Katie's (Infamous) Backup Strategy

Hard drives, like all technology, will eventually fail. It's not a question of if, it's a question of when, and how bad the data loss will be. Think for a moment about all the data you have on your computer. Family photos, financial information, personal documents. How upset would you be, if you turned on your computer one day, and all that data was gone. That very thing happened to me about two years ago. One minute I sitting in a class typing notes when my computer froze. I restarted my computer, and nothing happened. For whatever reason, my hard drive picked that very moment, to have a catastrophic failure. Everything was gone. Most of the time, there's no way to detect or prevent a hard drive failure. The only thing you can do is to make sure that you have a backup of all your important files so you can recover once a failure has occurred.

My Mac User Group friends have lovingly called me the "Backup Queen" for years and thankfully when my hard drive failed, I had complete backups in place and only lost about an hours worth of information. I've had several requests from people to post my personal backup strategy to the website. While I admit my backup plan borders on the edge of obsessive compulsive, perhaps you can modify it to suit your needs.

1. Once a Week- Create a bootable clone of my entire computer.
Every Sunday evening, I use a program called "SuperDuper!" to create a bootable clone of my entire computer. Essentially, this program copies every block of data from my computer's drive onto an external drive. It also makes the external drive bootable, meaning that even if my internal drive has failed, I can still startup my computer and operate off the external drive. It's not a good idea to run off an external drive long-term, but in a pinch it can get you through until you can have the internal drive replaced and restore your data.

I store my backup in a fireproof, waterproof safe in my home although my preference would be that you store your backup off-site. If a catastrophic event, such as a fire, natural disaster, or even a break-in were to occur, you could not only loose your computer, but your backup as well. Here's an example that's a little less far fetched. One of my good friends was traveling with her iBook at the airport. As she passed through the security checkpoint she had to place her laptop back on the conveyer belt to run it through X-ray machine at the security checkpoint. Unfortunately, whether it was a setup or just an unfortunate fluke, she was held up as she was going through the metal detector. When she finally made it through a minute or two later, her laptop bag was gone. Her only comfort was knowing that she made a full backup of her computer before departing on her trip. THen she realized, her external hard drive containing her backup, was also in the laptop bag!

2. Ongoing - Use Mozy to Backup Important Files
I've recently made a new edition to my backup strategy when I discovered Mozy. Mozy gives you 2GB of free online storage that you can use to securely backup your files and information on Mozy's servers. Mozy has been around for a while but just fairly recently came up with an awesome Mac backup application. It's somewhat similar in idea to Apple's Backup Application. You can select from a series of backup sets where you can choose different types of documents to backup, such as Address Book Contacts, Mail Messages, Application Preferences, etc. You can also then go through and choose specific files and folders. Once you set it up, you the first time, you're done! Mozy will automatically keep your computer regularly backed up. The biggest advantage of Mozy is that it's all automatic and it all happens off-site so no matter what happens to your computer our data is safe somewhere else. The only disadvantage is that all your backup is going through your internet connection. This means your first backup could take a LONG time. I'd suggest you do it in increments, backup a few gigs every night. Then once Mozy is backing up your files, it will use some of your bandwidth, so you can schedule Mozy to throttle down bandwidth use during peak hours when you're more likely to be using your computer.

Currently, Mozy is offering anyone who signs up with 2GB free. If 2GB isn't enough space, you can join Mozy's monthly subscription service which gives you unlimited off site backup which is currently $4.95 a month. If you go the unlimited route, I suggest you set it to backup your user accounts since you can always reload your applications from their CDs. Note that if you have a catastrophic failure, Mozy will overnight you a DVD of your data instead of making you download all over broadband.

If you click the link below, or enter code 6LULV1 you can get an additional 250MB free. https://mozy.com/?code=6LULV1


3. Once a Week- Backup my home folder to my iPod.
iPods are great. They not only serve as digital music players, portable video players and a place to store your contacts and calendars, but they also can be used as an external hard drive. I use Apple's Backup program (part of the .Mac membership) to backup my home folder every week to my iPod. Backing up the home folder is sure to get all of my personal data and settings. Although it will not copy everything on my computer, including applications and the system, it generally backups all my essential files and takes a fraction of the time of the clone. I usually have my iPod with me so if I need to access files when I'm on the go, I just plug my iPod into another computer and can access my files. For security purposes, I backup into an encrypted disk image. This means if my iPod was stolen, no one would be able to access my backup without first entering a password.

Some people don't like Apple's Backup program for a number of reasons, but it has always worked well for me. Its important to note that when you use the Apple Backup Program, it doesn't just copy the files over but it wraps them up in a disk image and puts them in an Apple Backup package. The best way to restore your files is to use the backup application to restore your files back to their original locations. Though if you right click on the package and click "show package contents" you can find the .dmg file where all your data is stored and manually restore them. It's also important to note that Backup creates incremental backups, not just a straight copy of your data. This is somewhat similar to the approach that Apple's upcoming Time Machine will take. The benefit of this is that you can go back a few days and restore different versions of your files, the bad news is that it will eat up disk space faster because there will be duplication and overlap of your files. As a result, you may want to regularly erase all your backup files, and then perform a full backup to start fresh.

4. Every Evening- Backup all essential documents
We all have files that we use every day. In my case this includes all of my work-related files, my QuickBooks financial software, and information in my address book and calendar. These are the documents that I need to be up to date and loosing even a days worth of work would be detrimental. Using Apple's Backup utility, I created a custom backup plan that backs up these files every day to my iDisk (.mac membership required). This way, these important documents are never more than a day out of date.

Note: This step has pretty much been replaced by my Mozy backup, but I choose to keep it around simply because I have access to my iDisk everywhere and I'm a belt and suspenders type of person. :) (Don't worry, to my knowledge I've never actually worn suspenders!)

5. Every Day- Sync iCal and Address Book with .Mac
Finally, I have iSync set to automatically sync my Address Book, iCal, Safari Bookmarks, and Mail Rules to .Mac and my iPhone. This isn't simply for backup purposes, but also ensures that if I'm away from my computer, the information on my .Mac account is fairly current and I can access all of my email addresses and calendars when I'm away from my computer.