- Joined
- Sep 17, 2014
- Messages
- 4,854
- Reaction score
- 241
Today, on the site www.maccentral.com, there is (once again) an article that talks about backups. Here is the link to that article:
http://www.macworld.com/article/3026333/macs/the-complete-easy-guide-to-backing-up-your-mac.html
As some (or possibly quite a few) folks know, I follow only one of those methods, in that I use SuperDuper! for my backups. I do it once a week, twice for each of my Macs, to two separate hard drives (via a Firewire 800 connection, which thus makes it fast). Given that my tasks between backups are not that complex, and that either via software or my own efforts, important stuff is saved between the backups, using SuperDuper! is enough for my purposes. If I do need to recover, I first save all that "intermediate" stuff before I go through a complete recovery.
I understand that some folks would prefer to do the backups via Time Machine. Yes, it is a proven, free way of doing backups, but the recovery process can be more of a burden then doing it from a "cloned" backup. Myself, I have a way to doing that, and in fact, I have needed to do such that. Also, when a major Mac OS update happens (like going form Yosemite to El Capitan), I go through the complete process of Erasing and Formatting my internal SSD, then doing a clean installation of the new OS, and then using Migration Assistant to "migrate/copy all my non-Apple stuff from my most recent SuperDuper! backup (and also any "intermediate" stuff, like my Quicken Account files, etc.).
One thing the article did not mention is that the difference between Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper! (besides SuperDuper! being less expensive) is that Carbon Copy Cloner also backs up the hidden Recovery HD partition, whereas SuperDuper! does not. But, for myself, that is not an issue,as 1) I have both TechTool Pro and Disk Warrior, which are superior to Disk Utility for disk maintenance/repairs, and 2) I know an easy, efficient way of re-creating that Recovery HD partition.
http://www.macworld.com/article/3026333/macs/the-complete-easy-guide-to-backing-up-your-mac.html
As some (or possibly quite a few) folks know, I follow only one of those methods, in that I use SuperDuper! for my backups. I do it once a week, twice for each of my Macs, to two separate hard drives (via a Firewire 800 connection, which thus makes it fast). Given that my tasks between backups are not that complex, and that either via software or my own efforts, important stuff is saved between the backups, using SuperDuper! is enough for my purposes. If I do need to recover, I first save all that "intermediate" stuff before I go through a complete recovery.
I understand that some folks would prefer to do the backups via Time Machine. Yes, it is a proven, free way of doing backups, but the recovery process can be more of a burden then doing it from a "cloned" backup. Myself, I have a way to doing that, and in fact, I have needed to do such that. Also, when a major Mac OS update happens (like going form Yosemite to El Capitan), I go through the complete process of Erasing and Formatting my internal SSD, then doing a clean installation of the new OS, and then using Migration Assistant to "migrate/copy all my non-Apple stuff from my most recent SuperDuper! backup (and also any "intermediate" stuff, like my Quicken Account files, etc.).
One thing the article did not mention is that the difference between Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper! (besides SuperDuper! being less expensive) is that Carbon Copy Cloner also backs up the hidden Recovery HD partition, whereas SuperDuper! does not. But, for myself, that is not an issue,as 1) I have both TechTool Pro and Disk Warrior, which are superior to Disk Utility for disk maintenance/repairs, and 2) I know an easy, efficient way of re-creating that Recovery HD partition.