>I am wondering what the best way to back up my system is. I have a >mac mini and have about 10,000 photos >and some iTunes songs I would want backed up. ... Any thoughts about >an external hard drive (which ones are good and at what price)?
programs The "obvious" way to back-up is to copy everything periodically. This is tricker than it sounds because some files are "invisible." However, Carbon Copy Cloner copies everything (or what you select) to a disk image. http://forums.bombich.com/ Stuffit obviously copies and compresses visible files to any location you choose, and will encrypt. Overwrite or retain old back-ups as you wish. If you want an external boot disk, do not compress your System folder (or System Folder), and do not compress Stuffit, which you will need to unstuff what you have compressed. You may either copy folders of files, or individual files. Copying folders takes more machine time, but less user time. In contrast, Dantz Retrospect copies everything the first time, then copies files that have changed. It never erases, so you create an ever-growing file of everything you ever had. Dantz will compress or not as you wish. Dantz recommends starting over periodically. Retrospect and Retrospect Express are not free! and I have not enjoyed my (attempted) exchanges with Dantz, but many consider Retrospect "the best." IIRC Express backs up to HDDs, CDs, DVDs, but tape drives, which must periodically stop, rewind, and restart. media CDs are slow and don't hold much, so I must sit by the computer and put in a new one every 20 minutes, for e.g. 20 CDs. If you periodically start over, as Dantz recommends, you must re-copy all your old files, wasting CDs and time. If you do not, you generate archives of e.g. 200 CDs with your life history on them. DVDs hold much more, tho less than HDDs or tape. I'm told double layer DVDs hold roughly twice as much as others, but write slowly. I have not used DVDs; you may still have to sit by the computer and swap media periodically. HDDs are big, cheap and fast. No sitting by the computer. Look for the lowest price per byte, which in my experience will be neither the smallest nor the largest drives. If you schedule back-ups at nite, HDD speed won't matter. Tape: Tapes hold gigabytes, so you need not sit by your computer swapping media every 20 minutes. That said, I have tried at least three TRAVAN tape drives and at least 100 TRAVAN tapes. I used Retrospect to back up onto tape. It costs significantly more than Retrospect Express. I have never had a clean back-up onto tape. I have returned perhaps 50 tapes to their manufacturers, who replace new for old, and advise that most tapes are not really defective. I infer that many have problems backing up to tape. Anyone wanting to try backing up to tape please contact me. Corrections invited. Nelson Helm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.math.louisville.edu/pipermail/macgroup/attachments/20051106/dabf4906/attachment.html
