Apple Back Up Your Mac: How Do YOU Do It?

Just wondering how other Apple users back-up their Macs, specifically in terms of automating it. I want to hopefully use an old Windows PC with a monster amount of spare space on it as a remote file server thingy, storage device and was wondering if anyone else had done anything similar.

Not sure whether to go for full disk image or individual folders at the moment.

I'm looking to test drive it with XP and Linux and see which is better for this. No idea at this moment as I've never bothered with this sort of thing before.

So come on, suggestions please on inventive means of backing up that hard drive!

 

Tar the folder
SCP to Linux fileserver

Though this probably won't do the entire drive(haven't experimented with it) it does do pretty much every os out there

I have my 2 windows boxes and my second linux box and my macbook all copying their folders to my fileserver

The fileserver compresses and encrypts the essential stuff and chucks that up on some FTP space I have it also SCPs it to my fathers fileserver

 

apple backup software to 4 places:

external raid array (daily)
fileserver (weekly)
amazon's remote webserver (bi-weekly)
dual layer dvd (monthly)

 

I'm currently doing NOTHING

I'm looking forward to time machine - I have an external 60gb hd that I intend to start using once leapord comes out.

 

I use iBackup to backup all mail and address book settings, then synk to daily dump them over to a mac mini with a 1tb external drive. It then sync's my pc's docs and pictures folders across to the mac.

I then run a monthly backup of the backups to an external hard disc kept in a fire proof safe.

 

SuperDuper! and an external drive. Runs automatically at 9:30 each night doing a sync-type backup (full drive), but it's very customizable. One of few pieces of software that works well enough for me to have actually bought it.

Plus, at least for photos, a DVD burner and plenty of blanks. A bit of a pain since my Aperture library is well over 4.7GB so I have to manually explore within the library file and back up individual folders. RAW is dangerous Hopefully I'll actually be able to get them off-site soon, although I'm not especially concerned about my dorm bursting info flames *touch wood*

 

I use Deja Vu which backs up docs and mail folders on my MBP to my server drive everyday. The server then gets semi regular backups to tape via Retrospect & a 40GB Segate Travan drive.

 

I used SilverKeeper for a while (free) but it kept falling over on files that Claris Emailer uses. Some conflict with Classis Apps. So I changed to ChronoSync and that works fine. It copies my entire Hard Drive to an external Firewire drive (Seagate - very quiet and cool-running) each night. Things I can't afford to lose get burned to disc manually.

 

Set up my CEO's daughter's apple with RSyncX and an external hard drive, add an entry in the crontab (RSyncX can be a pain here, you may want to do it manually) to copy every Saturday night. Recovery is just a matter of copying the files back.

Quick and dirty, but easy for anyone to understand!

 

whilst at uni i back files up onto an external hard drive and i also use mozy which is a free online backup program to back up important uni work, e-mails, favourites etc.

At home ive got a file server which runs windows ive made it as simple as possible to back up so my dad can do it. Its just using microsoft sync toy so all you have to do is plug the external hard drive in, fire up synctoy select the profile and press sync!

Anything mega important will get burnt to cd every known again etc.

//edit just checked and mozy doesnt currently support mac whereas i thought they did, however if you where backing up to a windows pc then i would still recommend it!

 

Another vote for SuperDuper! - http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

I backup to a drive on my server.