Hard Drive Help!

[Matty2803]

Hi, Thanks for reading. Hope you can help.

Just wondering what the best way is to back up my mac. (internal HDD is 500GB)

Just bought a 2TB Seagate Backup Plus hard drive.

Should I use time machine? Will this back up the photos I have (Inside iPhoto)? Do I have to have it back up every single hour. I was thinking more once a week, or once a fortnight would be better, as I'm not constantly doing things etc.


Or should I partition it, then one can be for a system backup and then the other partition can be for photos and music etc?

Or is there a way to back it up via Seagate Dashboard software? and If it helps, I'll back up my phone and iPad via the seagate dashboard (as you get an app for phone/ipad that does it for you.)

Whats best?

Thanks.

 

[Ethan]

Time Machine is set by default for an automated backup schedule, and will clear space from the oldest backups once you start to run out of space. I back up to a Time Capsule using Time Machine and then take a periodic cloned copy of the lot on a separate portable hard disk. Time Machine will back up your photos, videos and other stuff. If you don't add much content, then the incremental backups will be small, and I would let them run as scheduled rather than go a once weekly or something.

Assuming you have an external disk for the TM backup, then one other copy somewhere else would probably do. For cloning, either SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner would be fine. You should be able to boot from that copy. I have never seen the point in backing up to the same HD that is in your computer. Can't see how that helps you if the machine is nicked or destroyed.

 

[Matty2803]

Time Machine is set by default for an automated backup schedule, and will clear space from the oldest backups once you start to run out of space. I back up to a Time Capsule using Time Machine and then take a periodic cloned copy of the lot on a separate portable hard disk. Time Machine will back up your photos, videos and other stuff. If you don't add much content, then the incremental backups will be small, and I would let them run as scheduled rather than go a once weekly or something.

Assuming you have an external disk for the TM backup, then one other copy somewhere else would probably do. For cloning, either SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner would be fine. You should be able to boot from that copy. I have never seen the point in backing up to the same HD that is in your computer. Can't see how that helps you if the machine is nicked or destroyed.

Thanks, so if I back up to my External Harddrive - Using Time Machine - And if my internal HD fails, or someone nicks my mac etc, Time Machine will be able to recover the documents, photos, software etc?

 

[Ethan]

Thanks, so if I back up to my External Harddrive - Using Time Machine - And if my internal HD fails, or someone nicks my mac etc, Time Machine will be able to recover the documents, photos, software etc?

Yes. You can restore from the TM backup and it will basically replace all the stuff on your hard drive. I have used it when switching to a new machine. You can also use it to selectively restore files you later delete or get corrupted in some way.

The first TM backup will take a while, but later backups are much faster and happen in the background without you even knowing.

 

[Matty2803]

Great, will go and do it now!

Thanks

 

[Matty2803]

Would it be worth partition it to two 1TBs. One can be for time machine back up. and then use the other TB for phone/ipad and other stuff etc?

 

[Matty2803]

Would it be worth partition it to two 1TBs. One can be for time machine back up. and then use the other TB for phone/ipad and other stuff etc?

Bump

 

[Matty2803]

Would it be worth partition it to two 1TBs. One can be for time machine back up. and then use the other TB for phone/ipad and other stuff etc?

Bump

 

[Fyldewhite]

Just remember that the most probable scenario after hardware failure is theft......so don't leave the portable drive on top of your PC! Amazing how many people do this!

A true disaster (fire/flood etc) requires "off-site" copies (increasingly cloud solutions these days). Sure, if your house burns down then your photos may be the least of your worries but if it takes a few minutes, once in a while to stick your most precious stuff on a couple of DVD's and put them somewhere safe it may be well worth it should the worst happen. All the insurance in the world can't re-create it.

I was responsible for backups across a large organisation in 2001 when the planes struck NYC. Here's an interesting snippet (Amex were in the lower floors of one of the towers).........
If there was one lesson the business world learned from 9/11, it was to have a robust data recovery plan in place. As reported in late 2001 by David Needle in “Disaster Recovery: Lessons Learned from 9/11,” American Express Bank in New York was back in operation within a day of 9/11, while another New York bank had a disaster recovery center two blocks away from the World Trade Center and still hadn't recovered two months later.

 

[Matty2803]

Just remember that the most probable scenario after hardware failure is theft......so don't leave the portable drive on top of your PC! Amazing how many people do this!

A true disaster (fire/flood etc) requires "off-site" copies (increasingly cloud solutions these days). Sure, if your house burns down then your photos may be the least of your worries but if it takes a few minutes, once in a while to stick your most precious stuff on a couple of DVD's and put them somewhere safe it may be well worth it should the worst happen. All the insurance in the world can't re-create it.

I was responsible for backups across a large organisation in 2001 when the planes struck NYC. Here's an interesting snippet (Amex were in the lower floors of one of the towers).........
If there was one lesson the business world learned from 9/11, it was to have a robust data recovery plan in place. As reported in late 2001 by David Needle in “Disaster Recovery: Lessons Learned from 9/11,” American Express Bank in New York was back in operation within a day of 9/11, while another New York bank had a disaster recovery center two blocks away from the World Trade Center and still hadn't recovered two months later.

Thanks