ChronoSync and ChronoSync Agent are the best backup system I have.1 This looks like a good update
By way of MacMegasite
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Dropbox is NOT a backup ↩
Backup
6
Sep 11
New S3 Options
Amazon recently sent me an email describing some new features of their S3 service. They include:
- Folder Upload
- Find Objects by Quick Search
- Broader Access (use the Amazon S3 Console on platforms that don’t support Adobe Flash)
Amazon S3 is still a bit too geeky for most people but these new features sure seem to target mainstream users. I honestly do not think Apple’s iCloud will replace Dropbox. Neither, do I think it is designed to function like Dropbox. However, death by a thousand Amazon upgrades could be a possibility for Dropbox.
6
Sep 11
Restoring From Carbonite [Link]
Great bit of info about what it’s like to restore from Carbonite after a crash. If you read my post about my backup strategy you may have noticed that I do not use a cloud backup system. That’s because I have never met someone that has restored from one of these services after a fatal HD failure.
I guess I can keep waiting.
3
Aug 11
A Map of Paranoia
I’m serious about backup.[1] Here’s my current setup:
Primary Machine
I have an iMac (from early 2011) with an internal 256GB SSD boot drive and an internal 2TB spinning platter secondary drive. The secondary drive contains my iTunes, Photo and Documents folders. My Dropbox folder is also on the secondary drive so that the SSD is really just for the OS and Applications.
Secondary Machines
I use a Mac Mini (from early 2010) as a server for FTP, WebDAV and iTunes. It is also setup as a ChronoAgent. That means ChronoSync running on my primary machine can easily backup to a drive on the Mac Mini without the drive directly mounted on the iMac.
I also have a MacBook that is really just used as a mobile machine. I don’t backup the MacBook but I do sync it with Dropbox and iDisk.
We recently donated my wife’s 2008 iMac. She had not used it in almost a year (ever since she got an iPad) so we gave it to her father. He is now a Mac switcher and thrilled to have the iMac. Before that, my wife’s iMac was backed up by ChronoSync through a Mac Mini server.
Backup
Now here’s where the craziness begins. Rather than drone on about the setup, I’ve included a little map that describes the setup.
ChronoSync backups are always performed with “Archive Deletions” on. That means that files that are deleted from the source are moved to an Archive folder on the backup.
System Design
While the system looks complicated, there are only a few principles of the design.
- Files can be restored within 24 hours of any disaster (short of an asteroid impact or solar flare)
- Corruptions in the master data source do not propagate through all of the backups
- Backups are performed automatically
The local backups achieve goal #1. The Off-Site and Annual Archive backups achieve goal #2. The network backups via ChronoSync and TimeMachine achieve the third and final goal of the system. Only the periodic archives require a manual step of retrieving a drive. The ChronoSync scripts for non-clone drives are scheduled to run as soon as the drive is connected. No manual interaction is required to run the backup.
While this may seem like a bit of a headache, it really requires very little work on my part. I have regularly occurring OmniFocus tasks that remind me to bring my off-site disks home and to run the backups. It’s a small price to pay for peace of mind. How would your backup system perform if your house was robbed, burned to the ground or was struck by lightning.
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3 months after returning from my honeymoon in Tuscany I had a hard drive failure and lost all but a few photos. The only photos that remain of that time were the dozen that I uploaded to MobileMe. That was a huge life lesson: try not to inform your new bride that you lost all of the photos from her honeymoon.
11
Jul 11
Instacast Backups
If you are like me, then Instacast is constantly running on your iPhone. I no longer download any podcasts for syncing to iOS or AppleTV. I have Instacast on iOS and the AppleTV 2 has streaming of “favorite” podcasts.
However, now I need to remember to regularly backup my podcast subscriptions from Instacast. If I lost my iPhone it would take quite some time to remember what the names of all my favorite shows are. Well, actually most of them are 5by5 shows so I guess I could easily recreate about half of my subscriptions.
4
Jul 11
Lion Preparedness
The Mac Power Users podcast had some great routines for getting ready for a new operating system. Go listen and take notes. Here are a few that I add to my own list of critical files.
Files to keep handy
- AppleScript, Python, Perl and Ruby Scripts
- Keyboard Maestro macros
- Hazel scripts
- Screenshots of critical preference panes
- Bento database export (I still hate that it is stored in the library folder)
- TextExpander Snippets
- Mail Archive
- TextMate themes
Must have applications
- 1Password installer and registration code
- Dropbox installer
- nvAlt installer
- LaunchBar installer
- SuperDuper installer
- PathFinder installer
Lists to prepare
- Safari Plugins
- Applications to install (easy if you use 1Password to track serial numbers)
With this combination of material, I can get any new machine or clean OS up and running just how I like. I’ve been slowly repurchasing high value software from the Mac AppStore just so I can have an install history available on every machine.
1
Jul 11
Amazon S3 Price Calculator
An astute commenter on the last post pointed out that while the transfer rates are a lot cheaper for S3 now, the monthly storage cost is not. To figure out how much your backup will cost, visit the AWS Calculator. If your backup storage needs are less than 5GB, it might be free for the first year.
1
Jul 11
Amazon S3 Price Change
I loved reading Shawn Blanc’s post about online backup. He did a great job reviewing the pros and cons of the best options. I’ve avoided most of these services because I have never personally met someone that has restored from an online backup. I have used Amazon’s S3 service for storing and sharing files, but never considered it for a backup option due to the steep price for large amounts of data. For example, when I was looking at S3, this is how the pricing would break down for my 1TB iTunes library.
Upload
$0.10/GB x 1TB = $100
Restore
$0.14/GB x 1TB = $140
Monthly Updates
$0.10/GB x 10GB = $1.00
So, the monthly update charges would be minimal, but the initial upload is quite expensive. Of course the download is also expensive, but if you lost your entire iTunes library, $140 seems like a small price to pay to get it back.
Of course, I have no idea if my Verizon FiOS service would also hit me with a big overage charge. I don’t think my initial contract included a data cap but my renewal may have.
A Price Change
Amazon just announced a new pricing model (thanks to Shawn again for the heads up) that makes their product much more enticing. They now offer FREE uploads and reduced the download cost by a small amount. I’m hopefully that other providers like RackSpace will try to compete on price so customers benefit from a competitive pricing all around.
I’ve decided to take a leap and purchase Arq for S3 backups and actually exercise my S3 account.
3
May 11
Date the SSD but marry the HDD
Following up on the SSD post from Jeff Atwood, I love my SSD boot drive but I keep the majority of my data on a secondary HDD. My primary home office computer is a late 2010 iMac with a 256GB Apple SSD and a secondary 2TB “data” drive. Here’s how I have configured this setup to maximize the speed of the SSD but the storage capacity (and maybe reliability) of the HDD.
The SSD
- The OS and all OS dependencies are installed on the SSD. I don’t mess around with symlinks that can break during an upgrade.
- All applications are installed on the SSD. Applications launch instantly. It’s almost unbelievable when you launch an application and it is immediately available to use.
- Developer tools are installed on the SSD. This is for the same reason as other applications. I want the speed increase for building and searching documentation.
- My User Folder exists on the SSD boot drive but it is not used for much.
- iDisk. Oh the disappointment of youthful fantasies. How I wanted iDisk to live up to it’s potential. It has not. I have abandoned the use of iDisk for all but the must fundamental use cases. Preference, contact, keychain, mail account syncing is about all I use iDisk for. Everything else is kept in sync through Dropbox.
The HDD
- Dropbox is on the HDD. Dropbox sync is limited by network speed so drive throughput makes little difference. It’s also impossibly rare that I would need a file instantly accessible.
- All of my Documents live on the HDD. Working files are kept in Dropbox.
- My entire iTunes library is on the HDD. That includes Movies and TV shows. My iTunes library does a lot of heavy work but none of it is limited by disk reading. It powers two AppleTV 2′s which are limited by network streaming. I also have a small child that loves Pixar.
- My Aperture and iMovie files are all on the HDD. The performance is fast enough for my needs. If I intend to do a lot of work in iMove I will start the project on the SSD to receive a modest performance bump. I don’t have any real data, so that could be my imagination.
Now with this setup, backup is pretty crucial to schedule since each drive has a different class of data. My SSD boot disk simply gets cloned to a small 500GB laptop drive. This happens once every weekend. If I lost my boot drive, the biggest problem would be that I could not immediately boot my machine. No data would be lost though.
My secondary “Data” HDD is backed up every night and also configured to use Time Machine. I also have a drobo that is configured through ChronoSync to be the recipient of a secondary backup of my data files.
In general, it’s the larger, cheaper and more reliable drive that is my primary data store. The HDD is dependable and I can grow into it. The SSD is just for fun.
7
Mar 11
Backup that Mailbox
Category 2 Data
I posted previously about finding your data buckets. It amounts to sifting through all of your digital records and assigning a cost and benefit. The ultimate goal, is to know what you have and how to secure it.
I assign email messages to category 2, along with receipts and warranties. Most email is unlikely to be crucial since I’ve probably already acted on it in some way. This is very different from family photos or tax documents which are generally irreplaceable.
Backup
I primarily use a MobileMe IMAP account for personal email. This means that all of it is stored in the cloud. While I tend to trust the stability and robustness of Apple’s MobileMe service, bad things still happen. That means I need to secure my own data and not count on someone else to safegaurd it for me. I clone my boot drive periodically, which includes email. This ensures that I can get to my email if I have a catastrophic disk failure and MobileMe goes offline. However, the 3-2-1 model means that it is not secured until I have at least 3 copies.
Archive
Apple Mail provides a simple way to get your mail out of the application and into a backup folder. Simply select the mailbox folders and choose Archive Mailbox from the Mailbox menu. I export two copies. one copy goes to my Dropbox account. The second copy goes to an archive folder on my Drobo. That means that my mail is secured in the following way (in addition to MobileMe):
- 1 copy on my machine (SSD drive)
- 1 copy on Dropbox (cloud storage)
- 1 copy on Drobo (NAS disk storage)
The final trick is to make sure Spotlight and Launchbar both exclude my data backup locations. I really do not want to see multiple copies of the same email when I search from either tool.
5
Jan 11
3-2-1 Backup
Do yourself a favor and learn this:
http://www.dpbestflow.org/backup/backup-overview#321
Trust me on this one. The American Society of Media Photographers KNOW how to secure data. I know a half dozen people that took backup too lightly and suffered the consequences. Including myself.
Media is cheap. Memories are not.
