Time Machine help and more: Take Control of Easy Mac Backups

Take Control of Easy Mac Backups

Your guide to making easy and reliable backups in Mac OS X!

Backup guru Joe Kissell teaches you the fastest and easiest way to create a complete Mac backup system from which you can restore your data after an accident or disaster—including versioned backups, an all-important bootable duplicate, and an offsite backup.

Joe walks you through these important steps:

Identifying backup hardware that matches your needs and budget
Understanding the pros and cons of Time Machine, including nine situations where you'll want to go beyond Time Machine
Setting up your backup drive (or Time Capsule)
Configuring Time Machine
Making a bootable duplicate
Storing a backup offsite
Recovering your data

You'll also get tips for setting up ChronoSync, CrashPlan, Data Backup, QRecall, and Retrospect; find out how an online sync is (and isn't) like a backup; and find coupons for 10% off CrashPlan and a $30 discount on Data Backup.

For more comprehensive backup info, see Take Control of Mac OS X Backups.

More Info
Contents & Intro
What’s New
FAQ
Blog

Read Me First
Introduction
Quick Start to Easy Mac Backups
Understand Joe's Basic Backup Strategy
Decide if Time Machine Is Right for You
Pick a Hard Drive
Prepare Your Hard Drive
Set Up and Use Time Machine
Use Other Versioned Backup Software
Create a Bootable Duplicate
Store an Extra Backup Offsite
What to Do When Disaster Strikes

Read Me First

Good backups protect the important information on your computer from many dangers. This book describes an easy yet reliable strategy for backing up your Mac, of which Mac OS X's Time Machine feature may be one component. This book was written by Joe Kissell, edited by Jeff Carlson, and published by TidBITS Publishing Inc.

Introduction

This afternoon—a couple of hours before I sat down to type this introduction—I had a surprising experience. I had just downloaded a file from the Web, and when I double-clicked it, the wrong application opened. When I tried to open it with the right application, I found that the application itself was missing. In fact, a whole folder full of applications was missing that had definitely been inside my main Applications folder a day or two ago.

I have no idea where the folder went. Obviously I must have done something to delete it inadvertently, but since I didn't notice myself doing it at the time, I don't know what that was or when it happened. But—and here's the happy ending—I was able to restore the missing folder, using Time Machine, in exactly four clicks. I'd been testing Time Machine for a long time, but it just so happened that on the day I was to begin writing a book that covers it in detail, I had my first experience of using it to recover something I'd lost in real life.

My point isn't to say, "Oh look, Time Machine actually works!" (though that's true as far as it goes). The point is, the experience of randomly and surprisingly losing an important file can happen to anyone, even to a computer geek like me. That file might be an irreplaceable photo of your child, the song you've been composing for the last month, or an email message from a celebrity. It was that last one that jarred me out of my complacency about backups years ago: a disk crash wiped out all my saved email, including a coveted piece of correspondence that I can now never, ever get back or even prove existed.

By including Time Machine as part of the operating system beginning with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Apple has highlighted the importance of good backups for every Mac user, and has also made it easier to back up and restore files than any previous backup software had done. I couldn't be more pleased to see this crucial issue addressed as part of Mac OS X, and if Time Machine gets millions of people to back up their computers who had never done it before, the world will truly be a better and happier place.

But...

Well, there are a few "buts" here. In the first place, Time Machine, nifty as it is, is not for everyone. Many a Mac user will discover that, for any of several reasons, they need something different to meet their backup needs.

Second, Time Machine has a few—how can I put this delicately?—curiosities. Some important features are missing, some are hidden, and some don't work the way one might expect. Even the features that do work properly aren't explained well in Apple's documentation.

And finally, although Time Machine elegantly solves certain backup problems, it doesn't solve every backup problem. It is not a complete or foolproof system, and therefore I don't recommend it as the sole means of backup for anyone.

All of which brings us to the reason for this book. Time Machine needs some further explication, without a doubt, and I provide that here. But this isn't just a Time Machine book. It's a simplified look at all the important aspects of backing up your Mac.

Among the many things I've written about backups is Take Control of Mac OS X Backups, which aims to be a comprehensive guide to the many choices for a Macintosh backup strategy. That book is much longer than this one, and although I think it's quite good (if I do say so myself), sometimes comprehensive isn't what you want. Perhaps you're a busy person, and understanding the intricacies of backup technology isn't your idea of a good time. You want someone to say, "Look, just do this." Well, in the book you're now reading, I cut to the chase and show you exactly how to make sure you have excellent backups. Not every way to do it, just one very good way.

This book shows you how to get easy and reliable backups, with a minimum of fuss. Time Machine may be an important part of your backup plan, and because I think it's so cool and useful, I've included quite a bit of information about it. Whether or not you use Time Machine, though, your backup strategy needs other components, and I walk you through all of those here—with just enough background information and theory to get the job done.

This book is for people running Leopard or Snow Leopard. Although parts of it also apply to other operating systems, including earlier versions of Mac OS X, I focus on software and strategies appropriate for Mac OS X 10.5 or higher.

Finally, a note about terminology: I've done something in this version of the book that I should have done years ago, which is to correct some terms I'd been misusing all along. I would like to humbly apologize for any confusion or irritation this change may cause for those who have gotten used to my old, mistaken terms, but I felt the time was long overdue for getting with the program and conforming to the way the rest of the world refers to a couple of things.

Most notably, I've restricted the range of meanings I apply to the word archive. Outside the Take Control world, pretty much everyone assumes that, in the context of backups, an archive holds data that you've removed from your active hard drive and put in a safe place for long-term storage. (For example, if there are old customer records you no longer actively need, but which you're legally required to keep in case of a future audit, lawsuit, or whatever, you might archive them.) So I'm now following that usage too.

What I used to call an archive is a method of backing up in which a backup program copies your data to another destination and then adds to the backup as files change and new files appear, with the result that your backup contains multiple versions of every file. (Confusing things even further, I also previously referred to the backed-up data itself as an archive!) Although this sort of backup doesn't have a single universal name, more often than not it's called a versioned backup, which is nicely self-descriptive (even if it's a bit more cumbersome to type or say). I call it that now, too.

Quick Start to Easy Mac Backups

This book is best read in order, as I begin by explaining the strategy I recommend and progressively work through each part of a complete backup system. Even if you choose to skip around, be sure to read Understand Joe's Basic Backup Strategyfirst.

Get your bearings:

Learn the three essential parts of a complete backup plan, and find out what decisions you must make in order to carry it out. See Understand Joe's Basic Backup Strategy.
Time Machine is fantastic, but not ideal for everyone. Read Decide If Time Machine Is Right for You to determine if you'll use it.

Set up your hardware:

One way or another, you'll be storing your backups on a hard drive (or maybe more than one). Learn what to look for when buying a drive for backups in Pick a Hard Drive.
In some situations, you may need to partition or format your backup drive. Find out how in Prepare Your Hard Drive.

Configure your backups:

If you're using Time Machine, learn all you need to know about configuring and using it in Set Up and Use Time Machine.
If you're using other software for versioned backups, get setup advice in Use Other Versioned Backup Software.
Bootable duplicates are an essential part of a complete backup plan. Read Create a Bootable Duplicate for instructions.
Backups are useless if they're destroyed or stolen. Find out how to keep them safe in Store an Extra Backup Offsite.

Recover lost data:

How do you get your data back when you need it? Learn the steps you'll follow in What to Do When Disaster Strikes.

What's New in this Edition

Take Control of Easy Mac Backups has a new name, but it is essentially a second edition of Take Control of Easy Backups in Leopard with extensive modifications throughout. The biggest changes are these:

Updates to account for the (few) differences in backup behavior between Leopard and Snow Leopard
New and improved terminology throughout the book for several common backup features (see the Introduction, p. 8, for details)
A new section about ChronoSync and updated details on CrashPlan
A completely new discussion of Retrospect, which covers version 8.x
An expanded and updated section, Pick a Hard Drive, with new information on FireWire 800, pocket-sized hard drives, hardware-encrypted drives, and full-disk encryption software
Updated information on using Time Machine with some third-party NAS devices in Should You Buy a Time Capsule?
An updated and expanded discussion of Time Machine (Set Up and Use Time Machine, p. 48). In particular:

A new section about how to Set Up Your Time Machine Hardware
Details about utilities that provide more information about what Time Machine is doing in Find Out What Time Machine Is Really Up To and let you change its behavior in Modify the Hourly Backup Interval

New ChronoSync Tips and a revised list of Retrospect Tips
New or updated information about various online backup services: Backblaze, CrashPlan, Jungle Disk and MozyHome
A new sidebar (Online Syncing: Almost Backup, p. 95) that discusses Dropbox, iDisk, and SugarSync

If you've already used the first edition of this ebook, Take Control of Easy Backups in Leopard, to set up a working backup system, there's no need to reread this entire book or totally revamp your setup, because my overall strategy remains essentially the same. My advice is to focus on the sections referenced in this list that describe new or updated backup software, devices, and services, as they may be able to save you some time, effort, and money in the future.

Update Plans

January 2010 -- This book is currently up-to-date, so we have no plans for specific updates other than become necessary as the field changes.

—Adam C. Engst

Retrospect Acquired by Sonic Solutions

May 28, 2010 --

For those interested in the once-dominant Retrospect for backup, note that it has just been acquired from EMC by Sonic Solutions, the parents of Toast Titanium maker Roxio. The people we've spoken with on the Retrospect team are happy about the acquisition and hope it will enable them to improve Retrospect 8 significantly. For more details, see Retrospect Backup Software Acquired by Sonic Solutions in TidBITS.

—Adam C. Engst

Time Capsule Failure Prevention and Resolution

March 19, 2010 --

A recent TidBITS article, Time Capsule Failures: When They Happen and What to Do, discusses a spate of Time Capsule failures, possibly due to overheating. The article makes suggestions for avoiding this problem, and it describes how to best address the problem if it happens. Unfortunately, if your Time Capsule does go belly up, you'll ideally have another backup of your Time Capsule drive, so if you haven't looked into setting one up, this article should give you additional incentive.

—Tonya Engst

Time Capsule Failure Prevention and Resolution

March 19, 2010 --

—Tonya Engst

Get Inspired to Make Better Backups in 2010

January 12, 2010 --

In MacVoices Podcast #1003, Take Control author Joe Kissell chats with host Chuck Joiner about many aspects of making successful Macintosh backups. Joe talks at length about deleting un-needed files and about how you determine if a file is no longer needed. He also talks about the many reasons to make backups and provides insight on the latest trends and techniques for backups, including his thoughts on USB 3, hardware encryption, and online backup services.

This podcast comes in conjunction with the release of Take Control of Easy Mac Backups.

—Tonya Engst

Quick, Reliable Backups with “Take Control of Easy Mac Backups”

January 8, 2010 --

To help you start the new year with the warm fuzzy feeling of a solid backup strategy, we've just published Take Control of Easy Mac Backups, a new ebook from Joe Kissell that's aimed at helping those whose backup strategy is non-existent, inadequate, or confusing. This ebook is for people who want great backups but know they won't spend much time on them. Joe explains just what you need to know (and no more) to make effective backups that go beyond the limited security of flipping the switch in Time Machine's system preference pane.

This 108-page ebook, which discusses making backups in either Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or 10.5 Leopard, is a little brother to Joe's 196-page Take Control of Mac OS X Backups. It is also essentially the second edition of the now-discontinued Take Control of Easy Backups in Leopard. (If you own Take Control of Easy Backups in Leopard, check your email for a discount offer or - if you purchased after August 1, 2009 - a free update. If you didn't receive an email message, open your ebook to page 1 and click Check for Updates or contact us.)

Joe has been writing about backups for Take Control for years now, and his experience rings true as he walks you through picking out the right hardware and software for your needs and budget, preparing a hard drive for backups, setting up your backup software - he provides specific directions for Time Machine and tips for ChronoSync, CrashPlan, Data Backup, QRecall, and Retrospect - and creating a bootable duplicate. Joe also discusses three strategies for storing an extra backup offsite, and - most important! - he explains how to restore from a backup.

Common questions answered in the book include:

How can I get the maximum benefit from Time Machine?
Should I use a Time Capsule, Apple's all-in-one Wi-Fi router and backup appliance?
What features should I look for in an external backup drive?
Should I use an online backup service, such as Backblaze or CrashPlan?
Should I use USB or FireWire to connect my backup drive?
What's a versioned backup, and why should I care?
Why is having a bootable duplicate important?
How can I easily and effectively keep an offsite backup?
Time Machine is acting strangely. What should I do?
How do I migrate existing backups to a Time Capsule?
What's the difference between an online sync and a backup?

The ebook also comes with coupons for 10% off on the CrashPlan online backup service and $30 off Data Backup.

—Adam C. Engst

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Book Info

About the Author

Book Reviews

Reviews of Previous Editions

Author Interviews

Table of Contents

Read Me First

Introduction

Quick Start to Easy Mac Backups

Get your bearings:

Set up your hardware:

Configure your backups:

Recover lost data:

What's New in this Edition

Does the book have in-depth coverage of Time Machine?

What if I want to go beyond Time Machine?

Does the book cover backup strategies for large organizations?

I want a more comprehensive ebook about backups. Can you help?

Can I read this ebook on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch?

Ask a Question

Send Us Your Comments!

Update Plans

Retrospect Acquired by Sonic Solutions

Time Capsule Failure Prevention and Resolution

Time Capsule Failure Prevention and Resolution

Get Inspired to Make Better Backups in 2010

Quick, Reliable Backups with “Take Control of Easy Mac Backups”