[OS X TeX] OT: Backup software

Tue Oct 10 08:53:46 EDT 2006

I use rsync successfully. Rsync is part of the Mac unix system and  
the commands are issued at the terminal.

At the end of each day I rsync to a local FW drive:

rsync -vat --delete /Users/my_id/ /Volumes/FW180/my_id/

where my_id is my account user name on my iMac

and when I get home I rsync across the network (it uses ssh) to my  
MacBook:

rsync -vat --delete -e /usr/bin/ssh  
my_id at my_IMac.dept.va.edu:~my_id/ /Users/my_id/ where

my_IMac.dept.va.edu is my office iMac ip address

I initially cloned the office iMac to the MacBook (using Carbon Copy  
Cloner) and after that it is very fast (it only changes those parts  
of the target files that have been modified on the source.

If you want to try it I advise you first add the option "n" to the  
above commands, as in

rsync -nvat --delete /Users/dbd/ /Volumes/FW180/dbd/.

This will not do anything but will display at the terminal the files  
it would delete and add to the target.

Rsync is very powerful and has a host of other flags and options that  
I have not used.

It saved my ass recently - last April my office G5 was stolen and the  
backup drive was inside the case (the thieves got 2 copies of my  
work). Fortunately my laptop was up-to-date

It is not a substitute for CVS but could easily be add to a chron job  
to execute automatically.

Donal

On Oct 10, 2006, at 8:30 AM, Alex Hamann wrote:

>
> Am 10.10.2006 um 12:36 schrieb Bruno Voisin:
>
>> Le 10 oct. 06 à 11:56, Rick Zaccone a écrit :
>>
>>> Personally, I'm waiting for Time Machine <http:// 
>>> www.computerworld.com/action/article.do? 
>>> command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9003885&pageNumber=1>.  If you  
>>> haven't seen the WWDC demo of it, take a look.  It's impressive.
>>
>> Same here.
>>
>> For the moment I'm sticking to Apple's Backup: I make a full  
>> backup of my home directory to an external hard drive, once a  
>> month say (actually it tends to be once every three months, due to  
>> lack of time, but that's clearly not often enough), and one  
>> incremental backup every day. But a .Mac subscription is required,  
>> otherwise you're limited to 100 MB in one go.
>>
>> I'm very impressed by Gary's backup strategy: if I understood  
>> correctly, incremental backups every hour to different hard drives  
>> in the day and in the evening, plus a bootable clone of the whole  
>> hard drive every day. Unfortunately that doesn't seem possible  
>> here: first, it requires several different hard drives, which  
>> moneywise isn't possible; and it requires configuring several  
>> pieces of software rather precisely, which I'm not sure I can manage.
>>
>> Another concern is size and time: my home directory is about 20  
>> GB, and making a full backup with Backup takes already about 2  
>> hours, which is why I am not able to do it as often as advisable.  
>> And even doing a daily incremental backup takes most of my  
>> PowerBook's CPU while the backup is being performed. That's why  
>> I'm skeptical about attempting to backup more often. Not even to  
>> say cloning the entire hard drive!
>>
>> Two more things:
>>
>> - With the MacPro in which you can put several hard drives, I  
>> think I've read somewhere it's possible to create a software RAID  
>> with these drives. I've no idea how this can be done, or whether  
>> it's built-in somewhere in OS X or requires 3rd-party software,  
>> but that might also serve as backup. The only problem would be, of  
>> course, the fact that all the backups would live within the same  
>> machine, so that if something bad happens to that machine (theft,  
>> fire, water, ...) then all the backups are lost.
>>
>> - Last week I just got a MacPro. Given the difference in speed  
>> with my venerable PowerBook G4, I will move to the MacPro as my  
>> main computer. The only significant problem is email: when all my  
>> mail was living on the PowerBook, I could read and send mail from  
>> everywhere (home, McDonald's, ...), having all the past  
>> correspondence available all the time. Now that I'm reading and  
>> sending mail from work on the MacPro during the day, this means I  
>> don't have most of the correspondence of the day at home in the  
>> evening on the PowerBook: I can't see the Sent messages, stored on  
>> the MacPro, and all the messages that were transferred upon  
>> arrival to local mailboxes through filtering rules (like moving  
>> all OS X TeX messages to a local OS X TeX mailbox) are also stored  
>> on the MacPro.
>>
>> This is certainly a trivial problem, but I haven't yet figured out  
>> a satisfactory solution -- other than forgetting about email at  
>> home in the evening, which on the other hand turns out quite good  
>> for my social life ;-) Given my email directories sum up to about  
>> 2.5 GB, I doubt OS X synchronization could deal with it  
>> transparently: for sure it would take ages to synchronize  
>> mailboxes on two computers every day?
>>
>> Bruno Voisin
>
> I would recommand you to have a look at Intego Personal Backup.  
> After the first backup (which takes quite some time) every other  
> backup will only copy new and changed files. If you run it daily  
> the whole thing should not take more than 10 -15 minutes.
> Secondly, it gives you the option of syncronizing two different  
> macs. Although I have not tried this yet, it might take care of  
> your mail problem. You can get a free trial version with all  
> features on the Intego website and later upgrade it to the full  
> version if desired. It seems to be a bit more expensive than  
> similar software (never tried SuperDuper) but I am more than happy  
> with it.
>
> Regards,
> Alex
>
>>
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Donal Day
dbd at virginia.edu

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