[MikeD]

I was just curious how efficient and effective this program is. I know it backs up in increments which I think is a great idea but does it inefficiently use HD space (I'm backing up to an external HD). Let's say I do my first full backup. Then later on, before the next scheduled backup, I delete some large files. Will those files still be in past backups files? Does backup take into account the fact that you may delete files when 'cleaning' up your system? Or does it only reflect that in the newest incremental backup? I hope this makes sense as I'm thinking that with an infinite number of incremental backups, we would need an infinite amound of HD space!

[TETENAL]

Files you delete of course stay in the backup. That's the whole purpose of having a backup in the first place.

[MikeD]

So then with backup, if you need to save on HD space, then you would need to erase all backups and start fresh again? Does anyone run out of HD space when backing up? let's say your first back up is at 100gb, then each incremental backup is about 100mb... sooner or later..... no more HD. What do people usually do? This is my first time using an HD dedicated to backups rather than CD/DVDs

[jyunderwood]

check out the quick tour movie. Apple .Mac - Quick Tours - Backup

My understanding is it creates a new file (really just a package) for each backup. so if you have a 2GB file and back it up on 10/01/06, 10/02/06 and again on 10/03/06 each backup will be 2GB and the total will be 6GB.

If you want something more efficient you might want to look in to SVN. a screencast can be downloaded here Clickable Bliss - Introduction to Subversion Screencast

[zerostar]

in Apple's Backup each incremental backup is just the changed files.

I highly recommend sync 6 which is what I use at home and work. The home version is just $25 and has saved my files a million times.

Decimus Software, Inc.

On my external drive there is a folder called Backups inside there is Home Folder and old file versions.

Synk backs up my current state of my home folder to the "Home Folder" directory then when a file moves, or changes adds the old file to the "old file versions" folder those are stored by date and I keep 2 months worth of older files since I have plenty of space. You can also choose to archive the old versions each run.

Things I like about synk are:

1) keeps my main backup in the same format as my home folder, not in a package a compressed archive or some proprietary thing. If I ruin a file or delete one on accident I can go right to the backup drive and pull the file back, no long restore rutine, its great. If I need to go back to a version a few weeks ago I can go by date and pull from there

2) It uses a feature called "ZeroScan" basically if you have it turned on, the first backup scans the drive the next backups only pickup the changed files, my backups take about 20 seconds each night (its so quick I run it twice a day just to be safe!)

3) super-easy to use, setup your destination folder and it is drag and drop, setup a schedule and its done!

4) you can see what's being backed-up, as opposed to the apple program where you don't know what's in those archives until you try to restore and realize you left something out!

5) reliable - I have been using it since its release and using the current version in beta since early this year, its finally version 6 final and runs great! I rely on this program to backup our art server at work and at $45 for the pro version it is a steal.

Lastly, if you don't want to spend the $25 keep using apple backup since Time machine in leopard is basically the same as synk but a prettier interface.

As for me I will stick with Synk cause 1) our work server is still on 10.3.9 server, and 2 Synk is much more flexible and its improving each version!

[macrophyllum]

Just wait until Time Machine. Just kidding, I use Backup to safe gaurd all of my most important documents. It works great.