Back Up OSX Hard Drive - Best Practice?

Hi:
I have usually used Carbon Copy Cloner for backing up my mac hard drives to an external, but would really like some expert opinions on the current best method before proceeding. I have done one backup already using CCC, and would like to keep that backup up-to-date with regular backups. TIA for ny advice.

You need to use Super Duper's Smart Update to keep Super Duper up to date, and Time Machine to keep Time Machine up to date. They are totally separate, and need to be updated separately.
You can, however, use the same external hard drive for both, but each one needs to be in a separate partition, or volume, so that one does not ever overwrite the other. The clone volume should be the same size as the internal drive. The Time Machine volume should be much larger, as it will also contain past information as well as current information.
One think you might find useful is to give each volume a name, such as "Super Duper Clone" and "Time Machine" so that they are clearly different. You could even give each one a different icon:
http://iconfactory.com/home
The icon factory has a lot of free icons you can use. There's even one for The Tardis, the time machine from Dr. Who.
How often you back up will depend on what you do and how often you need to back up. Often when I am working, I connect Time Machine, and it will back up once every hour. However, I can also order it to back up immediately, which I often do if I finish something and don't want to wait until the next scheduled backup. I don't recall if Super Duper has the same ability, as it is not something I use. Generally I do a Super Duper backup whenever I have something new I need to back up. I ALWAYS back up just before downloading or updating software. If something horrible happens with the new software, then it is easy to revert by cloning back onto your hard drive.
This may be more paranoid than is necessary, but I actually have 2 clones on 2 drives. The primary clone is the one I keep up to date. The secondary one I only update prior to installing new software or leaving on a trip. The primary clone is the one I travel with. The secondary clone and the Time Machine stay at home, usually locked up in the safe. If the worst happens, and someone steals my MBP and portable drive, I still have a recent backup of my data safe and sound at home. So far nothing like that has ever happened to me, but I did read not too long ago where someone's MBP was stolen along with 2 external drives which had all his work on them.
You can use two separate drives, or one drive with 2 separate partitions if you want to use both Super Duper and Time Machine. If you decide on separate drives, You could get a portable FireWire Drive for Super Duper and carry it with you, and always have your bootable backup along. For Time Machine, a larger desktop drive might be more appropriate.
Hope this helps. If you have any more questions, do post back.
Good luck!

Similar Messages

Premiere Pro + External Hard Drive Best Practices

For best performance when editing in premiere, is it recommended to keep raw files and project files on seperate drives? Does this make workflow and response time quicker? What are the most efficient and safest options? Thanks

I see this repeated over and over. I have not found it to be true. I have found over and over again that a single dedicated 7200 internal drive for media will work just fine. This is editing RT employing mainly DV, HDV, Cannon XF and Sony XdCam up to 50 Mbps. This includes multicamera projects up to four cameras.
Since 2002 I have set up at least 10 separate Premiere based NLE PCs and have witnessed hundreds of projects across these many systems edited with Premiere 6.0, 6.5, Pro 1.5 Pro 2.0, CS4, CS5x, and CS6. The only time when hard discs became an issue was a misadventure using USB external drives.
I experimented, early in DV editing days, with advising editors to save their graphics, music, and project files on a separate internal media drive. However I could never get a consistent compliance with that, so for file management sake, I began having users keep all scratch disc dialogues checked to "same as project". That way they just needed to be certain to create their project folder on a Media drive, and save their project into that folder.
Things have been smooth with that. I think that over the years I've had enough testing to say with confidence that anyone will be fine with it for general use with codecs up to 50Mbps per stream.
The only place I've found some benefit is in targeting a separate internal drive for exports. This can speed up exports a bit, but I haven't found wild differences.
So a typical system I might set up or use would map like this:
     C: System (usually a raid0)
     D: internal 7200 rpm Media 1 (Active Premiere Projects)
     G: USB\Firewire External Drives Storage (Inactive premiere projects and offline file storage)
      Additional video edit space set up as:
     E: internal 7200 rpm Media 2 (Active Premiere Projects)
Again, lots of experience with this set up and no drive performance issues.

Time Machine Back Up 3rd Hard Drive to 4th Hard Drive

Hey All Geniuses . . . .
I have a third internal hard drive that I want to back up to a fourth internal hard. I already have my Time Machine backing up my first hard drive (with the OS) to the second hard drive. I can't figure out how to separate the "back ups" out. Just to be clear: the date on hard drive three will be different from hard drive one and two, and have to backed up to hard drive four exclusively. Cheers, mate

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
Lyssa is correct.
TM can back-up multiple drives/partitions, and each source volume is shown separately in the TM interface, but it's destination must be a single volume. It is possible, of course, for that single volume to be a concatenated Raid set, but that doesn't seem to be what you want.
CCC can do this, however. It's donationware, so you can try it out free (but do send some $$ if you keep it, so they can keep it up to date). I think SD can do it also, but you'll need the paid version (about $30 I think) for it to do updates instead of replacements.
You'll probably want to continue with TM on your OSX drive, as it's incremental backups of many files and folders are much faster than either CCC's or SD's will be.
Either is available via Google, VersionTracker.com, or MacUpdate.com.

How can I back-up my hard drive when my MacBook won't power on?

The other day my 2 year old MacBook Pro just turned off abruptly and has not powered on since. I took it to the Apple store today and they determined that it's more than likely a problem with the logic board since its not getting power at all and now I'm going to have to get that replaced. Before I send it away I need to backup my hard drive to an external but have no idea how to do that when it won't even power on. We don't have any other working computers in the house but if I absolutely need another computer to accomplish this, I could try to ask a friend to help me out.

dzwick1 wrote:
I lost power to my PC. Neither the battery nor the AC adapter works. I'm shipping the laptop back to the manufacturer for repair, but they advised that I should back up my hard drive before shipping it. Is there a way to back up my hard drive without having any power on my laptop?
Do you have another machine?
You can remove the hard drive and put it in an external enclosure in order to copy the contents to another machine.
If you don't have another machine, you unfortunately are going to have to find someone to back it up for you.
*disclaimer* I am not now, nor have I ever been, an employee of Best Buy, Geek Squad, nor of any of their affiliate, parent, or subsidiary companies.

I have a Time Capsule with 2tb of storage, and an I-Mac with 500Gb. (which is at capacity) Can I use the Time Capsule to store data in addition to backing up the hard drive?

I have a Time Capsule with 2tb of storage, and an I-Mac with 500Gb. (which is at capacity) Can I use the Time Capsule to store data from my hard drive that I want to access later in addition to backing up the hard drive?

Can I use the Time Capsule to store data from my hard drive that I want to access later in addition to backing up the hard drive?
Yes, but if you move the "original" data on your iMac to the Time Capsule....then the "original" data is now on the Time Capsule disk.
When...not if...the Time Capsule disk has a problem, you have no backups for this data.
Perhaps a much safer plan might be to add an external hard drive attached directly to your iMac. Then, move the data to that drive from the iMac.
Now, Time Machine will back up both your iMac and the external hard drive so you have "originals" on one drive and backups on another. Would that plan work for you?

My 2012 MacBook Pro fell and it now makes a clicking noise and shows a grey screen on startup. I'm afraid the hard drive is damaged. Is their anyway to still back up my hard drive even if it doesn't turn on all the way?

So my late 2012 MacBook Pro was sitting on my desk when the desk collapsed. The computer fell with it and I was quite scared at the moment, but thankfully I opened it up and it worked perfectly fine again.
I was later watching a YouTube video and pressed the back button. The screen then froze, and I could not force quit safari. Then this weird clicking noise started to happen. It was coming from the right of the trackpad. That's when I decided to force shutdown the computer with the power button.
I let it sit and then decided to turn it back on. The clicking noise then came back and there was just a blank screen on the boot up. Eventually a grey folder with a question mark started flashing on the screen. That was all it did so I decided to turn it off again.
I'm going to take it into the Apple store ASAP, but I'm curious if my hard drive is damaged and if I will need a new one, which would erase everything on my Mac. So I was wondering if there is anyway to back up the hard driver even if it doesn't boot up all the way, or turn on the computer all the way.
P.S. I have never backed up my hard drive so I wouldn't know what to do.

You may have damaged the HDD which is located in that spot. I would take it in for service.

Backing up two hard drives with Time Capsule

I plan to install an additional hard drive in my i7 Macbook Pro via OptiBay. Can a Time Capsule back-up both hard drives easily via Time Machine?

As long as it's formatted for a Mac, yes.
Once it's installed, running, and formatted, go to +System Preferences > Time Machine > Options.+ If it's listed in the exclusions box, just select it and click the minus sign at the bottom.
Note that Time Machine usually requires 2-3 times the space of the data it's backing-up, to be able to keep a reasonable "depth" of backups for you.

I bought a Mac PowerBook in 2008. It came with InDesign CS3. I did not use it. My computer was stolen in 2014. I had backed up the hard drive. I reinstalled on my new Mac laptop. I want to use the CS3 now. It will not download or install. What do I do?

I bought a Mac PowerBook in 2008. It came with InDesign CS3. I did not use it. My computer was stolen in 2014. I had backed up the hard drive. I reinstalled on my new Mac laptop. I want to use the CS3 now. It will not download or install. What do I do?

From where are you trying to download it?

Backing up two hard drives

I was using Time Machine to back up the hard drive on my desk top and to back up an external hard drive that contains all of my video work. I erased the hard drive containing the backups and excluded all other hard drives except for the hard drive on the desk top (Hard Drive A) and the one with my video stuffs (Hard Drive B). Before, A & B would show up on the external containing the backups. But now, it looks like only A is showing up. I did a rough calculation and it looks like the initial backup included both hard drives. Why aren't the two hard drives showing up separately?

They should, but it depends on how you get into TM and whether you can navigate once you're there.
See #E3 of the Time Machine - Troubleshooting *User Tip* at the top of this forum.

I want to upgrade to Mavericks. Will I need to reinstall all of my apps and copy my files back to the hard drive? I have not installed an OS on a Mac before and I'm wondering whether it is as involved as on a PC.

I want to upgrade to Mavericks. Will I need to reinstall all of my apps and copy my files back to the hard drive? I have not installed an OS on a Mac before and I'm wondering whether it is as involved as on a PC.

Short answer: You do NOT have to reinstall all your apps and copy your files back.
Longer answer: Upgrading the OS does not touch any user files. Upgrading the OS should not interfere with any applications which are compatible with Mavericks. In my experience non-Apple apps are generally left unchanged by the upgrade. It is possible that some apps may need to be upgraded. One good resource for checking application compatibility is RoaringApps.
Finally, it is always wise to backup everything, just in case.

Backing up my hard drive

I've been told I can back up my hard drive on multiple DVDs using Disk Utility. I tried making a disk image, but I get an error that there is no room on the hard drive. I tried making a burn folder, but I get an error saying "the disc could not be used because the disc drive is not supported (Error code 0x80080025). I had to replace my dead CD-ROM drive with a DVD-ROM drive last year, but I haven't had any trouble with it burning audio discs - I shouldn't have trouble burning data discs, should I?
What am I doing wrong?

Your IT guys aren't wrong: Having a backup on optical disks is great. If you file it safely (NOT in your house or near your computer), it's a good "last gasp" backup. No matter what happens, you can always recover those documents.
But it's a nuisance to do that every week or even every month, and any computer used for anything significant needs to be backed up at least monthly. If you do only optical-disk backups, you probably won't do them often enough to actually help you when there's a disaster and you really need a good backup.
A strong backup strategy requires a couple of different media and a combination of long-term backups, regular backups on some schedule, and frequent quick backups of recently-changed files. It's a pain in the multiple-asterisks, but it's so, so worth it when a disk fails or a computer is stolen or water leaks from the apartment upstairs or you delete a critical file that was OK last week. Kind of like insurance...
John

Unable to back up external hard drive via Time Machine. Says no room but has back ups from two previous Mac notebooks on it. Tried deleting them and now can't do anything. Any ideas?

Unable to back up external hard drive via Time Machine. Says no room but has back ups from two previous Mac notebooks on it. Tried deleting them and now can't do anything. Any ideas?

As john noted, eventually that external is probably not going to be big enough, but it certainly is for now. The HD just needs enough capacity to cover the amount of data on your internal HD, not the internal HD's total capacity.
Format/partition the external as follows and you should be set to go:
1. Connect the external HD to the MBP.
2. Open Disk Utility on the MBP.
3. Select the external HD in the left pane.
4. Click on the Erase tab.
5. Choose the Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
NOTE: if you want to zero the HD (which I always think is a good idea, but does take time), click on Security Options, click the button for Zero Out Data, click OK. The larger the HD, the longer this will take, in some cases several hours.
6. Click on Erase and wait for the entire process to finish.
7. Click the Partition tab.
8. Click on Volume Scheme: and choose the number of partitions (just one in this situation).
9. Click on the Options button (located underneath the Volume Scheme pane) and select GUID.
10. Click Apply.
11. Quit Disk Utility.
Backup your internal to the external. What application are you using to backup with? I highly recommend both SuperDuper! and CarbonCopyCloner.

Can't back-up MBP hard drive to external, getting errors

I am trying to back up my hard drive to an external (WD My Passport Essential SE) in Disk Utilities (after booting failed). Was getting error-61 until I changed the external format to Mac OS X compatible. But now I am getting an input/output error.
I'm probably going to need to erase my HD and reinstall Lion, so I HAVE to back-up. I really could use some guidance.

RoobeeLee wrote:
Well, FYI: turns out that it was all due to a bad hard drive (wouldn't mount?). So the HD was replaced, and a valuable lesson was learned: Back-Up before you have a problem! Thanks for your input.
Murphy, that infamous foe, does have the habit of showing up at the most inopportune of moments.
ds store wrote:
Use a powered USB hub with port powered drives.
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro?view=documents
Or use FW drives while you still can. MUCH better performance and since the FW bus has 1.5A available for the peripheral, vs the USB's 0.5A, can handle a wider range of buspowered drives, especially the terabyte monsters.

Can I update to ML without backing up my hard drive will it erase?

Can I update to ML without Backing up my hard drive will it erase?

You should always have a backup. And especially immediately before any major (10.6 or 107 to 10.8) upgrade.
Things can always go wrong.
But upgrdes only replace system files, so your "pure data" should be fine.

I want my photo files back on my hard drive, not on Revel

I uploaded about 5,000 photos to Revel but neglected to keep the originals on my hard drive. I want my photos back on my hard drive. How do I download the photos back into Adobe PSE 13 Organizer in the same date folders they were in before they all got transferred to Revel? Once I have my photos back, I want to delete the photos on Revel and then I'll selectively upload Mobil Albums from the Organizer. How do I keep Revel from wanting to upload photos? I am signed out, but everytime I sign in through PSE 13, Revel starts to upload photos and I want that stopped too. Clearly I have some settings which are causing this. Help and understanding would be very much appreciated.

Hi seashel,
Welcome to the Apple Support Community!
It sounds like the iTunes icon may have been removed from your dock on your computer. You can find your applications and move them to the dock from the Launchpad. Please use the attached article for more information.
Mac Basics: The Dock holds your favorite apps, documents, and more
Adding and removing Dock items
If you want to add an application to the Dock, click the Launchpad icon in the Dock. Then, drag an app icon from the Launchpad to the Dock. The icons in the Dock move aside to make room for the new item. If you want to add a file or folder to the Dock, just drag its icon from any Finder window (or the desktop) and drop it on the Dock.
Cheers,
Joe

Back Up OSX Hard Drive - Best Practice?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for