Kunoichi: Doggie Ninja

I think I ask mom this more and more frequently. She’s probably tired of it by now. And while it doesn’t appear to be a huge thing for mom and dad (as dad seems like he goes through computers faster than he can fill them), I don’t even want to think about the day when Becca’s computer fails. I really don’t want to be there for that, honestly.

But, I’ve been thinking about backups a lot lately, now that I have 2 macs instead of just one. (SO LONG PC’S I WILL NOT MISS YOU.) Currently I’m running Time Machine, SuperDuper!, and .Mac MobileMe. MobileMe is the new .Mac, released less than a month ago and OH HOW I HATE IT. it’s supposed to “push”, it doesn’t, it “syncs”, but I’m not even sure it’s doing that correctly. My calendars are all out of whack (pieces of SOME of the calendars).

Granted, I redid a lot of stuff last night that seemed to fix the majority of the problem, but I’m still left contactless on my phone. It’s supposed to push to my phone and it has been more than 24 hours, nothing.

Well, now that I’ve vented the MobileMe back up frustrations, I’ll continue with my lecture on BACKING UP.

Also, I have issues with MobileMe’s expiration date (it’s just wrong, it should have 13 more months added to it. GRR.

Okay, so, like I mentioned, LOTS of backing up. So, I’ll go through piece by piece.

First off, I have 2 external hard drives, a 320GB MyBook and a 1 TB MyBook, and I’m rabidly approaching a need for a 3rd, but I’d rather have a 320GB passport I think (or 500GB, but they don’t make that). Currently they are formatted such that the 320 was split between a SuperDuper! clone of my Macbook and the rest was to drag and drop from the PC. And the 500 was split between Time Machine (500) and DVD Backups (rapidly filling up the 500GB alloted to it).

Well, the new computer has around 320 more GBs than the PC. This is sort of a good thing and a bad thing. Great to have all that space, but…how am I gonna handle the backups.

1) Use Chronosync to sync the documents, music and photos (basically everything except movies) between the Macbook and the iMac. That gives me both a better workflow in that I don’t have to use the jump drive to transfer stuff AND I have a backup of all my documents, music and pictures should something go wrong.

2) SuperDuper! clones of BOTH drives. On partitions on the 1TB external drive.

3) DVD Backups split between the 320GB (won’t hold them all) and the iMac. All hooked up with EyeConnect so that, if desired, I can stream them to the PS3. (But realy, why would I now that it upconverts to PRETTY).

4) Off site backup. There are several options, but I’m probably gonna go with Mozy. I’m kind of sad that Carbonite’s not done with their mac tools yet cause I really wanted to say that my data was frozen in Carbonite. But Mozy is unlimited for 4.95/month plus some discounts. It’s both Mac and Windows for those that are curious. There’s also Amazon S3, which I would use if I had less data. If you only have about 10-20 GB’s you want to back up, it would be around $2-3 a month.

So yep, that’s the plan. And I’ve litered it with links for you all. Incoming lecture:

1. Don’t be Carrie Bradshaw. Have backups. Crashes are iminent, think boy scouts and BE PREPARED.

2. One is great, more are better, cause sometimes that backup just doesn’t restore. Before all this I backed up with Apple’s Backup Utility which never did restore correctly. Time Machine was doing well for a while but has now become “corrupted” and asked me to “delete my backups”. Not something you want to hear from your Backup Utility. So, it’s out in favor of syncy goodness.

3. I heart those clones. Makes it significantly easier to migrate your info, as it already knows where it needs to go.

4. What if your house burns down? Or a robber comes in and steals the computer? You’ve lost it all and your external drive (probably). OFF SITE! Not to mention, it may take a while, but it backups over the internet, encrypted of course. Having insurance won’t save you in this situation, so consider that 4.95/month insurance for your data.

Oh and things that did go well with Mobile Me: contacts, bookmarks, and system preferences all went in just fine on the iMac. Additionally, screensharing is fun. I seriously need to get better at VNC so I can set it up at home for the random phone calls

This entry was posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 at 12:21 pm and is filed under gadget lust, life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.