Well for years I have used a program from Dantz called Retrospect. It has probably been the most widely used backup program on the Mac.
For the home user, most people want to make sure that that can backup their whole machine - not just the data files.
One of the best ways to do this is by doing a complete system backup. By using software such as Retrospect, it takes away a lot of the human element that can create problems. (copying files twice, overwriting the wrong files, etc)
Once you have Retrospect setup you just put in the relevant media (cd,dvd,DAT,DLT etc.) and Retrospect will do the rest for you.
I am not going to list all the features of Retrospect here, as you can get them of their website.
If you have want to make sure that everything on your Mac is backed up, then a commercial program such as Retrospect is the way to go. It doesn't cost much and if you buy a new external drive,cd,dvd check to see which ones have Retrospect bundled with it.
There are many different ways of using backup software such as Retrospect, one of the best being "Incremental".
When you run the first backup, Retrospect will backup the whole of you Mac and any external drives that you have specified, depending on how large your drives are and what type of media you are backing up onto, this can take quite a lot of time.
The beauty of "Incremental" backups though, is the fact that the next time your back up script runs, it does a scan of you Mac to see if any files have been modified, or if there are new files since the last backup, if there are then it only backs up those files; because it knows that is has the rest already.
For most people "Incremental" backups are best, they use the least amount of media, and can literally be left to get on with it with the user having to worry.
One thing to be careful of, if you use an application like Retrospect or similar, when it creates backups you will also need to backup the "catalogue" file, this is the file that tells the backup program what files are on what tape/cd/dvd etc. This "catalogue" file will be called something different depending on what software you are using, in Retrospect it is called either a “Storage Set" or a "Backup Set" depending on what version you are using.
If you decide to use software such as Retrospect to do your backups, make sure you have the latest version and always do at least two backups !
I.e. if you decided to do an "Incremental" backup then you should do it twice to two different "Backup Set's".
Monday: do a full backup to DVD (or other media) -this we call "Backup set 1"
name the disk "Disk 1 Set 1"
Tuesday:do a full backup to DVD (or other media) -this we call "Backup set 2"
name the disk "Disk 1 Set 2"
These two sets, you would now alternate every night, therefore
on Wednesday Retrospect will do an "Incremental" backup to "Backup set 1",
on Thursday Retrospect will do an "Incremental" backup to "Backup set 2",
on Friday Retrospect will do an "Incremental" backup to "Backup set 1"
Etc.
This way if you hard drive were to ever fail (and they can, trust me!) you will have two copies of what was on your computer.
The reason we do at least two " Backup sets", is just in case your hard drive does fail - you reach for your backup DVD’s and one has a great big scratch on it and is unusable, then hopefully "Backup set 2" should be okay.
If you have really important data, then you should be doing a three "Backup set" strategy, and keep one set of the media off site, only bringing it onsite for the night that it is needed to backup.
In part three, I will explain how to backup your files just using the software that came with your Mac...
For the home user, most people want to make sure that that can backup their whole machine - not just the data files.
One of the best ways to do this is by doing a complete system backup. By using software such as Retrospect, it takes away a lot of the human element that can create problems. (copying files twice, overwriting the wrong files, etc)
Once you have Retrospect setup you just put in the relevant media (cd,dvd,DAT,DLT etc.) and Retrospect will do the rest for you.
I am not going to list all the features of Retrospect here, as you can get them of their website.
If you have want to make sure that everything on your Mac is backed up, then a commercial program such as Retrospect is the way to go. It doesn't cost much and if you buy a new external drive,cd,dvd check to see which ones have Retrospect bundled with it.
There are many different ways of using backup software such as Retrospect, one of the best being "Incremental".
When you run the first backup, Retrospect will backup the whole of you Mac and any external drives that you have specified, depending on how large your drives are and what type of media you are backing up onto, this can take quite a lot of time.
The beauty of "Incremental" backups though, is the fact that the next time your back up script runs, it does a scan of you Mac to see if any files have been modified, or if there are new files since the last backup, if there are then it only backs up those files; because it knows that is has the rest already.
For most people "Incremental" backups are best, they use the least amount of media, and can literally be left to get on with it with the user having to worry.
One thing to be careful of, if you use an application like Retrospect or similar, when it creates backups you will also need to backup the "catalogue" file, this is the file that tells the backup program what files are on what tape/cd/dvd etc. This "catalogue" file will be called something different depending on what software you are using, in Retrospect it is called either a “Storage Set" or a "Backup Set" depending on what version you are using.
If you decide to use software such as Retrospect to do your backups, make sure you have the latest version and always do at least two backups !
I.e. if you decided to do an "Incremental" backup then you should do it twice to two different "Backup Set's".
Monday: do a full backup to DVD (or other media) -this we call "Backup set 1"
name the disk "Disk 1 Set 1"
Tuesday:do a full backup to DVD (or other media) -this we call "Backup set 2"
name the disk "Disk 1 Set 2"
These two sets, you would now alternate every night, therefore
on Wednesday Retrospect will do an "Incremental" backup to "Backup set 1",
on Thursday Retrospect will do an "Incremental" backup to "Backup set 2",
on Friday Retrospect will do an "Incremental" backup to "Backup set 1"
Etc.
This way if you hard drive were to ever fail (and they can, trust me!) you will have two copies of what was on your computer.
The reason we do at least two " Backup sets", is just in case your hard drive does fail - you reach for your backup DVD’s and one has a great big scratch on it and is unusable, then hopefully "Backup set 2" should be okay.
If you have really important data, then you should be doing a three "Backup set" strategy, and keep one set of the media off site, only bringing it onsite for the night that it is needed to backup.
In part three, I will explain how to backup your files just using the software that came with your Mac...
