Backing Up (isn't) Hard To Do
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Who’s it for:People looking to create a bootable backup.
What you need: Mac OS X 10.3+, External Firewire drive, and a copy of SuperDuper
What it covers:Creating a comprehensive backup on the cheap.
So you’ve just spent an enormous amount of money on buying a new computer, and the sticker shock begins to set in. What is first thing you should do? Why, spend more money, of course! Buying an external drive for backup purposes might just end up being the cheapest insurance policy you ever take out. This tutorial is aimed at individuals who would like to set up a relatively inexpensive backup system without a lot of fuss.
There is a maxim that says that data isn’t backed up unless it is backed up 3 times, with one copy being offsite. This is true, but perhaps a bit of overkill for our purposes. However, we do recommend that, along with the backup method we describe here, to occasionally burn your important data to CD/DVD and store it offsite, whether that means your office or a safety deposit box.
You might think that, “I don’t really have anything that needs backing up, I just use my computer for email.” If you are absolutely confident that none of the work you do is valuable enough to back up, then c’est la vie. But as our machines become more and more a part of our everyday lives, stop and consider what you might lose in the event of a hard drive failure: Letters? email correspondence? Purchased music? And most importantly, digital photographs? You will never be able go back in time and reshoot those pictures; they are incredibly valuable. Enough of the haranguing - onward to the lesson.