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Backing up on a Mac


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I know this question was asked in the old forum but didn't have a chance to print it. So any advice or suggestion will be very much appreciated.

 
I am migrating from PC to Mac (when my order is actually delivered on Monday). 
 
Can anyone recommend 3rd party backup softwares/strategies for Mac?  I will need to backup the HD of Mac  (perhaps on a daily basis with incremental changes)  as well as the contents of external HDs (mostly images).
 
Thanks in advance.
 
Sung
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I use SuperDuper. It is very inexpensive and simple. I'm not great with computers and when I had questions a couple of times there was an email response within a couple of hours. It has something called "Smart Update" that will update without re-copying everything already copied. I keep a clone of my Mac hard drive and also an additional copy of my library of images.

 

Paulette

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Why not just use OSX's built in Time Machine backup? It does exactly what you want.

 

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427

 

 

Format an external disc in FAT 32 and copy all your photos, files, documents from your PC.

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/250431/how_to_share_an_external_drive_between_a_mac_and_a_pc.html

 

Then, copy them on your new MAC. For regular backups on Mac just use Time Machine.

 

I think I heard that Time Machine is not very good for high volume backups.  Is this true?

 

 

 

............. I keep a clone of my Mac hard drive and also an additional copy of my library of images.

 

Paulette

 

I like the idea of keeping a clone of mac HD.

 

Sung

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I have Time Machine on my iMac connected to an external Western Digital HD. It backs up automatically everyday. I have a second external HD which I connect once a month and back up files. The good thing about Macs is you can backup your software programs too, like LR and CS. I needed to use the code number to activate these programs on my new computer. I was moving from a Mac to a Mac, however. 

 

Good luck.

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I use Carbon Copy Cloner, which I have found to be reliable. The same license can be applied to several machines. Clones are in native format and can easily be searched. Preferences can be set to keep previously deleted files for a time, which comes in handy when a file is accidentally deleted or a glitch throws it out.

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Another vote for Carbon Copy Cloner.  I've had it installed for several years and it does its job perfectly.  Set it to back-up once per day (at 10pm in my case) and forget about it.  You end up with two hard drives with exactly the same set of files and folders on each.  You can also use it to copy the contents of one hard drive to another as required, such as when you are going away and want to make a copy on a portable drive to give to a friend or relative, etc.  The author asks for a donation once you are happy with it but the amount is up to you. 

 

Chris

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Thank you for sharing your experience, everyone.  I do appreciate it.

 

Another vote for Carbon Copy Cloner.  I've had it installed for several years and it does its job perfectly.  Set it to back-up once per day (at 10pm in my case) and forget about it.  You end up with two hard drives with exactly the same set of files and folders on each.  You can also use it to copy the contents of one hard drive to another as required, such as when you are going away and want to make a copy on a portable drive to give to a friend or relative, etc.  The author asks for a donation once you are happy with it but the amount is up to you. 

 

Chris

 

Hi Chris, I visited their website.  Things change. They are now charge £25.95 to purchase.

 

Sung

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I use Super Duper on my MacBook, this is roughly my backup routine -

 

Buy a HD drive that are identical to the internal drive.

 

Buy a HD USB enclosures to fit the drive.

 

Use Super Duper to make exact copy of the HD to the drive and make sure it makes it bootable.

 

This way you have an exact copy of your HD and it's bootable, so if your HD fails you can be up and running either instantly (by booting from the external HD) or within 5 minutes (by replacing the internal HD with the external).

 

My HD has been replaced 3 times like this and never lost anything and been back up and running within minutes.

 

I tend to keep a spare HD as well, then if my HD fails and I swap it out for the external, the spare HD goes into the enclosure and I carry on.

 

Dave

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Thank you for sharing your experience, everyone.  I do appreciate it.

 

Another vote for Carbon Copy Cloner.  I've had it installed for several years and it does its job perfectly.  Set it to back-up once per day (at 10pm in my case) and forget about it.  You end up with two hard drives with exactly the same set of files and folders on each.  You can also use it to copy the contents of one hard drive to another as required, such as when you are going away and want to make a copy on a portable drive to give to a friend or relative, etc.  The author asks for a donation once you are happy with it but the amount is up to you. 

 

Chris

 

Hi Chris, I visited their website.  Things change. They are now charge £25.95 to purchase.

 

Sung

Sorry to mislead you - it shows how long I've been using it!  In any case, I'd still recommend it for the price.

 

Chris

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So what are the advantages of these 3rd party programs over Time Machine?

 

I just do frequent manual backups of my images and data to external drives, and I always have a copy or two offsite in case of fire or theft. Possibly tempting fate but I've been running the same MacPro for over 4 years with 3 upgrades of the OS and I've never had to reinstall the OS from scratch yet - unlike my previous experiences of Windows (XP) when I used to do a clean install once a year. The Mac OS is very stable in comparison to Windows in my experience - maybe because it is designed specifically for the hardware it runs on.

 

If my system drive was to die, then I'd just reinstall. Inconvenient but a few hours and you're back uo and running. Backing up the data is the most important however it's done and making sure there is at least one copy offsite - the images are completely irreplaceable.

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So what are the advantages of these 3rd party programs over Time Machine?

 

I started with that question as I heard (can't remember where & when, but while ago) Time Machine was not for high volume backup.  As I said it was a while ago when I started to think about migrating from pc to mac, but the improvement on that issue might have been made since.

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So what are the advantages of these 3rd party programs over Time Machine?

 

I started with that question as I heard (can't remember where & when, but while ago) Time Machine was not for high volume backup.  As I said it was a while ago when I started to think about migrating from pc to mac, but the improvement on that issue might have been made since.

I saw you say that above but I'm not sure what is meant really.

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Where is there info about Time Machine and high volume backups? I did a full backup and restore of my MB Air due to a Windows (Bootcamp) partition glitch with no problem.

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Hi TABan & MDM

 

I am not sure.  That's why I said 'I think I heard...'  I use computers but I am not very technical that's why I seek for help in the forum as most of the time my queries are answered by other contributors.

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The only reason I use Super Duper over Time Machine is that I purchased Super Duper before Time Machine was available, so stuck with it and have never looked at Time Machine.

 

As I have had HD failures and my method works, I have never looked to change it.

 

Dave

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I use Super Duper on my MacBook, this is roughly my backup routine -

 

Buy a HD drive that are identical to the internal drive.

 

Buy a HD USB enclosures to fit the drive.

 

Use Super Duper to make exact copy of the HD to the drive and make sure it makes it bootable.

 

This way you have an exact copy of your HD and it's bootable, so if your HD fails you can be up and running either instantly (by booting from the external HD) or within 5 minutes (by replacing the internal HD with the external).

 

My HD has been replaced 3 times like this and never lost anything and been back up and running within minutes.

 

I tend to keep a spare HD as well, then if my HD fails and I swap it out for the external, the spare HD goes into the enclosure and I carry on.

 

Dave

 

 

Just as an aside, I wonder why you are having to replace internal hard drives so many times - are these all on the same MacBook? I replaced the internal drive on my (teenage) son's 2009 MacBook Pro a few years ago, as it died a very slow death but gave plenty of warning that there was something amiss when it started to run incredibly slowly. I didn't know what was happening at first until I booted it from an external drive and it ran normally. Otherwise I've never seen a Mac internal drive fail. I've had a Western DIgital portable drive fail - it didn't like being dropped on the floor.

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Just as an aside, I wonder why you are having to replace internal hard drives so many times - are these all on the same MacBook? I replaced the internal drive on my (teenage) son's 2009 MacBook Pro a few years ago, as it died a very slow death but gave plenty of warning that there was something amiss when it started to run incredibly slowly. I didn't know what was happening at first until I booted it from an external drive and it ran normally. Otherwise I've never seen a Mac internal drive fail. I've had a Western DIgital portable drive fail - it didn't like being dropped on the floor.

 

I only know about one time where my laptop fell off the bed and it wouldn't boot. The other 2 times I heard clicking and everything was taking ages to load, on trying to reboot it wouldn't pickup the HD.

 

Laptop was bought in 2007 and am still using it everyday for photography and developing iOS apps on it.

 

Dave

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Why not just use OSX's built in Time Machine backup? It does exactly what you want.

 

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427

 

 

>Format an external disc in FAT 32 and copy all your photos, files, documents from your PC.

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/250431/how_to_share_an_external_drive_between_a_mac_and_a_pc.html

 

Then, copy them on your new MAC. For regular backups on Mac just use Time Machine.

 

I think I heard that Time Machine is not very good for high volume backups.  Is this true?

 

 

 

............. I keep a clone of my Mac hard drive and also an additional copy of my library of images.

 

Paulette

 

I like the idea of keeping a clone of mac HD.

 

Sung

 

I'm sorry to be late to this, but I'm going to vote for the Mac's built-in Time Machine too.  It's easy to set up, and performs reliably.

 

I'd also like to respond to the query about Time Machine and high volume backups.  I have Time Machine backing up both my Mac HD and my photo drive (an external HD) to a 2TB HD (I'm running a MacBook Pro from 2008, so not the fastest machine these days).  There are times when there is a lot of change to the photos drive, and there are a number of very large files out there - panoramas in .psb files - that range up to 7GB each.  Time Machine handles it all, and in my opinion, very well.  It has rescued me many, many times.  The only change I'd really like to make is a larger HD for Time Machine so it can keep backups going further back.

 

I like the coordination between Finder and Time Machine.  If I'm in Bridge and decide I need to recover a file, I right-click on the thumbnail in Bridge, select "Reveal in Finder" from the pop-up menu to open a Finder window with the associated file already selected.  Next I enter Time Machine which automatically goes to the most recent backup of the same file that was selected in Finder, scroll further back to the copy I want to restore and I'm done.

 

Regards

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