Averting Disaster - A Guide To Computer Backups (2014)
by Brett Howse on May 21, 2014 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
- Mac
- Apple
- Windows
- Cloud Computing
- macOS
Built-in Backup Tools - OS X
Apple introduced Time Machine back with the Leopard release in 2007. Time Machine is an all-in-one built-in backup utility, allowing both file and image level backups with versioning. Time Machine will back up to internal or external disks, as well as the AirPort Time Capsule which is Apple’s own NAS specifically for backups. You can also back up to another Mac running at least Leopard, and with Mountain Lion Apple added the ability to backup to multiple destinations, with the backups alternating among the backup targets to provide additional levels of redundancy. Officially, Time Machine is not supported on other NAS devices. It does not work natively with Server Message Block (SMB) or Network File System (NFS) shares but instead requires the Apple Filing Protocol (AFP). If you are not going to use an AirPort device, ensure the NAS you select specifically supports Time Machine. Time Machine is simple to use, and yet powerful enough to be an almost complete backup solution for the Mac. Let’s look at how to set it up:
- First you need to configure a backup disk. Ensure you have your backup disk connected, or your AirPort Time Capsule configured, and then open the Time Machine menu from the menu bar by clicking the Time Machine icon and choosing Open Time Machine Preferences…
- On the Time Machine menu, click Select Backup Disk…
- Here it will display the available backup targets. Choose the backup target you’d like to use, whether it is an attached hard disk or the AirPort Time Capsule and click Use Disk. If the hard disk is not formatted with HFS+, you will be prompted to erase the disk and reformat which will of course delete any data currently on the backup target.
- Now that you’ve selected a disk, Time Machine will automatically start backing up.
Time Machine does a full backup of your system, and then it starts to back up every hour. If the backup target is unavailable it will delay the backup until it is available again. Because only changes are backed up, each successive backup is relatively quick. If you would like to exclude some files from being backed up, click the Options button in the Time Machine menu to add exclusions.
Other advanced options are not available, so there is no way to increase or decrease the frequency of backups or specify how many versions of a file to keep. The program will just back up indefinitely until it fills the available backup target, at which point it begins to delete the oldest files first.
Restoring files is relatively easy as well:
- Navigate to the folder where the file you want to recover should be (example – Documents).
- Click on the Time Machine icon in the menu bar and choose Enter Time Machine.
- This will open the restore interface, which shows a list of all of the previous backups sequentially. Using the arrows allows you to move from one backup to the next, or you can utilize the date bar on the right side which will allow you to move back to a known date. Selecting a backup date will then display the folder exactly as it was during the backup.
- Once you’ve located the file you wish to restore, select the file, and then click Restore. If the file was deleted, it will just be restored, but if the file still exists in its original location, you will be prompted to overwrite the file.
Time Machine can also be used within certain programs such as contacts, and restores operate in the same manner as files.
To restore the entire system to a previous state, hold down the Command and R keys at startup to enter the Recovery mode. In Recovery mode, one of the options is to restore from a Time Machine backup.
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HachavBanav - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link
Not a single word of my current UNLIMITED ONLINE BACKUP solution....$50/yearhttp://www.backblaze.com/partner/af2141
Brett Howse - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link
Except this:Here is a list of several vendors offering their own take on cloud backups:
◾ Arq
◾ Backblaze
◾ Carbonite
◾ Cloudberry
◾ Crashplan
◾ JungleDisk
◾ Mozy
nagi603 - Wednesday, May 28, 2014 - link
Another one to consider: unRAID. It uses filesystem-level RAID-ing, with one parity disk. The biggest pro is that if two disks fail, you get to keep your data on the other disks, as opposed to having to resort to very expensive and not fully effective specialist recovery services with RAID-5. You can expand the cluster to (IIRC) 23 drives max, with a separate cache drive if it seems too slow for you. The cons are: it's not free, and you have to build your own NAS for it. But so far it turned out to be best for me.7Enigma - Wednesday, May 28, 2014 - link
I keep it simple. Once every month or 3 I'll backup my local TB media drive on my main computer to an external 2TB drive. The data is now duplicated and not in danger of electric surge. Fire/flood/etc. still not protected but OK.About every 4-6 months I'll take the 2TB to my parents house and backup the new files to their media computer. That takes the danger of disaster out of the equation. Unless both houses suffer catastrophe (we are only ~30miles away from each other....) there is little loss of data.
Since this is all mechanical HDD's I'm wondering peoples thoughts on recopying files? I just continuously add and update the files but never "refresh" the drives. Is this something that should (very infrequently) be done? i.e. format a drive then reload with the same files?
Good article. And people DO NOT think it won't happen to you. I was luckily able to recover a coworkers computer after a power outtage. Fried his PSU, but fortunately stopped there. I was able to grab his family media without issue. They had NO backup, nothing. You would have thought after this they would take my advice and backup? Nope. I doubt they will be as lucky next time.
rickydlam - Wednesday, May 28, 2014 - link
Google Drive is $1.99/month for 100GB now.Archipelago - Saturday, June 7, 2014 - link
and from what I can tell, Google Drive does offer versioning through the "manage revisions" feature.Thrackerzod - Thursday, May 29, 2014 - link
I back up all my irreplaceable stuff (family photos and home movies for example) on LTO tape. Got a Dell SCSI LTO2 drive for next to nothing and the tapes are dirt cheap and last decades. LTO1 tapes are so cheap I even use them for less important stuff like backups of all my Steam game installers. Tapes are certainly not the most popular solution for consumers but for long term archival use I've yet to find anything better.Hauken - Saturday, May 31, 2014 - link
Time Machine is simple yes, but you can't boot from it. And if you're on a new system, needing files from an old backed up system, it gets awfully problematic.MDX - Wednesday, June 4, 2014 - link
I wish there was a backup service that was immune to national security letters, but alas. Mega.co.nz will have to do for now.pslind69 - Monday, July 7, 2014 - link
Why No mention of StorageCraft ShadowProtect? 😩 Also, one has to figure out which data is really important enough to backup in multiple ways. A list of op just back up everything. All Their personal documents, wedding pictures, and all their movies, tv series, music etc. All those entertainment media can be recreated from originals or redownloaded, so why even back them up. I think most people do that because if disaster hits, they couldn't remember what they have lost, so they back up everything unnessecary file.Instead, include a list of all your easily recreatable files (with hashes) in your important backup that is replicated offsite, to cloud etc. That way you can easily go back and see that "Ohh I lost my Days of Our Lives TV folder" and then just redownload or rerip the dvds. So much space saved by not backing up unimportant data you could easily recreate.