Every man and his blog (See what I did? Get it?) has written something about backing up but I have been sparked into action. A colleague related her story to me the other day. She has 3 young children (twins plus one I think.) Anyway, they had been accumulating digital media of the family over the last 5 years or so as only a parent can and (you know where this is going)
next thing the hard drive in their home machine failed.
Insert sick feeling in the stomach here (if you have lost data you know what I’m talking about.) Not good.
They got most of their stuff back but needless to say they spent a bit of time and a lot more money in the process. So I decided that it’s such an important topic I shall add my voice to the crowd more importantly for my audience (who perhaps don’t cast the blog reading net so wide.)
Now I use OSX for all my mission critical stuff (apart from basketball stats) so the software solutions are for that side of the fence. I am twisting a colleagues arm to post some solutions for Windows. The strategies on both platforms are the same.
What I have
1Tb Maxtor One Touch NAS (network address storage)
160Gb HP USB Pocket Drive x2
SuperDuper from Shirt Pocket
Synk Pro from Decimus
Comparison of Synk versions here (includes SuperDuper!)
What I do
I follow a two pronged strategy. It may seem a bit hardcore but trust me, if you’re even come close to losing all your data nothing is too hardcore.
I synchronise my documents folder to the 1Tb NAS (network addressed storage) on my home network. This is done every couple of days or immediately if I have been in the “document creation zone”. I use Synk Pro for it’s powerful archive options. If I delete a file from my documents folder (to save on drive space say) then Synk can be told to move that file to an archive folder on the backup drive. I take a peek at the folder every 6 months or so, burn out to optical media if its worth keeping or delete permenantly. Nice.
I have bootable backups on each 160Gb HP Pocket Drives. (These were dead cheap from MSY. I don’t know how or where they got them from but it was a bargain!) One stays at work and the other at home. I update one of them at least once a week. SuperDuper does a great job creating the bootable backups and can do incremental updates, saving heaps of time. The first backup is always a you-know-what but after the initial pain its pretty good.
Why I do it?
Bootable backup on a portable HD means that I have very little downtime. I don’t have to build a new machine, install applications, type in licence codes, configure preferences etc. I just plug it in, hold down the option key when I start up the new machine and select it as the boot drive. Too easy. Having two gives me two different states that I can roll back to if necessary, offsite security and a little extra redundancy. I usually do these backups overnight.
The documents sync is easy. It can be done whenever I want either wirelessly or with cable (if I’m in a hurry or there are big changes) and usually happens pretty quickly. The inconvenience barrier is very low (vital for backing up) and my documents folder is by far the most active.
My little dream
I totally want a Drobo. It would be super sweet.
