[AMF]

Pardon my ignorance on this, but is there a difference between "copying" and "backing up"? I have a imac G5 with OS X and I want to back up my photos and music to an external hard drive. In iTunes, it seems that I can just copy my songs to the drive, but in Kodak EasyShare there is an actual backup command.

Is there any difference?

Thanks!

[besson3c]

Nope, a copy can be thought of as a backup, and vice versa.

[SSharon]

There are some apps where you want to back up more than just the media though. At least to me, backing up the mp3s in itunes isn't enough. I backup the xml file that keeps track of playcounts etc.

When I see backup I take it to mean everything. Copy is a little dumbed down to me in that it only copies what you tell it to which may not be everything you want.

[PER3]

My understanding is that copying is just that, and can be your entire boot disk, while backing up can mean, after the initial backup, just updating new files on the backup to save time.

[TETENAL]

Backup and copy is in principle the same. People use the word "backup" when they systematically copy their files for the purpose of creating a fallback copy. "Copy" might be done for other purposes as well.

How to back up your media in iTunes