In previous posts, we covered a way to make a complete and total backup of your Mac. That’s great, but it can take a very long time to complete, and it’s not very automated. A good backup system needs to be non-intrusive and automated so it can happen regularly.
Here we’re going to cover a method of backing up your personal data that can be done every day with very little trouble. Used in concert with the occasional “ultimate backup” we covered earlier, you’ll be in great shape if something ugly happens.
When it comes to backup, there are three questions we have to answer. What are we going to backup? Where are we going to put it? And how are we going to do it?
What to backup
In the previous post, we did the thorough thing, and just backed up everything. But for a task that we want to do every day, that’s a lot of time and a lot of stuff , most of which hardly ever changes. Instead, I choose to just backup my “home” folder on a daily basis.
The “home” folder was a new concept that came with OS X. Back in days of OS 9, we simply clicked on the picture of our hard drive and started saving files. The entire hard drive was ours to put files on wherever we pleased. You could say that the entire hard drive was our home folder.
The problem was that there were lots of other files that weren’t ours: Operating system files, applications, utilities, and all kinds of other things, some of which we didn’t even know what they were.
With OS X, Apple decided to dedicate a single folder on our hard drive for our stuff alone. More specifically, my stuff, which would be separate from your stuff. I could have my set of book marks, e-mail, and documents. You could have yours. And we wouldn’t have to trip over (or even see) each others stuff. Further, we wouldn’t have the computer’s stuff in our folder. The computer would have its own folders to play in, such as the “Applications” and “System” folders. A place for everything and everything in it’s place.
So now, with your own home folder, you have one place where all your stuff lives. Stuff on your Desktop? It’s in your home folder. Your e-mail and bookmarks? In the “Library” folder that lives in your home folder. Most applications will automatically take you to your home folder when you save a file automatically. If not, that little “house” icon is right there, just begging to be clicked on.
With one folder with all of your stuff in it, you have a pretty easy target when you want to back up. This target lives in the “Users” folder of your hard drive. When you’re logged in, it even looks like a little picture of a house. Think they were trying to drive a point home? (Sorry, puns are just my thing.)
Mac OS X does let you save files outside of your home folder. After all, it’s still your computer. But I strongly suggested that you play along. If you do, lots of other things will be easier, such as backup or moving your data to a new Mac. If you don’t, it’s a little like swimming up stream. Yes, you can do it, but it’s harder than it needs to be.
We have the answer to the “What?” question. We’re going to backup our home folders, and that should catch everything that we’re most concerned about. Ideally, the rest of the folders on your hard drive can be brought back (in case of emergency) from your installation CD’s or re-downloading the application. If you’ve done the “ultimate backup” a few weeks ago, you can just restore everything from that, then use your daily backup to get all your latest stuff that is new since you did that last big backup.
Where to back up to
Where do we put all this data? Again, I really like the idea of external hard drives. They’re cheap, fast, and relatively trouble free. I’d suggest getting one that’s about as large or larger than your current hard drive. I have a 120 GB drive in my Mac Book Pro, and I use a 250 GB drive for backup. Considering they can be had for under $100 if you shop around, it’s really not a bad deal.
In another post, I’ve discussed how to properly format your external drive to work best with your Mac.
How to backup
Some people really like tedium. They’ll grab folders where they know things have changed, and drag those folders over to their backup drive. This works, but it’s not for me. First, I hate tedium. Second, if I have to work too hard at it, I’m not likely to do it. Third, if I have to make decisions about this ever time, I’m bound to screw it up at some point.
I’m inherently lazy, so I look for automated ways to do this. I’ve found two programs that work quite nicely. One is free, called “LaCie SilverKeeper“. The other one costs a few clams, and is called “Synk“.
Both programs operate on a similar concept. They take one folder (the “source”) , and make sure that a second folder (”destination”) looks just like it. The first time they run, they have to copy everything from the source, since the destination is completely empty. On subsequent runs though, they only have to copy over changes, which goes much faster.
The end result is you have two folders that look exactly the same. If your source gets messed up or destroyed, you can just grab the copy from your external drive and replace the entire thing, or just parts of it, as the case may be.
There is a slight problem here. What if I delete a folder with really important stuff in it? I then run my backup, and it makes the two folders look identical. (That is, the backup program deletes the same folder in my destination.) Next week, I realize the error of my ways, but there’s nothing I can do, because the folder is gone from my backup as well. Bummer!
This is where I prefer Synk over SilverKeeper. Synk has an option to hold on to files that would otherwise be deleted or overwritten. I can tell it to keep X number of days worth of history around. Personally I find this very handy, even reassuring.
Synk is currently at version 6.0. Oddly enough, I have much better luck with version 5.2, so that’s the version I’m going to cover here. Synk has a 30 day trial, so if you can find out if you like it or not before you shell out the 30 -ish bucks for it.
There are two parts to Synk, one is the application itself, the other is a file where it stores all your settings of what you want done. (Version 6 doesn’t do this any more.) So when you setup a backup, you’ll have a little document that you can click on to run it, see the logs, change the settings, etc.
When you first start it up, it’s going to start up with a blank “document”. In the “Basic” tab, you can setup the most important stuff. The “Source” is what folder you want to backup (your home folder). Click on the button to select your folder. The “Destination” is where you want your data to be backed up to. This should really be a folder on your external hard drive. The rest of the options are pretty good as defaults.
The next tab to look under is the “Extras” tab. Here’s where you can set up a separate folder for things that would otherwise be deleted in your destination. It’s the “Archive files overwritten or deleted by Synk” check box. Pick a folder on your external drive for these archived files. Make sure you don’t pick a folder that’s inside of your “destination” folder you selected above. I also like to set a limit on how long these archived files will stick around. For me, 30 days is a nice round number.
If you want to see how it works, you can click the “Run” button and watch it go. Remember, the first time it backs up, it will take a while. If you want to see just what it’s doing, you can click on the “log” tab while it’s running.
Now take a look at the “Schedule” tab. It’s pretty simple. Just click the times you want Synk to run. I run mine every day at nine, since I’m usually at home by that point. I’d aim for a time when your computer is likely to be on, but not heavily used. You can also set it to start up or wake up your computer if it needs to, but I’m a bit hesitant of that. (If you want this, go under the “Synk” menu and choose “Preferences”.
Now go under the “File” menu and choose “Save”. It will ask you where you want to save your settings document. Put it some place convenient for you. I put mine in my “Documents” folder.
After the first couple of days, I’d click on this document and take a look at the “Log” tab. Just make sure it’s not trying to tell you something. Also, you might want to nose around on your external hard drive and make sure everything is there that you’d expect. Take a look at the Archive folder you set up (under “Extras”). It’s kind of neat to see how much stuff changes in the course of a day. It also gives you a good idea how you can retrieve a file the way it looked on, say, June 27 if you need to.
One last suggestion if you have a laptop: In the “Before and After” tab, there’s an option called “Ask to continue”.
I use this, since my laptop is not always at home when the scheduled backup is set to run, nor is the external hard drive always connected. This option just pops up with a little box asking if Synk should continue. This is my reminder to make sure I’ve got my external drive connected and powered on. If I’m not at home, I can just click cancel, and it will try again tomorrow. Very handy.
And there you have it. Now you have a regular backup that will run automatically, every day, with minimal input from you. It will generally get done in a few minutes, and backup your most important (and irretrievable) stuff. Coupled with an occasional “ultimate backup”, you should be all set.
What about the other program I mentioned? SilverKeeper? I’m leaving that as an exercise for the reader. It works pretty much the same way, and you’ll probably be able to figure it out by poking around with it.
One last thing to keep in mind. When Apple releases OS X, 10.5, it will have backup magic baked right in. For most of us, we won’t even need tools like this. All we’ll need is a backup drive and a single click. When it’s here (Fall of 2007), I’ll be posting some insights into how it all works. But for those of us that are using older versions of OS X, this should remain pretty handy.
