Take Control of Backing Up Your Mac: The Online Appendixes

Info about nearly 100 Mac backup products and services!
by Joe Kissell

Welcome! If you want to compare features in Mac backup products and services, you’re in the right place. The content here is free to all, but it is associated with a commerical ebook, written by Joe Kissell and published by TidBITS Publishing Inc. The ebook helps you figure out your best strategy for making backups in Mac OS X, and then it covers all the details of setup, testing, maintenance, and restoration.

There are nearly 100 apps and services you can use to back up a Mac, and the list is constantly changing. In Take Control of Backing Up Your Mac, I go into great detail about developing a backup strategy, selecting media, setting up a backup system, and recovering data when the need arises. I also discuss the criteria you should consider when choosing backup software. But rather than list them all in the book, I’ve moved most of the details to this online appendix for easier updating.

Here’s a quick overview of what you will find in these online appendixes:

The Backup Software tab lists the features of numerous apps that can back up your Mac to local media. It's divided into Software for local versioned backups and bootable duplicates and Software for syncing and copying files.
The Backup hardware tab provides lists of hardware options other than conventional hard drives and Apple’s Time Capsule.
The Online Services tab lists the features of many Online backup products as well as Online storage and syncing services that could be used for backup. It also lists an assortment of Photo sharing services.

Because I know people will ask, I also want to say a few words about what is not in these appendixes:

Every last feature: Some backup programs have hundreds of features, and it’s not feasible for me to list all of them here. If you discover that your favorite feature from your favorite program is missing, please understand that there are limits to how much testing I can perform. The features I list here correspond to the discussion in the book; they’re the ones that I think are most critical to know about when deciding on backup software. However, having more features doesn’t necessarily make a program better. In fact, some of the programs with the fewest entries in these tables are among my favorites. Look for the features that are most important for your needs.
Enterprise-oriented software: Take Control of Backing Up Your Mac is for people who are backing up a single computer or a small network—a handful of Macs at most. If you need to back up dozens or hundreds of Macs, you need some heavy-duty software (and serious hardware to go with it). I don’t discuss these situations in the book, and as a result, I don’t cover enterprise-grade backup software in these feature comparison tables either. Examples of enterprise-oriented Mac backup software include:
Recommendations: Astute readers will notice that I simply list and describe features here. I don’t rate or rank programs here. I do make some specific recommendations in Take Control of Backing Up Your Mac, but I’m trying to keep this appendix fairly objective.

Although I have made every effort to be complete and accurate, mistakes are possible. I will make every effort to correct errors I discover, though please keep in mind that some elements in these tables are open to interpretation, and your mileage may vary. Always try out backup software thoroughly before making a decision to use something long-term.