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.
Note:There are many more options for backing up since the advent of 10.5, but this article is being kept up as many people have found it useful, and in many ways, using SuperDuper is still the easiest way to ensure good backups.
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.
Step 1) Decide whether you would like to partition your external drive. We recommend partitioning, as it gives you more options down the road. If you wish to partition and you already have data on the drive, you will need to temporarily transfer that data elsewhere, as partitioning will destroy all data on the drive. However, for the purposes of this backup, SuperDuper will need to destroy all data on the external drive anyway if you don’t partition, so this is an issue either way. Ideally, you should partition the drive immediately after buying it. There is software that will allow you to partition a drive with data already on it, but it does come at a price.
So, why partition? Because we can maximize the use of the drive. Say we create 2 partitions - one for the clone of your Mac’s harddrive, and the second for anything you wish. The partition with the clone of your hard drive will be bootable and easily maintained, and the other partition can be a second place to backup your documents, music, etc., as well as being a place to archive files you are no longer using on your Mac. Alternatively, you could dedicate each partition to be a cloned system for 2 different Macs. In other words, because a partition appears to your computer as a separate hard drive, there is a lot of flexibility to partitioning.
Again, whether or not you choose to partition, you must move any data from the external drive before proceeding. If you do wish to create partitions, make sure the external drive is connected to your Mac, and then start up Disk Utility, which is in the Utilities folder within the Applications folder. Once you are in disk Utility, select the external drive from the left side of the window, then click the “Partition” tab. Use the “Volume Scheme” pulldown menu to select how many partions you want. You will notice that underneath said pulldown, a window shows the partion scheme, and defaults to equally sized partitions. So assuming you have a 250 gigabyte drive, a 2-partition scheme will initially show an “Untitled-1” and “Untitled-2” split equally at approximately 125 gigabytes (actually a bit lower than this as the OS reserves a certain amount of space on each partition that is not user-writeable).
So what size should your partitions be? One of the real advantages of using SuperDuper is that it does not need to clone the free space of your hard disk. Many other utilities, when creating a clone, require a partition or drive to be exactly the size of the drive you are cloning. SuperDuper really only needs as much space as you have used on your internal hard drive. So if your internal drive is 80 gigabytes, but you have only used 30 gigabytes, you technically only need a 30 gigabyte partition for your clone. Having said that, you may want to give your partition more space, so that as you update your clone, you have the space to do so. So for our purposes, make your first partition the same size as your internal hard drive. If you are doing 2 partitions on a 250 gigabyte drive, and your internal drive is 80 gigabytes, your first partion will be sized (by dragging the divider bar in Disk Utility or selecting the first partition and entering in ‘80’ for Size to the right), with the second partition automatically compensating for the remaining space. Now, select each partition, enter a Name, and make sure that format is “Mac OS Extended.” After all is set up as you wish, go ahead and select the Partition button in the lower right corner. Whew!
Step 2) Once we have a blank external drive hooked up and ready to go, it’s time to think about actually backing up the internal hard drive. Why not just drag over the important files we know are important? Because by creating an actual clone, we are able to have an instantaneous recovery from hard drive failure, system and all. Imagine you work on deadline, and one morning you have an ominous “no valid system found” upon starting your computer. Even if you have been diligently backing up your work files, you need to resolve setting up an OS to access them. Not only that, but *your* OS, set up the way you need it to be. With a clone, you can boot up, be back in your familiar environment, finish up the work you need, and then deal with replacing your now-hopeless hard drive. Remember - a clone is just that; an identical snapshot of your computer, ready to rescue you when you need it.
Now, launch SuperDuper. For our purposes, you do not need to register SuperDuper. It will create an identical clone of your hard drive for no fee (though it is well worth registering for the additional features, which we’ll talk about in step 4). The beautiful, and very Mac-like, thing about SuperDuper, is the simplicity of the interface that really does hide all the complexity that is about to happen. From the “Copy” pulldown menu, select your computer’s internal (main) disk. Under the “to” pulldown menu, select the the external disk or partition you set up from step 1. If you are adventurous, go ahead and see what is available for you under the “Options...” button, but the defaults are fine for now. You still have plenty of time to change your mind, and this is a good time to see what options are available for you in the future.
Once you have the “Copy” pulldown set to your main (internal) computer drive, and the “to” set up to your external disk or partition, and are satisfied with the description of “What’s going to happen"” window description (and yes, it is fine to exclude files that Apple recommends), go ahead and click “Start Copying.” The average hard drive will take about 45 minutes to clone, so now is a good time to go and do something else non-computer related (go read a book or make dinner, it’ll take a while). Check in every 5 minutes and make sure all is proceeding; if any dialog boxes come up, READ them, but for the most part, “OK” will be the appropriate response. Otherwise, take a little quality time for yourself. Once SuperDuper is done doing its thing, go on ahead to step 3.
Step 3) Again, this step is optional, but highly recommended. What we want to do is ensure that our newly created backup is indeed a functioning clone, and to do that, we want to actually boot up the Mac from the clone and confirm that yes, indeed, this is our computer running from a backup. (If you were adventurous in step 2, you may have checked “Reboot from
With the firewire drive still attached, reboot your Mac. As soon as you hear your startup chime, press the “option” key and keep it down. If all goes well, you should be presented with a screen that shows available systems to boot up into. (If your computer boots up normally, you didn’t get to the ‘option’ key quickly enough.) Wait a minute or so, as the Mac looks for all available systems over the network, and then click on the system that resides on your cloned firewire drive.
Your Mac should now continue the startup process, not from your internal hard drive, but from the newly cloned drive. Once it reaches the desktop (logging in normally if need be), verify that your new system is indeed identical to your main system. Check email, open applications, anything you’d like. If all works as expected, congratulations! You can sleep easier at night now.
Step 4) So why go to all this bother? Why not just back up the Documents or Desktop folder to a CD or DVD and be done with it? Because an actual duplicate of your drive is bootable, you can recover from a hard drive crash in a matter of minutes, giving you the opportunity to replace your internal drive *after* your deadline. Basically, this works in reverse: SuperDuper your backup clone as the “source” disk, and your destination disk will be the newly initialized internal disk replacement. By keeping both your OS and your work files backed up, you insure yourself against digital catastrophe. Also, a fully functioning backup enables you to upgrade your OS with the ability to return to your prior system in the event of incompatibilities.
Now is the point one should really consider shelling out $20 for SuperDuper. The registered version allows you to update your backup with only the newer files that have changed since you last backed up, without having to wipe out the partition and doing a full clone again. It also allows for some advanced backup techniques which can be found in the user guide. Again, there are other methods (Unix shell scripts) and applications that allow you to create a bootable clone. We just find SuperDuper to be easy, Mac-like, and a great bargain for what it does, and as such recommend it to our individual clients who don’t need a more comprehensive backup system such as Retrospect or BRU. Incrementally backup for clone every couple of days - but do not backup if your “normal” system starts acting up! No reason to clone corrupted files after all. Along with this, consider setting up a daily backup to another hard drive, DVD, .Mac, or a second partition on your clone drive of just your documents, mail messages, digital photographs, and anything else important.
Again, there are a lot of different ways to ensure you don’t come face to face with the traumas of data loss. The main point is, set up a system and use it. Your bits and bytes will thank you.