[NPMUG] Time Machine, cloning and more backup strategies ...

[Dave Sevick]

Ted Landau's Mac Fixit Forum addresses backup strategies in this  
article.  He reinforces the simplicity of Apple's Time Machine as we  
have done here many times.  He goes on to mention cloning programs as  
handy for their ability to create a bootable backup.  And he gives  
some examples of syncing and RAID solutions.

This a good read for everyone, so I've copied the entire article below.

Here are some solutions I strongly recommend:

Time Machine  http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/ 
#tutorial=leopardtimemachine

SuperDuper!  http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

Drobo   http://www.drobo.com/resources/drobodemo.php



P.S.  More information coming here soon on the off-site backup  
MySecureBackup solution by Cranston Consulting:

http://www.patrickcranston.com/mysecurebackup/    ( we had a demo of  
this at the last NPMUG meeting )



http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=2009071015440278

Friday, July 10 2009 @ 03:44 PM PDT
Time Machine debates: Time Machine vs. other solutions

This week we have touched on a few of the hotly debated topics  
regarding Apple's Time Machine backup solution. So far, the biggest  
questions have been the proper size of drive to use for Time Machine,  
and ways to secure your backups from unauthorized access. Today, we'll  
discuss our last topic in this series regarding Time Machine, which is  
to compare and contrast it with other backup solutions, and briefly  
outline what might be best for an individual's uses.


Time Machine

Time Machine has been widely accepted because, for one thing, it comes  
with the operating system and is well-advertised, but is also very  
robust. It is an all-inclusive system that will by default back up  
every file on attached local disks, and as such creates a set-and- 
forget system that is appealing to home users. People don't have to  
worry about managing their backups by installing software and worrying  
about compatibility, and then dealing with extensive configuration and  
backup schemes. With Time Machine, you plug a drive in and it works.

Beyond the ease of setup, the Time Machine drive is actively indexed  
and easily searchable, and backups run every hour the computer is  
awake to ensure an adequate history of backups is available.  
Therefore, you will only have up to 60 minutes of work loss in the  
event of a major crash or other data loss.

Time Machine does have its drawbacks, which are that the backups are  
not bootable and it is not very configurable. If your system crashes  
and you need to continue working, Time Machine requires you to perform  
a full system restore, which can take hours. Apple's strive for  
simplicity with Time Machine has also made it rather difficult to suit  
all users. Some people may wish to have it run at a different interval  
than the hourly backups, and while this can be done, it takes using  
third-party utilities or command-line editing to work.

If you are primarily interested in a history of backups, and  
maintaining an active workflow comes secondary, then Time Machine is a  
good and convenient solution.

Cloning

Cloning offers some of the options that Time Machine does not,  
including the ability to boot immediately to the clone and continue  
work in the event of a boot drive failure. The problem with cloning is  
that it does not have any history of backups, so you cannot follow  
file version changes or retrieve files that were lost before the  
latest backup was done.

Cloning programs are highly configurable, both because third-party  
applications have extensive scheduling, and because Apple's solution  
with disk utility can also be implemented into user-defined scripts  
since it is available as a command-line utility.

If you are primarily interested in maintaining workflow and being able  
to immediately boot in the event of a hardware failure, then  
implementing a cloning solution is a good idea.

For more information about cloning solutions, check out our recent  
article on implementing cloning in OS X.

Other backup solutions

There are a variety of third-party history-based backup solutions that  
you can try besides Time Machine. One of the most commonly used is  
Retrospect, which has been around for years, and has survived by  
offering more versatility than Apple's solution, such as highly  
configurable scheduling, file inclusion and exclusion, and media  
support. Retrospect and similar solutions are very similar to Time  
Machine, but for the most part seem to be more suited for enterprise  
environments than home uses.

Additional third-party alternatives to Time Machine are file  
synchronization solutions. While not exactly backup solutions, these  
software packages synchronize files on your computer to other  
locations, and therefore provide multiple copies of a single file that  
can be used as backups. The strive for synchronization these days is  
to propagate changes as quickly as possible (using "push"  
technologies, etc.) and that can cause a missing file to be almost  
immediately deleted from the synchronized locations. However, if you  
have it set up to run on a daily basis, then you should be able to  
retrieve a lost document from a synchronized location before  
synchronization runs again.

Lastly, you can tackle hardware failures by implementing a mirrored  
RAID solution, which is similar to having an immediately synchronized  
clone. You can set up a RAID solution with hardware controllers, but  
also do this in software. Read more in our recent article on  
implementing RAID in OS X.

Our recommendation

We've mentioned in past articles that there is nothing stopping anyone  
from using the best of both worlds and implementing multiple backup  
schemes for data. We recommend that people use one history-based  
backup system such as Time Machine, and also regularly clone their  
boot drives using Disk Utility or a third-party cloning utility. With  
this setup, you should be able to quickly boot from the cloned disk in  
the event of a hard-drive failure and continue working, but still be  
able to browse through file changes over time with Time Machine.

These days, backup solutions have become quite easy to implement, and  
can be fun to set up. If you are not backing up your files in any way,  
you are risking data and productivity loss. Given the cheapness of  
external drives these days, we strongly urge every user to take  
advantage of the powerful backup solutions available and safeguard  
their data.



http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=2009071015440278




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