Backup-ing.

Right now I don't have any extra cash to buy an external drive, so for now the only viable medium to perform backups are DVD's. I've read many threads here where almost always Super Duper is recommended. Can that make a carbon copy of my hdd to a bunch of dvd's?

 

I would recommend Acronis True Image 10. It's about 50 bucks but so worth it. Basically it "images" your HDD in it's current state so that if anything happens to it, then you can go back to the current state in about 10 minutes. You can also create a boot disc in case you can't get into the OS for some reason. You can segment a portion of your drive for Acronis use only and then it will burn an image to that section of your hard drive so you wouldn't have to have an external drive and you can burn to dvd's.

 

I would suggest instead of trying to do an image is to just backup your critical data. the idea of an image is to get up and running quickly and that is not as easy if you don't have the image on a HDD.

 

don't try to backup your entire HDD ever in my opinion, it is extremely easy and not really that time consuming to completely reformat the computer. especially with the Arhive restore option, it completely restores everything, and keeps your entire old library folder in a separate folder, then you can move everything back from there.

Just backup anything that doesn't already have some form of backup, Programs and things aren't really a big deal, as they can always be installed and downloaded again, if you use a lot of little free apps.

my recommendation is to backup critical things, like photos and things that you cannot lose or can't do again, onto DVDs for now, and get an external drive whenever you can. and backup everything onto that as well.

what has worked very very well for me is to make sure to keep all of the installers or .dmg's for every program you download in a folder on the external, if I decide to reformat I can reinstall all of these programs again right from the external drive, without moving anything around, same goes for photos, music, and projects as well.

I also keep all of my videos on my external to save space on the notebook HDD, and if I am working on a project for someone else, will usually go ahead and back it up to a DVD or CD as well.

my recommendation is ALWAYS have a backup of photos in multiple places, as most photographs can never be taken again.

 

Yep you guys are right. So basically I would have to back up 5,000 photos as well as 5,000 songs. Do you guys still recommend the same program (Acronis true image 10)? When I backup music, do ratings, album covers, and id3 info backup automatically? I use iTunes.

As for pictures, I use iPhoto, I don't have them in any particular order, but every picture has a comment, so if i type "dog" in the search box, I will get instant results. Will this be kept once I backup?

I'm sorry for the stupid questions, hahah. It seems that switching an OS completely erases all my knowledge of computers

Thank you all for the help!!

ps: money is not that big of an issue so if the program is good I will pay for it.

 

if money isn't an issue just buy an external HDD, you will save yourself a massive amount of time and hassle, but I would still back up your photo library to DVD just to have an extra backup incase of an external HDD failure.

since you use your Mac like it should be, and use the good included programs, backing up should be very easy, as long as you use them like they were made to be used.

most likely, all of your music is stored in your music folder in iTunes/iTunesMusic. All you have to do to back up all of your music, ratings, playcounts, playlists, etc. in iTunes, is just copy the iTunes folder to whatever location is most convienient, 5,000 songs is a lot of data, so DVDs, are not the best option, but will still work, it will just take more work on your part. and backing up to DVDs every time you add a new song to your library is a pretty slow and kind of wasteful process.

itunes has a disk backup utility built right in, but only works with disks.

my recommendation is to definitely just get an external HDD (500gb drives can be had for less that $120 on newegg.com, and if you don't need that much space you can always go smaller for much less).

with an external, all you would have to do is copy your iTunes, iPhoto, and whatever folders you want to backup to the external, and you are finished. all of your playlisting/keywording will be saved, to restore the libraries you just need to copy the folders back to their default locations, and point the programs in the right direction.

I HIGHLY recommend you poke about Apple.com's support page on iTunes, and iPhoto, and whatever else catches your interest, and check out the discussion forums for both programs as well, you will find a massive amount of information.

really iTunes and iPhoto work the exact same way, they are just Archiving programs, that are in a way just a enhanced Finder replacement for specific types of files. and since you can have both keep your libraries automatically organized, backing them up is very straightforward.

 

That was really helpful circa, thanks a lot!!