Yesterday, I had to give a customer the bad news that both the hard drive in his iMac G5 and the hard drive in his 2008 Time Capsule had failed; talk about a difficult conversation! Luckily, the data on the iMac appears to be recoverable, but the Time Capsule drive, which was his sole backup for three machines, no longer mounts so it’s beyond the means of software recovery and its only hope is to take an expensive trip to a data recovery specialist if the data is truly worth the price tag.
Now, before anyone goes bashing the Time Capsule, keep in mind that all of our hard drives will eventually be doorstops. That’s the unfortunate truth of hard drive technology. While we can’t all afford to the $1,200 price tag for a shiny new 512GB solid state drive (featured in Apple’s new “Mac Pro”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/x/x/x/Apple|Mac_Pro) we can take further steps to protect our data by implementing multiple layers of backup.
So far in this series, we’ve discussed using the Time Capsule Archive feature, creating bootable backups and using software and hardware RAIDs. It seems that after each article I receive a trickle of comments pointing out what could go wrong in each scenario. The bottom line is that there is no singular infallible solution which is why I recommending using a combination of techniques that fit your needs and skill level. Today’s article will discuss some of these comments and offer some solutions on ways to combine backup methods.
Let’s start with the #1 comment that I receive after every article, “But if x is corrupt y will be too!” Backups aren’t only important in the case of hard drive failure, they can also be a life-saver if one encounters software corruption. One issue with most backup solutions is that software corruption is often just copied to the backup. This is especially the case with clones and RAIDs. Now, if the issue is directory corruption, tools like “Disk Warrior,”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/41941/alsoft-diskwarrior-4-v4-2-for-intel/at_tt “Drive Genius”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/76008/prosoft-engineering-drive-genius-3-0/at_tt or even an “Archive and Install”:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1710 could be enough to fix it. Occasionally, directory corruption could be irreparable in which case ones only solution may be to run “Data Rescue”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/74842/at_tt and hope to at least pull out the raw files.
For those who are cloning their data or using a RAID system, directory corruption, and all other types of software corruption, can be passed along. With clones, it’s always advisable to test out the clone once it’s complete (i.e. reboot your Mac, hold down the Option key and boot to the external drive to ensure it works). With a mirrored RAID system, one often doesn’t notice the issue until it’s too late since information is constantly being mirrored among the drives. This is one reason why a RAID should not be relied upon as ones sole backup solution.
One of the reasons I like Time Machine, along with other incremental backup solutions, is that there are utilities that allow you to recover from a backup on a specific date. For example, if I noticed software corruption on July 15th, but I know for sure it wasn’t there on July 13th I could use a utility like “Back-In-Time”:http://www.tri-edre.fr/english/backintime.html to recover from that backup on the 13th. Along those lines, if I had corruption in my Time Machine backup but I had a clone of my system from a date before the corruption occurred I could reinstall my operating system and use Migration Assistant to migrate the data from my good clone to my internal hard drive.
After speaking about bootable backups (using “Carbon Copy Cloner”:http://www.bombich.com/ or “SuperDuper!”:http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html), I received an email from a customer who uses a partitioned external hard drive with one basic bootable partition and a Time Machine partition. This is a great idea that I’d like to discuss with the one caveat that it should still not be your only backup solution as if that external drive fails you’d be out your backup.
Disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities) can be used to partition an external hard drive. People partition for a variety of reasons. In this scenario, we want two partitions, one that’s just large enough to house the operating system with some breathing room (depending on the OS you’re using you might need between 8-15GBs) and the other partition is for the Time Machine backup. Next, boot from an install disk (either the disk that came with your computer or a retail copy of the operating system) and follow the installer prompts, choosing the small partition as the destination volume.
Now, check to make sure your bootable partition works by holding down the Option key on boot and selecting the small partition to boot from. Having this slim bootable partition can be very helpful as a troubleshooting tool if you’re having issues with your internal hard drive. It can also be used when restoring data to a new internal hard drive. To use the other partition as a Time Machine backup simply boot from your internal hard drive, go to *System Preferences > Time Machine* and select the larger partition as your backup disk.
As a similar idea, you could also partition an external hard drive and use one partition for the bootable backup and the other for the Time Machine backup. While that route can be very helpful, also keep in mind the rule of not putting all your eggs in one basket; that should not be your only solution.
Let’s not forget CDs, DVDs and flash drives. Along with the aforementioned backup solutions that backup everything on your system, I highly recommend burning important files to CDs or DVDs or throwing them on a thumb drive. While CDs, DVDs and flash drives are not large enough to be a complete backup solution, they have plenty of space to throw important documents, backups of ones address book and calendar, and important photo albums. Online storage space, like Apple’s MobileMe, is another great solution for those individual files!
The last piece of the puzzle is to decide where to keep your backups so that they’re safe. I keep CDs/DVDs in protective sleeves and recommend putting them, along with a redundant backup, in a fireproof box. If you have the ability to keep backups off-site that’s another great solution in the case of theft or natural disaster.
As you can see, there are so many facets to a proper backup solution that it can seem overwhelming. The important thing is to find a system that works for you and stick to it. I encourage you to select two or three of the backup ideas from this series and try them out until you’ve developed your own routine. Once you figure out what works for you, backup can become an automated process that give you piece of mind without taking time out of your busy schedule.
