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iMacfan · Dec 7, 2006, 08:31 PM

Hello all,

I'm still getting used to my Mac pro, and I realised recently that backing up my data would be a good idea. I've got in the machine three drives: the stock 250gig, a 300gig for music etc, and a 160 for windows. There's a great deal of free space on the drives, so I've bought myself a 500gig WD Mybook pro external drive. However, I'm just not sure how to go about backing up. CCC? Apple backup? Manually? Should I keep it PC formatted, or can I backup the windows drive into a backup archive on a Mac formatted disk. Should I partition it?

I really feel lost - so thank you to anyone who stops to help!

David.

iMacfan · Dec 7, 2006, 09:00 PM

Hi,

I'm not quite sure why my thread was moved, since it pertains to dealing with backing up the data on multiple internal drives - a feature only available on the Powermac and Mac Pro.

David

Philip J. Fry · Dec 7, 2006, 10:07 PM

Originally Posted by iMacfan

Hi,

I'm not quite sure why my thread was moved, since it pertains to dealing with backing up the data on multiple internal drives - a feature only available on the Powermac and Mac Pro.

David

I think since it was dealing with questions on apps rather than the computer is the reason, but no worries.

The best thing might be a program called Deja Vu, which allows you to backup on the fly and is pretty inexpensive.

iMacfan · Dec 8, 2006, 07:46 AM

OK,

Well, I've searched through a few options, and the first one that seems to have a decent UI is SuperDuper. The only problem is that it doesn't seem to want to recognise my windows drive - anyone know if this is possible, so I can back it up to a disk image on the Mac formatted drive?

David

OreoCookie · Dec 8, 2006, 09:21 AM

Cloning drives is not really a backup. SuperDuper allows for incremental backups -- which is the way to go.

indigoimac · Dec 8, 2006, 09:28 AM

I use a program called ChronoSync and I love it, lol. It is by far the greatest backup application I have found to date, the main feature that I like is its multitude of network backup features, it's definitely worth taking a look at.

CatOne · Dec 8, 2006, 01:37 PM

Originally Posted by OreoCookie

Cloning drives is not really a backup. SuperDuper allows for incremental backups -- which is the way to go.

Uh... it does? SuperDuper! is a cloning program. Where have I missed this new feature of incrementals?

Personally I use SD! to clone from one drive to another on my Quad G5. I also use ChronoSync to do archive backups (which does *not* delete stuff that's deleted on the primary, but rather moves it to an archive folder) as a second measure to force me to delete everything I *really* want to delete twice.

OreoCookie · Dec 8, 2006, 04:46 PM

AFAIK yes. However, don't use cloning as a backup strategy, at least not as your only primary backup strategy.

iMacfan · Dec 8, 2006, 07:08 PM

Thanks everyone for the feedback. Why is cloning a bad idea? And isn't incramental backups just updating a clone, making it quicker?

David

CatOne · Dec 8, 2006, 09:00 PM

Originally Posted by iMacfan

Thanks everyone for the feedback. Why is cloning a bad idea? And isn't incramental backups just updating a clone, making it quicker?

David

Cloning is a bad idea because it makes the "clone" identical to the original. If you accidentally delete a file (human error is the cause of over 40% of data loss), then the next time a clone occurs, the file will also be deleted from the backup (target) device. This is something you generally want to avoid.