How to Back Up a Hard Drive

wxwax

So I buy an external hard drive that doesn't have one-touch backup software.

I want to use it to be a mirror for one or perhaps two other hard drives. A backup. I'd like it to be simple to backup my other externals, every time I add files to them.

What's the best way to accomplish this?

Can both a PC and a Mac be used to get one external to backup another? Or, once I choose one machine, am I stuck with using only it to order backups?

Should I buy something like this and be done with it?

DoctorIt

I was all set to point you in the direction of a great new file synching/backup freeware that I started using... until you threw that PC AND Mac disclaimer in there. I doubt you'll find a solution where you could make any external drive understand commands from two different OS's.

Regardless, I just got everyone in the lab using this, and it works really well, is very customizable (will do backups across network drives as well), and is freeware!

SyncBack freeware

wxwax

DoctorIt wrote:

I was all set to point you in the direction of a great new file synching/backup freeware that I started using... until you threw that PC AND Mac disclaimer in there. I doubt you'll find a solution where you could make any external drive understand commands from two different OS's.

Regardless, I just got everyone in the lab using this, and it works really well, is very customizable (will do backups across network drives as well), and is freeware!

SyncBack freeware

Thanks for the link. PC only, huh?

DavidTO

There has to be a cross-platform solution. Whether or not it makes financial sense, is another thing. I just don't know enough about it.

My back-up of choice for Macs is SuperDuper. Awesome app.

Manfr3d

SyncBack owns! The free version doesnt have a
progress bar, but thats only a minor inconvenience,
if you see the extensive configurability of this tool.

DavidTO

Sid,

One more thought.

Although I'm pretty sure that there MUST BE a cross-platform solution, I think you should fall back on the very sage advice, KISS, especially for something as important as a backup. Keep it simple. Really simple.

SpeshulEd

can't you just copy/paste the files from one hard drive to the other since thats what the programs are doing essentially?

DavidTO

SpeshulEd wrote:

can't you just copy/paste the files from one hard drive to the other since thats what the programs are doing essentially?

Well, in the Mac world, that will result in a non-bootable disk. Also, the benefit of a backup app is that it will only update the differences between the two drives, backing up a drive that might have taken an hour in a matter of minutes. Also, you can schedule your backups so that they happen with you doing nothing. There are tons more options in SuperDuper, and at between free and $30, (depending on what you want from it), it's a great deal.

DoctorIt

wxwax wrote:

Thanks for the link. PC only, huh?

Yeah, see TO's answer for Mac, I use SuperDuper on my Mac at home as well. I was so happy to find syncback because I had wanted something as nice as SuperDupe for the lab for quite some time.

wxwax

Thanks for the excellent feedback, guys.

I agree, KISS, David. However, for the next few months, I see myself straddling the PC/Mac divide.

Does the software plant anything on the externals? Any reason why I can't use one software on the Mac, and a different software on the PC?

DavidTO

wxwax wrote:

Thanks for the excellent feedback, guys.

I agree, KISS, David. However, for the next few months, I see myself straddling the PC/Mac divide.

Does the software plant anything on the externals? Any reason why I can't use one software on the Mac, and a different software on the PC?

SuperDuper compares the source drive to the target drive and only makes the changes necessary on the target drive to make them the same. *IF* you've chosen that option, that is. You can also have it do it the slow way by erasing the target drive and then backing up from scratch.

But no, it leaves nothing on the target or source drives other than your stuff.

wxwax

DavidTO wrote:

SuperDuper compares the source drive to the target drive and only makes the changes necessary on the target drive to make them the same. *IF* you've chosen that option, that is. You can also have it do it the slow way by erasing the target drive and then backing up from scratch.

But no, it leaves nothing on the target or source drives other than your stuff.

Thanks, that seems safe enough.

W.W. Webster

DavidTO wrote:

There are tons more options in SuperDuper, and at between free and $30, (depending on what you want from it), it's a great deal.

mercphoto

Aren't the file systems for Mac and PC different? I'd therefore think you could not use one hard disk for both platforms.

On Mac I like Retrospect. You could also open an xterm and use the unix rsync utility, which you get for free with OS-X.

wxwax

mercphoto wrote:

Aren't the file systems for Mac and PC different? I'd therefore think you could not use one hard disk for both platforms.

On Mac I like Retrospect. You could also open an xterm and use the unix rsync utility, which you get for free with OS-X.

I haven't hooked 'em up yet. I seem to recall being told I would not need to reformat.

DavidTO

wxwax wrote:

I haven't hooked 'em up yet. I seem to recall being told I would not need to reformat.

Depends on how you format it. I'm no expert on this area, but FAT32 or some such thing should work with both. For a non-start up drive ONLY.

colourbox

If you want complete backups for both Mac and PC, I don't see why you would try to use one big volume. At the very least, a drive partitioned into Mac and PC volumes, and then you simply mount the one you need and run Super Duper and SyncBack on the other. But to reduce the risk of complete data loss, I wouldn't put it all on one drive. I'd have two smaller drives, one dedicated to Mac backup and the other dedicated to PC backup. You solve all your cross-platform issues, ensure that their files will never be entangled, and your backup could even be immediately bootable (at least on the Mac), and you ensure that one downed drive doesn't take out both platforms' backups.

hgernhardtjr

FWIW, for the PC, I have been using Micro$oft'$ own (FREE!) SyncToy powertool since it was first released over a year ago. You can read about it here http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=49818CF1-2287-40EA-8A6F-57BD8695F23D&displaylang=en then download it. I "synch" with two external HDs, and find it works very well. Once set up, it is transparent to use.

wxwax

DavidTO wrote:

Depends on how you format it. I'm no expert on this area, but FAT32 or some such thing should work with both. For a non-start up drive ONLY.

Is that an internal drive?

As I said, I only need to back up my externals.

DavidTO

wxwax wrote:

Is that an internal drive?

As I said, I only need to back up my externals.

Either.

All's I'm saying is to make sure that your Mac boot drive is formatted in Mac speak, not bilingual. Other drives you can format bilingually, I'm just not an expert on it, but I think that FAT32 should work OK, although there may be a better solution.

wxwax

colourbox wrote:

If you want complete backups for both Mac and PC, I don't see why you would try to use one big volume. At the very least, a drive partitioned into Mac and PC volumes, and then you simply mount the one you need and run Super Duper and SyncBack on the other. But to reduce the risk of complete data loss, I wouldn't put it all on one drive. I'd have two smaller drives, one dedicated to Mac backup and the other dedicated to PC backup. You solve all your cross-platform issues, ensure that their files will never be entangled, and your backup could even be immediately bootable (at least on the Mac), and you ensure that one downed drive doesn't take out both platforms' backups.

Thanks colourbox. Since I don't understand your post :uhoh let me describe my deal.

I have three external HD's of varying sizes. I save only photos on them. I'm thinking about getting 2/3 externals to use exclusively for backing them up.

Complicating things is that I'm not fully transitioned to Mac. Some shots I work on a PC and save to a HD. Some shots I will work on the Mac and save to one of the externals, maybe the same one. (I've been told I don't need to reformat the externals to do this.) The externals I use right now are not partitioned. And I don't want to partition them. I'd like the files to be available regardless of which computer is doing the driving.

And I'd like to make the backups happen no matter which computer is hooked up to the external HD's at any given time.

Make sense?

ian408

Hiya Sid!

What I would recommend that you pick a machine and connect the
drive to it and back up BOTH machines to that drive. Do not move
the drive from machine to machine. You are only asking for trouble.
If you attached it to the windows box, you can share it out and write
your backups to it using what ever tool. OS X supports windows
file sharing either direction.

The machine I would pick is whatever your desktop is. Just to avoid
the hassles of moving the disk.

You should be able to use what ever backup tool works for each OS to
do your backups to that disk.

I would suggest you get your backups running and once you feel they do,
try a restore (to a different directory). And that you periodically check
that your backups work by restoring something.

Ian

colourbox

wxwax wrote:

Thanks colourbox. Since I don't understand your post :uhoh let me describe my deal.

Probably the reason you didn't understand my post is because I didn't read your post fully. I was writing as if you were backing up your boot drives, but re-reading the thread now I see you are only talking about backing up externals containing photos. My mistake.

In that case it might work to have both the external and its backup formatted with FAT32, then use whatever backup software works on both platforms, but I'm going to have to defer to those with more experience on this.

wxwax

ian408 wrote:

Hiya Sid!

What I would recommend that you pick a machine and connect the
drive to it and back up BOTH machines to that drive. Do not move
the drive from machine to machine. You are only asking for trouble.

Click! The light went on.

Of course, this makes perfect sense. Thanks Ian!