Best way to backup and transfer everything?

I'm using Time Machine to back up my Macbook Pro. I'm going to reformat the Macbook Pro, and I may continue using it or I may want to put all of the files from it onto my current iMac. Either way, I do not want to copy over any of the applications or system files from the Macbook Pro, just the data files. What is the best way to do this?
1. Should I even bother with Time Machine OR should I just take the time to go through every folder on the Mac looking for files to copy over?
2. Are data files ever saved to application folders?
3. Is there anything in Library or other locations besides documents, downloads, music and movies I should check?
Thanks.

Hi Tom,
Thanks for the help - good questions - if not too much trouble I'd like to know several ways
- for now let's say it is a Project and that I would also like to ...
1 - keep all media (maybe for a future re-edit possibility)
or
2 - Just keep the media used in the project

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I would plug it into Nokia Suite once that's done, and download the latest version of the handset's firmware.
After having tinkered with it for a couple of years now, downloaded and then deleted various apps, i find that it's running a bit slower, and whenever i check for software updates, i only ever get the same four, which i've been offered now for over 6 months without any change. I suspect that the phone's update facility isn't working properly.
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My friend has several hundred GB of photos using ACDC on a PC. He just bought a mac mini to make many iphoto books. He works out of 3 locations and carries several external hard drives to work on his iphoto books. He is interested in working on iphoto at several locations and saving each project (photos and albums and books) without being overwhelmed in large backup files. I need help in suggesting a solution.
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Perfectly possible:
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1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
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Back up to the 2TB drie:
Most Simple Back Up:
Drag the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to another Disk. This will make a copy on that disk.
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Regards
TD

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Best way to backup and restore multiple iPhones??

hi everyone,
I am a pretty computer savvy person and I have a friend with an iPhone and a contact list who is having some problems with it... he wants me to backup and restore his phone on my mac as he has no computer of his own (his son set up his iPhone with music etc before and is back at school now)
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I purchased iMatch because my old computer was failing and I was afraid of losing my music library. Now I bought a new laptop; what is the best way for me to transfer my library to my new laptop? Will iMatch help me do this?

Is/was failing or has failed?
If the old computer still runs one of these methods may be best.
Method 1
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Method 2
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Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Presumably, the old iMac is pre-Firewire? If it is, it really would be very slow for backing up. You can use these methods to network the two machines on my FAQ:
http://www.macmaps.com/network9X.html

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How to replace or upgrade a drive in a laptop
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Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger, Leopard or Snow Leopard.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
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Step Three: Boot from the external drive. Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager appears. Select the icon for the external drive then click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Step Four: New Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your new hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Step Five: Clone the old drive to the new drive
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Check the box labeled Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the new internal drive. Source means the old external drive.
Step Six: Open the Startup Disk preferences and select the new internal volume. Click on the Restart button. You should boot from the new drive. Eject the external drive and disconnect it from the computer.

Best way to backup 30gb library to disk

Hey guys,
What is the best way to backup a 30gb library to disc? I'd like to burn my library to dvd's and store away from my house. Wasn't sure if you just create an album and burn to disc or what?
Thanks in advance!

As Patrick says I'm backing up the iPhoto Library in my Pictures Folder. This contains everything: Photos, albums, keywords, events etc.
The most simple way to do it is to simply drag the Library icon to the external HD. Let it copy over. However this can be tedious when you back up regularly, so I use a back up utility that does incremental back ups: That is the first time, it copies the entire library, thereafter it simply keeps the back up up-to-date with the Library. I use DejaVu for that. Chronosync is another app that will do it. There are many others. Search on MacUpdate.
FWIW my full back up schedule runs like this:
My Library lives on my iMac.
It’s Backed up to two external hard disks every day. These disks are permanently attached to the iMac. These back ups run automatically. One is done by Time Machine, one is a bootable back up done by SuperDuper
It’s also backed up to a portable hard disk when ever new photos are added. This hard disk lives in my car. For security, this disk is password protected. For this job I use DejaVu because it makes a simple back up that is clear and can be tested easily without doing an full restore.
I have a second off-site back up at a relative’s house across town. That’s updated every 3 or 4 months.
My Photos are backed up online. Personally I use SmugMug but there are many options including flickr. However, check the terms of your account carefully. While most sites have free uploading, you will often find that these uploads are limited in terms of the file size, or the bandwidth you can use per month. For access that allows you to upload full size pics with no restrictions you will need to pay.
Every couple of months I test the back ups to make sure they are working correctly. It’s very easy to mis-configure a back up application, and the only way to protect against that is to do a restore.
Regards
TD

Best way to backup your partition?

What is the best way to back up a partition? /dev/sda1 is windows and sda2 is Archlinux. Say if I wanted to reformat sda2 with an new filesystem, but continue to use the exact same installation of Archlinux that I've tailored everywhere possible (I would have to change fstab of course), what would be the best way to backup all files with compression while keeping ownerships and rights? (note: speed is favoured over high compression here though, but any compression would be nice)
All advices are welcome

Fackamato,
I regularly backup using 'rsync'. It has the advantage of only copying changed/new files, eventually deleting deleted
ones.
You can use a mounted NAS, or an internal partition as target. If the NAS also has 'rsync', you can also use it in client/server mode.
F.e., on a local internal partition:
rsync -av --delete --delete-excluded --exclude="/sys/**" --exclude="/proc/** " --exclude="/backup/" / /backup
/backup being a mounted backup partition
'rsync' is most useful if you regularly backup, but has some interest also in one shot copies: if for some reason
the copy fails, f. e. out of space, when you solve the problem and restart, it will only copy what it needs to.
For your particular case, if you have a spare internal partition with enough space (or make one fiddling with gparted),
you could:
mount /dev/sda3 /backup (sda3 being your new partition)
rsync -av --delete --delete-excluded --exclude="/sys/**" --exclude="/proc/** " --exclude="/backup/" / /backup
Change /etc/fstab on sda3.
Add the necessary lines to menu.lst (I suppose you are using Grub) to boot from sda3.
So you can test that everything works before destroying sda2.
Mektub

What is the best way to backup iTunes on external HD

Hello there
I wish to backup my iTunes on an external HD. I'm aware that I should move the iTunes folder in its entirety over to the external HD so everything remains the same.
However, when I have new iTunes added in my library in my MacBook, what is the best way to add and backup those new iTunes in the external drive? Can I just do a drag and drop for those new iTunes files into the iTunes folder in the external HD?
Thanks in advance for your help!

Yes, if you don't want to clone the whole drive, you can pick and choose the files. If there is stuff already on the external drive, just be sure to deselect the button that tells CCC to remove any files not on the source drive. In other words, you want CCC to simply add more files to the external or update the ones that have changed. You do not want it to remove any.
CCC is a free download by the way. SuperDuper is a free download but the free version does not allow incremental backups, only a full complete backup which means losing what is already on the backup drive.
Patrick

Wich is best way to backup iPhoto library?

Hi everyone...
i want to know wich is the best way to backup all iPhoto library...
should I just copy everything that is in "iPhoto Library" folder to my extern hard drive? will i have any kind of problem if i want to restore my data?
thanks

sauble
A friend suggested I backup all the photos I already have in iPhoto before I start playing around any more
Good advice
Do I use a disc instead and burn them?
If you don't have a HD, this is the next option.
If I do that, are the photos still accessible if I want to use them again?
Yes. Depending on how you burn them: If you select all of them and go File -> Export and the burn them from the Finder, your pics will be backed up, but you will have to reimport them to iPhoto on restore.
If you use the Share->Burn feature within iPhoto it will preserve te he iPhoto library structure.
Regards
TD

Best way to backup to external HD

i know this topic has been extensively discussed previously, so my apologies as i couldn't find anything to specifically answer my question.
I’m wondering what the best way to backup my files would be. I just bought an external 80 gig WD hard drive, and I’d love to know if there’s any better way than to just drag & drop my music, movie, picture, and document folders onto this every so often…if it’s 3rd party software you recommend, I’m a starving student so I’d prefer to not spend a lot of money.
Also, should I partition the external hd so that I can boot from tiger in case of an emergency? And how would this be done?
thanks in advance for any information that can be provided. This forum is such a great resource to the apple community, so for all you problem solving posters, YOU’RE AWESOME.

There's really only the drag and drop method if there are programs for transfer it's undoubtedly a rip off. Also I wouldn't partition your drive so it'll be less cluttered.
But if you're concerned about speed here's a few ideas: you can put all your files into a folder and that may improve speed [similar to burning to disk it apportions file size correctly].
Also get a really good short FW/USB cord if you can. I use a 3ft M-Audio and it's very good.
Good Luck

Best way to backup and transfer everything?

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