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ShotgunEd · Aug 31, 2005, 05:30 AM

Ok, long problem, probably an easy solution.

My dad has a G4 MDD, 120GB internal, 250GB Firewire external.

He wanted to update to 10.4.2 from 10.3.9 so he backed up everything onto the external drive.

He erased and installed on the internal, wanting to start a-fresh. He also has a 10.3.9 install on a seperate partition on the internal.

He rebooted in Tiger and messed about for a bit, migrated some preferences and user settings, but noticed something (i don't know the specifics) in photoshop wasn't working. He had some photos to get sent off so he rebooted in 10.3.9 only to see the firewire disk wasn't showing up on the desktop, or in the sidebar or in Disk Utility.

He unplugged the disk and tried it in his pismo, one of the partitions mounted, the other didn't, Disk Utility said the disk had problems that couldn't be repaired.

Anyways, he managed to get the stuff off it with DataRescue, but he wants to prevent this type of incident happenning again.

The External came with Restrospect, but it works on a one button press backup thing where it creates a backup file from which you can only restore from, not retrieve individual files from. I haven't played with the preferences, maybe this can be changed.

He has bought 2 new HDs.

Another internal 120GB and another 250GB External.

He wants to synchronise the 2 work disks with the 2 new disks.

I can think of a few ways to do this, either with RAID Mirroring, or using restrospect (if it can be configured. I suppose you could use Carbon Copy Cloner and manually do it too.

In pre-OSX, maybe just 9, there used to be a built in interface for synchronising 2 folders, where instead of replacing the backup, it will just update it with modified and new files.

Is there a way to do this in OSX, either built in, using the CLI or maybe with a 3rd party product?

Thanks,
I anticipate your responses.
Ross.

leperkuhn · Aug 31, 2005, 05:53 AM

I use chronosync to maintain backups of all my important stuff. You can schedule it on a timer, or triggered by certain events. I haven't had any problems with it, and I use it for several purposes I originally didn't intend to use it for.

chris v · Aug 31, 2005, 08:06 AM

Deja Vu is a good commercial, though not ridiculously expensive, product with a nice interface, which backs up individual files instead of one big compressed backup file. It's been working for me for a couple months, now.

ShotgunEd · Sep 6, 2005, 10:38 AM

Surprised I got so few responses, thanks to Chris V and leperkuhn.

It turns out Carbon Copy Cloner has a synchronize feature now and it can even be scheduled so I think he is going to use that.

OreoCookie · Sep 6, 2005, 11:23 AM

A regular cloning of drives is not a backup!
If you want a real (incremental) backup, try solutions like Retrospect instead.

ShotgunEd · Sep 7, 2005, 05:17 AM

Originally Posted by OreoCookie

A regular cloning of drives is not a backup!
If you want a real (incremental) backup, try solutions like Retrospect instead.

CCC has incremental cloning now (at least thats what my dad said).

And I already said we had tried Retrospect. Try reading the posts before replying.

OreoCookie · Sep 7, 2005, 06:50 AM

Originally Posted by ShotgunEd

CCC has incremental cloning now (at least thats what my dad said).

And I already said we had tried Retrospect. Try reading the posts before replying.

Missed that part, sorry.

But still, cloning -- be it incremental or not -- is not a backup.

There is a cli tool, rsync, but it doesn't work reliably yet. And also the incremental backup solution based on rsync, rdiff-backup, doesn't compile. As I use Tivoli storage manager for backups, I can't say how to configure Retrospect properly.

RAID mirroring is also not a backup, you won't be able to recover files which are damaged or accidentally deleted, it'll just protect you against failure of one drive. Ditto for synchronized folders (unless they keep a `history' of the contents).

ShotgunEd · Sep 7, 2005, 07:06 AM

Ah, i'm with you now. A synchronise will delete a file off the 'backup' if it is deleted off the original, whereas a true backup will not be modified in line with the original.

I think simple synchronisation fulfills his current need, but i'm gonna have to sit down with retrospect and learn how to use it.

Randman · Sep 7, 2005, 07:07 AM

If you have .Mac, Backup 3 is supposed to be very robust in this feature (and not just to an iDisk but to external hard drives or discs, or any combination thereof).

ShotgunEd · Sep 7, 2005, 07:10 AM

Is Backup 3 the one rumored to be coming with 10.4.3? Or is it current? We do have .mac.

Randman · Sep 7, 2005, 07:56 AM

It's supposed to be out any time, according to the rumor mills. Retrospect-like features and other backup/cloning stuff according to ThinkSecret.