[Velocity211]

I want to make a clone of my hard drive and instead of the data being stored on another HD, I want the data is stored on DVDs. But the problem is that I don't know what software to use to do this. I use Norton Ghost for my Windows Boxes. What applications can I use to do this?

[Kristoff]

you can just use Disk Utility to make a disk image, or try Carbon Copy Cloner

[Velocity211]

Can Disk Utility make an exact copy of my HD onto a disc? Like if my HD gets corrupted, can I copy the data from the discs back to the hard drive and it will boot up? Also will it burn to Double layer DVDs?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Velocity211

Can Disk Utility make an exact copy of my HD onto a disc? Like if my HD gets corrupted, can I copy the data from the discs back to the hard drive and it will boot up? Also will it burn to Double layer DVDs?

Disk Utility will make the image of your entire computer, if your burning software will burn to Double layer DVDs, you are set.

However, this approach to backing up is pretty impractical as it will take you a long time to do this semi-regularly. If you are moving to a new Mac, there is a migration assistant that will assist you in pulling over your files.

In general, it's best to just add your personal files and apps on top of the OS installed. It's faster and cleaner this way. This is exactly what the Migration Assistant will do in transferring to a new Mac. For backup, I suggest only backing up your home directory, as apps are easily replaceable and consume a lot of space.

[krx]

Originally Posted by besson3c

Disk Utility will make the image of your entire computer, if your burning software will burn to Double layer DVDs, you are set.

However, this approach to backing up is pretty impractical as it will take you a long time to do this semi-regularly. If you are moving to a new Mac, there is a migration assistant that will assist you in pulling over your files.

In general, it's best to just add your personal files and apps on top of the OS installed. It's faster and cleaner this way. This is exactly what the Migration Assistant will do in transferring to a new Mac. For backup, I suggest only backing up your home directory, as apps are easily replaceable and consume a lot of space.

Okay, but what if your total hard drive is about 20 gigs, as is mine - apps & all, and your backup disk is 250 gigs? Once you've put in the time over months if not years to get your system running the way you want it, doesn't it make sense to keep a fully functional and current copy of it?

I have had more than one hard drive go bad on me and, though I've never lost much data, each time it costs me a couple weeks or more of all my liesure time getting myself up and fully running as before - what w/myriad downloads and upgrades and tweaking this and that... It's a royal pain and not a small stressor.

I guess the ? is, if you have the disk space, why not do say a monthly backup of the entire hard drive - and just keep it separate from a daily or weekly "incremental" backup (daily or weekly depending on how much work you can afford to lose) of your home folder (assuming this is where everything you're working on is stored)?

I have been trying to figure this whole backup thing out. Right now I'm thinking of adding a 250 gig NAS and Retrospect or maybe Silverfish to automate nightly incremental backups. This might not handle the monthly hard drive backup, but I figure I can handle that manually if I have to (though I'm still not clear how best to do this). I am also a little unclear about whether there's a reasonably priced (and fairly user friendly - I'm no techno whiz) NAS out there; people seem to report a lot of limitations and problems w/them.

[OCStingFan]

I too am interested in this issue. It seems no one has added to this thread in a while. KRX makes a great point in that it is a pain to reinstall all one's favorite apps and reg. codes, fonts, utilities, etc. due to a hard drive crash. So it's not just data that needs backing up (although I agree that should be done as a separate priority task). How can one best clone one's set-up (i.e. a restore point) onto DVD or another HD, in case one wants to go back to that baseline point and proceed from there?

[MacMatt]

I use SuperDuper periodically to clone my main HD to a backup HD. The first time took a half hour or longer...subsequent backups generally take around 5 minutes. It makes exact bootable copies each time.

SuperDuper can also make sparseimages of a smaller HD onto a larger HD. The sparseimage can then be used to backup to without tieing up the entire backup HD...or the image (by using Disk Utility) can be burned to a DVD, if small enough. The good thing here is the sparseimage will automatically grow to accommodate more data as the HD is added to.

Matt

[OreoCookie]

Cloning is not a good backup strategy. It's a disastrous backup strategy if that is your only means to back up data. I have a 100 GB drive in my ProBook, and two external harddrives (400 GB and 250 GB) sitting on my desk. I would need roughly 20 DVDs (single layer, less expensive, burn faster) to copy all of my data onto disks.

Instead, you should (1) select the data you really need to back up, (2) select various means to store backups and (3) respective intervals to back up data.

An example:

I have four different types of data and two different means to back them up:

Data:

1. OS X: I don't back up my OS X installation at all. That's what I have the install disks for.
2. Applications: I have bought a few apps online, so I have their registration keys in my e-mail database. You can download them and there is no need to back them up. There are other apps that I don't need to back up at all, e. g. my copy of Office 2001 and PS7 (yes, that's right, the first version that ran (barely) on OS X).
3. low priority data: that's mainly my music and some of my movies. Since I have access to the DVDs or most of the CDs, I would lose very little. Plus, my music library doesn't really change that much over the course of months.
4. Documents: my documents, photos and my mail database change very frequently -- well, at least parts of it.

Means to back up:

1. External harddrives: I have two external harddrives, one for photos and media, the other for documents.
2. DVDs

My backup solution (far from perfect):

1. I copy Priority (4) data onto my external harddrives in regular intervals. I should use a backup utility, and I did, but Tivoli storage manager has an ugly UI -- and I don't need a backup tool since Leopard supposedly fills this gap elegantly.
2. I burn two DVDs once a month: the first contains my documents, the second one my mail database.
3. Every three to four months, I copy my music onto one of my external harddrives.
4. Every six to twelve months, I burn DVDs with my entire music collection.

Last year, I've had three (!) harddrive failures and all I have lost was three files, all of them non-essential. I know my solution isn't perfect, but I wanted to illustrate a few points: first of all, choose several different means to back up. Different media have different types of uses. Burning DVDs takes a lot of time and they can effectively hold only 4.5 GB of data (4.7 GB raw). DL DVDs almost double that figure, but they are a lot more expensive -- and face it: 8.5 GB is still a joke if you compare it to modern desktop harddrive capacities.

It's actually cheaper to get external harddrives -- if you include the manpower: I've gotten a 400 GB drive + enclosure for 110-120 Euros last month. For that price, I could have gotten 8x25 DVD+Rs. That's twice as much storage, but how long does it take to prepare and burn 100 DVDs? DVDs should only be used for (i) important data you need offsite and/or (ii) less frequent backups.

External harddrives keep your data safe while still retaining several other advantages: (i) it's more comfortable (ii), `unlimited storage capacity' and (iii) it's faster. A lot faster. So for most frequent backups, you should use external harddrives (be it in the form of an NAS, a server volume or whatever). For less frequent backups of select data DVDs still make a lot of sense.

Cloning is not a good idea in this case, because it treats all your data the same. It seems like it's less work to just clone a drive and re-clone from the backup if you need to restore your computer. (There are case where cloning drives is very useful, but this is IMHO not one of them.) Especially if your clone sits on DVDs, it'll be painfully slow, much slower than just installing OS X from the install discs and configure your system manually.