someone who takes backing up their important data so seriously, I respectfully suggest that you are overthinking the problem.
You know what, you're right. My wife's always telling me that I overthink things and I always retort with "it's better to be safe than sorry". Without the research and thinking (or overthinking as the case may be) I won't know what's best. I probably am overthinking it, but I just want to do what's best.
An external FW hard drive of similar or greater capacity than the internal drive, and a copy of Carbon Copy Cloner.
The more I research this, the more I come to believe that that is the best solution.
Is my user directory ALL that I need to backup?
If you haven't added any third-party fonts or other such items that sit outside the User folder, and you're willing to restore all your Applications from the original CDs (in the event of a total hard drive failure), then probably so.
I guess with an external FW hard drive the above point becomes moot. I haven't installed any fonts so that's not a consideration, but how would I know if I have any items that sit outside the User folder?
This is where I think the hard drive approach really shines. Let's say you do a daily backup of changed files. One day, you come in to work and the hard drive won't start up. It might be something easy to fix, but you don't have time, you're on deadline. Simply make the machine boot up from the other drive (cmd-shift-opt-delete) and you are RIGHT BACK WHERE YOU WERE. No hours of "restoring." Little or nothing lost, and you can put the problem out of the way for a while until you have time to work on it.
That does sound like a distinct advantage!
Retrospect (and RE) were great products in their day, I suppose, but over the years I got fed up with the constant "breaking" every time Apple so much as sneezed a minor system update, and the sometimes long delays in getting a "patched" version out. For users with very light backup needs and no .Mac account, Retrospect or Retrospect Express might still be the best "bang for the buck." But with hard drive prices now in the ludicrous stage, I can't see the value much anymore. I can buy a 120GB external FW hard drive for what it would cost me to buy a copy of Retrospect Express.
It's looks like the current version of Retrospect (5.1 I think) has some problems/issues with Panther (10.3).
The problem with Retro Express now is that the restoration takes forever. With a clone backup, there IS no restore operation -- you just boot it and go.
I believe that Retrospect also can do this now, it's called a "Duplicate" and it's bootable. You can also, still do the traditional "Backup" where it keeps all the various versions in a compressed file. I understand that each has it's advantages and disadvantages.
Clearly you have not discovered the pleasures of internet music, video or porn! :)
I have ripped a few of my CDs to the HD and intend to do more in the days ahead, so I'm sure that the space will start filling up. Also, with not having a backup strategy for the FP iMac yet I haven't moved anything over from the Bondi Blue. I've only been using it for email and surfing, but that'll change as soon as I get an external FW hard drive. 8)
I don't intend to sound patronising, but it's really much simpler under OS X than you think! I'd suggest you just go the "clone then synch" route that CCC offers (Retrospect may offer this too, I've given up on it so I don't know about the latest versions). Once a week or fortnight I do a complete clone of my main drive, then I do a daily synch. It takes very little time and the benefits (which I've already spelled out) keep me productive.
Now, that you've taken the time to help me with all this I'll have to say that I agree. It was the not really knowing what's what, that was giving me the hard time. Now, that I have a better idea, I think I'll go ahead with the external FW hard drive idea. Thanks!
-- Regards,
Allen ------------------------------------------------------------------------- iMac (Flat Panel)/G4 1GHz/256MB RAM/80GB HD/Super Drive/Mac OS X 10.2.8 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- iMac (Rev. B/Bondi Blue)/G3 233MHz/160MB RAM/4GB HD/CD-ROM/Mac OS 8.6 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Performa 600CD/68030 32MHz/20MB RAM/160MB HD/CD-ROM/Floppy/Mac OS 7.5 -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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