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Backups? We don't need no stinkin' backups! |
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 Would you be prepared if your Powerbook self destructed? What if you booted your iBook to the happy folder with a question mark? What happened to the photos I took in Tuscany? What do you mean I can't get my files back? How was I supposed to know that running rm -rf in my Users directory was bad?
Well, that last one is a little extreme, but I've been through many a re-install because I used that very command in a directory where I shouldn't have (I thought I was in a different directory). The point is, disaster can strike at any time. It can also happen to anyone, from Grandma who likes to keep photos of the grandkids around, to Steve Jobs who has to give the next MacWorld keynote.
There are many articles out there about backing up. There are as many approaches to backups as there are political views. I'm not about to give you the end all beat all backup solution, because that solution doesn't exist. Backups are like shoes. One size does not fit all. If the shoes don't fit and hurt your feet, you won't wear them. If your backup system is excessive and complicated to perform, you won't do it. The best backup solution is the one that you don't realize you are wearing and you don't forget to put it on everyday.
Everyones computing experience is different. This experience may have influence what you expect from your machine, or the level of computing you are expecting to do. All of these factors will come into play as you shape your backup strategy. You have to be the driver here. No one knows what your data means to you, except you. You must ask yourself some tough questions and possibly do a little reading, but in the end you will thank me, I promise.
Let's start with the simple stuff. What is backing up? A backup is a copy of your files that you have made. An exact copy at that moment. As soon as you change one word in that document you are working on, that back up you just made is out of date. While this is not strictly important to the definition of backups, it is an important point to make up front as it affects the types of backup solutions you will be looking at later.
Why should I backup? Everyone should backup. Stuff happens. Hurricanes happen. Floods happen. Fire happens. Hard disks become corrupt and die. Unattended iBooks grow legs and wander off. Your toddler thought your 12” PowerBook was nice and shiny. I am sure, now that I have you going, you could throw in a plethora of disaster situations on your own.
Okay, now that we've laid the ground work, What do I backup? This is the very first question you should answer. Think very hard on this question as it will affect other questions down the road. What kind of data and the amount of data will affect the methods and mediums you use for your backup. For the average user, the files that need to be backed up most often are the user data. On Mac OS X this is your user directory (/Users/). Almost all of the things you do as a user (iLife Apps, documents,etc) are stored in this directory. A good backup here will not hurt anyone's strategy. The Users directory is an excellent place to start. For many users, this will be the end of the backup.
If you are more advanced, you might want to save your preferences. You might also have programs that store data in places other than your User directory (some games do this). You may not have the luxury of time to rebuild your system from scratch with the install disks. In this case you would want to make a bootable image of your entire drive (an actual clone of every file on your system) so that if your harddrive died, you would simply reboot from the backup image and keep on rockin'. What to back up is a very important question and takes some care.
Start with making a list of the programs you use most often. Take care to see where the programs are storing the data and make a note of it. Do you download a lot of software from the web? Do you have a copy of all of those install files? You can't do too much homework here. Remember, the data and sanity you save may be your own.
Now that I know what to backup, where do I put it? This is the next important question that needs to be answered. Again, there is no one correct answer. The only 'right' answer is the one that works best for you. It might take some experimentation (Man, I didn't think I had 17 CDs worth of data). It might also take some new hardware (Man, I didn't think I had 17 CDs WORTH of data).
If you don't have an enormous amount of data, or you only want to keep a few VERY important files around, a flashdrive might be a good solution. The devices are very small (they fit in your pocket), but can store an enormous amount of data (Up to 1 gigabyte at an affordable price – that is about 730 floppy disks).
Most Macs come from the factory with at least a CD-ROM burner. Some even come with a DVD burner. The benefits of CDs and DVDs is longevity. If you take care of the media, they will last for a very long time. This is great if the data you are backing up doesn't change too often.
A removable disk might be what you are looking for if you have tremendous amounts of data or the data you are backing up changes very often. These removable disks could be tape drives, USB or FIREWIRE disk drives. Very often removable disk drives can be used to make copies of files 'on the fly' so that the backup is completely up to date. Many systems can keep a copy of your whole drive in this manner. The downside of this approach is that you might take a performance hit as everything you change is being written twice.
Offsite storage is for data that the user cannot afford to lose. A .Mac account is a good example of an offsite backup. You'll be glad that those insurance photos weren't in the house .
The main thing to remember is that there is no 'one' type of media. A good backup plan will involve several types. I keep documents that I can't afford to lose on a flashdrive. The flashdrive also insures that they are always with me because it fits in my pocket. I also backup regularly to a harddrive on my network. I have my calendar and contacts on my iPOD. In addition, I have many files archived on DVD for safe keeping. A good rule of thumb is keep backing up until you feel secure, without plowing over to the obsessive.
You want to be sure that whatever your backup medium is, it should, at the very least, be removable from the computer. With good old Murphy around, if you are backing up to a second hard drive that is in your computer and you take a lightning strike, there goes your computer and your backup. You'll wish you had that Zip Disk, or Firewire drive, or set of DVDs over on the shelf safe and sound. You don't ever want to use a second internal drive or a second partition on a drive for a backup.
Now, ask yourself how often that data changes. Everyday? Every hour? Every Minute? How often the data changes will also affect the method of your backups. You will want to find a solution (read software) that will keep a current backup for you. You don't want to be working on page 405 of your 406 page novel and lose power to find out you never clicked the save button. Your software solution should do the leg work for you. A carefully thought out backup plan will minimize data loss when disaster does strike. Make sure that the software you use will be flexible enough to cover the changes that you make to your data on a regular basis. Also make sure it is easy to do a quick backup out of sequence when you do a lot changes at once.
This last question may be the most important one of the bunch. Will I perform my backup regularly? When assessing your backup routine, take a careful examination to this question. A backup that is not performed is useless. A backup that is not performed often can be just as useless as one not performed at all. There are several pieces of software out there that will automate the process for you. There are many tools built right into OS X (Disk Utilities, several Unix commands and a backup client is included with .Mac).
Whatever you decide to use, play around with it. Make sure that it is easy for you to use. Make sure it has the features you are looking for (backup reminders, full automation, whatever) and you understand what it is doing. If the software is hard to use or you forget that it is there, it is useless to you. The last thing you need after a disaster is to find out all this time you thought you were backing up your stuff, but come to find out the software only backs up stuff at midnight and you shut your Mac down every evening.
If you thought I was going to give you the end all beat all backup routine, I am sorry. It doesn't exist. You will have to do a lot of homework on your own. The beauty of it, though, is once you have answered all of the questions in a well thought out manner and you put together your system the worry is over. Backups will be painless and take less thought. You will hardly notice they are there, until you need them. Then you will be glad you took the time to set it up.
One last piece of advice. Once everything is set up, practice. Practice recovering your data. Make sure you know how to run the recovery software and make sure that everything you need is backed up. During a recovery is not the time to find out you should have saved that 'other' directory or that the software doesn't work like you thought it would.
For information on the backup utility that is supplied with a .Mac account, go to:
.Mac Backup Utility
For a quick look at some of the Unix tools that are available for backup in Mac OS X look at the article here:
Unix Backup Tools
For those of us that are on the road, here is a good look at media and backup solutions that are available to the traveler:
Travel Solutions
Of course there is a wealth of information in the Apple Support articles:
Apple Support Documents |
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October 19 2004, 5:27 PM EDT, by |
Comments:
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| sweetjimmyhugs |
10/21/04, 9:47 AM EDT |
good advice...
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| ZackMac |
10/23/04, 11:59 AM EDT |
I don't need no stinkin backup! Why would I want a backup that smells like nasty [doodoo]?
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| Jonahan |
10/25/04, 2:35 PM EDT |
Good stuff, and a lot to digest. In fact, * BURP * I'm still getting through it all.
=)
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