jwz: Classic backup advice

Merlin Mann — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 11:18:09 -0500

This forum question about a comment I made on the most recent MacBreak Weekly reminds me that I mention jwz’s advice on backup often enough that it’s worth reposting the URL (as well as making sure credit goes where it’s due). On the one hand, his advice could hardly be simpler (that’s one reason I like it), but how many of us have taken the time to put a mature backup regime in place?

If you value your data, can’t tolerate downtime, and are casting about for a thorough solution, consider giving this a try.

“OMG, three drives is so expensive! That sounds like a hassle!” Shut up. I know things. You will listen to me. Do it anyway.

”jwz: Classic backup advice” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 21, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

A Tale of Disk Crashing Woe, and the Utilities That Saved Me

wood.tang — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 15:40:21 -0400

Apologies if I’m a little cranky, but I’ve suffered two hard drive crashes in as many weeks, and while I was able to recover somewhat gracefully, the aggravation of watching plodding status bars for hours on end while I wait for my data to load has been unbearable. Fortunately, my wife has employed Bobby Knight-proof safety features in our home office and chained everything to the desk, or else I would have chucked it all out the window.

But since I’m finally back online, I wanted to give a tip of the binder clip to three little programs that saved my bacon during these past two weeks, one crowd favorite and two lowly OS X utilities:

SuperDuper! - The People’s Champ was responsible for idiot-proofing my backup process, so I had multiple pristine copies of my data. Worth every penny.
Disk Utility - The built-in OS X disk wrangler helped me juggle my various images and FireWire drives like a clown on speed.
Migration Assistant - But despite SuperDuper’s and Disk Utility’s heroic efforts, this little beauty was the clear choice for MVP. I don’t know how I never knew there was a utility that could pull all my data, settings, and installed apps directly from one computer to another, but credit goes to the Michigan Avenue Apple Store Genius here in Chicago who tipped me off to this little gem, saving me from even more hours installing apps and tracking down license keys. A++++, would do business with again.

I had been planning to write a post wondering aloud as to why so many of you try to keep multiple machines in sync, but being stuck with one bare bones Mini and a dying MacBook Pro knocked some sense into me. The word of the day is redundancy, kids. I learned my lesson.

”A Tale of Disk Crashing Woe, and the Utilities That Saved Me” was written by Matt Wood for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on October 18, 2007. Except as noted, it's ©2008 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"