[X4U] Backup strategies

[Jerry Krinock]

on 05/09/20 14:57, John Baltutis at baltwo at san.rr.com wrote:

> I also do complete clones about once a week.

Although I have Qdea's Synchronize Pro X!, which is capable of doing
"complete clones", or as Qdea calls it, a "Bootable System Backup", I don't
bother doing these any more.  Why?  Because it takes a lot of disk space,
and because the MacOS is installed differently for different hardware, you
can only use it reliably on the same model of Macintosh.  Therefore, your
complete clone is ONLY useful if either:

a.  Your hard drive fails, and you are going to buy a new one, pull out your
screwdrivers, and replace it yourself.  Look, if you are covered by
AppleCare, (especially if it's a Powerbook), Apple is going to take it away
for several days to weeks to replace the hard drive.  In the meantime you've
got this wonderful bootable system backup drive sitting on your desk, but no
system to boot it on!

b.  You have an identical Mac to use as back-up hardware.  In this case,
indeed you can plug it in, boot off it and you're back in business without
missing a beat.

Since neither (a) nor (b) are true for me, I do this instead:

1.  A backup every 4 hours of my home folder to an external firewire drive.

2.  A weekly backup of my /Users, /Applications, /man, /sw, /Library,
/Developer, /sbin, /bin and /usr directories to another external firewire,
drive which I keep off-site.

The folders I list in (2) contain all of the software I have installed which
make my Mac act like _my_ Mac.  Now, when failure occurs, I can take this
drive to _any_ Mac which has the same version of MacOS (or install that
version from my DVDs if necessary), copy the listed folders to it, and it
will behave pretty much like my Mac, with the exception of software
expecting particular hardware or ports that are not available on my
substitute Mac.

The important thing to realize is that the MacOS system software is
installed for the Mac hardware on a particular model, and once you don't
have that model, it's useless.

Now, when I get my old Mac back from Applecare, it has system software on
it, already installed and working.  If it ain't broke don't fix it!!!  I run
Software Update on it (since AppleCare Repair is usually negligent obout
this), then copy my updated versions of the folders listed in (2) back to
it, and I'm back in business.

By the way, regarding Qdea's Synchronize! Pro X, here is my review:  It is
full-featured, does smart archiving, watching how much space you have.
Especially with my development work, I often find myself dipping into those
archives to see what my code looked like two weeks ago.  They've added many
useful features and fixed a lot of bugs over the last couple years and it
works pretty good now.  The one annoyance I have is that, every four hours,
their GUI pops up to do my scheduled backup.  They should make this a
background process.  Also, it ain't cheap.

Jerry Krinock
San Jose CA   USA