Backup Software - Naive question re: Mac Backup (Silverkeeper)

Author

Naive question re: Mac Backup (Silverkeeper)

David G. Imber

2005-12-10, 7:46 am

I hope you'll forgive a very elementary question for Mac
people from a PC person.

My wife uses a Mac running OS 9.22. I've just purchased a
LaCie external hard drive for her data security. It comes with backup
software called Silverkeeper, with which I'm sure many are familiar.

I want to make backing up as easy as possible for her, and
since I'm not that well-versed in Mac computers, if something were to
go way wrong with her hard drive, I'd need to get her up and running
as quickly as possible.

My question is this: She has a total of less than five
gigabytes of data to secure. I believe I can just plug the LaCie into
her Firewire port, and copy her entire hard drive over in a matter of
minutes. Were her main hard drive to fail, I suspect I could just
throw a new one in, copy her hard drive back from the LaCie, and she'd
be back in business. I assume I could even run the computer from the
external drive.

I know it would be terribly inefficient, but instead of having
her deal with daily incremental backups, is there a distinct
disadvantage to having her simply copy over her previous day's hard
disk contents every day?

I understand the functionality of backup and mirror software
in PC's, owing to their hardware dependencies from disk to disk,
machine to machine.

But with Macs, why is mirroring or backing up via software
even necessary, apart from the fact that it allows for only
incremental changes to be registered?

Again, sorry if this question seems laughable. It's asked in
earnest, and I can believe that I might be missing something obvious.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

DGI

(PeteCresswell)

2005-12-10, 7:46 am

Per David G. Imber:
> I know it would be terribly inefficient, but instead of having
>her deal with daily incremental backups, is there a distinct
>disadvantage to having her simply copy over her previous day's hard
>disk contents every day?

Anything is better than nothing.

Downsides?

Corrupted files. If/when a file becomes damaged or the data is just messed up
by the operator, you'll just be copying the bad file over and over again. With
a decent backup utility, you'll have access to many old versions of a given
file.

The hassle factor. Five gigs takes awhile. It's easy and natural to avoid
tasks that don't seem to have any immediate utility. Doing incrementals would
be much faster.

Convenience. With a good backup utility the task could be scheduled to happen
when nobody is on the PC - and, with at least some backup utilities, the PC
could be turned off after the backup runs.

Finally, if the data is important I'd suggest at least two, maybe three or four
backup drives for a couple of reasons:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) So that you can rotate them between home and office/somebody else's
house/whatever. That way, if your place is burgled or there's a fire your data
is recoverable.

2) If a USB card goes bad and starts frying drives at least one backup will be
out of reach and maybe you'll catch on to what's happening after frying the
other two. (Been there, done that...)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Don't take backup lightly. When that CPU burps one day and *everything* is
gone you'll know why you've been doing regular backups.
--
PeteCresswell

David G. Imber

2005-12-10, 5:48 pm

On Sat, 10 Dec 2005 08:40:52 -0800, "(PeteCresswell)" <x@y.Invalid>
wrote:

>The hassle factor. Five gigs takes awhile. It's easy and natural to avoid
>tasks that don't seem to have any immediate utility. Doing incrementals would
>be much faster.

[Snip]

Thanks very much for your thoughtful reply.

Since posting my question I went to the Silverkeeper site and
learned that the application provides essentially a mirroring
arrangement, but one which allows for incremental adjustments. This
sort of makes it the best of both worlds. I also did some scouting
around and learned that many consider it a useful and well-written
application. Further, I learned that I can partition the back-up drive
to set one partition to be bootable. The remaining disk space can be
used to copy over files directly, which can prove convenient later on.

>Finally, if the data is important I'd suggest at least two, maybe three or four
>backup drives for a couple of reasons:

This is probably a good idea, although I cannot really afford
it. My wife has a decent cd burner, which we should be using to copy
her critical data files. Unfortunately, it isn't working since I
upgraded her OS to 9.2. I can correct this with new software, I think,
and I'd like to upgrade her OS to to OSX, which will probably
automatically accommodate the burner - but one step at a time.

>2) If a USB card goes bad and starts frying drives at least one backup will be
>out of reach and maybe you'll catch on to what's happening after frying the
>other two. (Been there, done that...)

This is something I found dismaying when I was shopping for
the external drive. Although LaCie drives garnered some of the highest
praise, I kept reading that they sometimes just crap out on the user.
I don't really understand why. Hard drive technology isn't exactly the
newest thing under the sun, so the implication was that somehow
external drives are more vulnerable.

Anyway, between the bootable partition on the LaCie and
eventually getting her disk burner back in shape to copy critical data
files, I feel we'll be fairly well protected in the long run.

Thanks again, DGI