On Nov 6, 2011, at 2:17 PM, Bill Rising wrote: > 1. I currently use SuperDuper! so that I can have a bootable backup. Time > Machine does not make bootable backups. Do most people use both methods of > backup, or do you rely on booting from a (now user-made) install disk + Time > Machine? > > 2. I would like to backup wirelessly, so backups can happen w/o intervention. > Time Machine seems simple for this. Has anyone done this over a period of > time and been happy? [Something makes me think Lee has done this, but I'm not > sure of his happiness level.]
Here's what I do. There are two backup methods here. • The two desktop computers are backed up by wire with Time Machine to a software RAID in the Linux server down the basement. The Linux machine advertises the RAID volume using Netatalk, so it looks and behaves just like an Appleshare server. • We have three Mac laptops. They are wirelessly backed up with Time Machine to a 1.5TB Seagate USB drive plugged into an Airport Extreme. The Seagate is partitioned into three volumes: one for each of the laptops' Time Machine needs. > 3. Having a redundant RAID seems like a good idea (though pricey). Drobos > cost $399, and are really made for 4 drives (but will make a redundant raid > starting with 2 drives) [1]. I've long thought about getting a dedicated RAID box, but what I have works fine and it does a lot of other stuff besides: MythTV backend, local file sharing, front end for SSH logins to the house from the WAN, etc. > 4. Quite a ways back, Lee had mentioned that he used Seagate Constellation ES > drives in a RAID for keeping his household's data backed up, but he does not > use a Drobo. A question for Lee: do you have enclosures made for RAIDs or do > you buy one-drive enclosures and set up the RAID by hand? They're inside the Linux box. I got a big case that now contains four drives. Two of them are RAIDed into a backup volume, one is the MythTV backend store and the last is the main Linux boot drive and local file share. > 4.1 A followup, also to Lee...if the RAID is set up by hand, how difficult is > it to do and to maintain? It's not very hard. The machine is running Ubuntu Linux with the standard mdadm software RAID setup. If you Google on mdadm and Ubuntu, you'll find quite a few pages about setting it up. > 5. When looking this up on the web, it seemed like wireless backup works only > with USB drives hanging off the router (a not-quite-the-latest Apple Airport > Extreme). Having a faster drive would not help, because the wireless speeds > are slower still. If I get new enclosure(s), is it a waste of money to get > fancier (firewire, esata) busses? If all you're going to use it for is backup to the Airport, you can get by with a cheaper box because Apple doesn't support USB3 on anything, and all the faster and newer boxes are USB3 capable. If there is a chance you'll be using the box on non-Apple equipment, I'd lean toward the USB3 stuff because it's a lot faster into a USB3 machine, while still being backward compatible with USB2. > I suppose this is actually quite a lot of questions, but if anyone has > experience, that would be more valuable than searching the web and finding > (as I have already) reviews from people who used the devices for at most a > week before writing a glowing review. Any tips would be greatly appreciated. You should have done this a month or so ago because hard drive prices are going through the roof due to the flooding in Thailand. _______________________________________________ MacGroup mailing list [email protected] http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup
