Back-up: use time machine or included WD external drive sw? (1 Viewer)

[TonyD]

I just bought a wd 500gb external drive for back-up and it includes what seems to be a very easy to

use back-up program. I have never used a backup for anything before so this is new to me.

What I intend on doing is backing everything onto the drive so I can delete files off the macbook, for

example my itunes library which takes up most of my measly 79 gb hard drive. so what I want to do is

be able to put the music back on the mac whenever i need to access it in itunes, or do i even need to

do that?

Can I simply get to my music from the external without putting it back on the mac?


So if anyone has used WD passport b.u. software, and the time machine, what is better?


The other question is if the hard drive crashes will I be able to re-install everything from

the backup that was done using either the time machine or the WD software?

 

[Christian Behrens]

If you are deleting any data from your internal drive after copying it to the external one, it's no longer a backup. This is important, because when your external drive fails, you lose everything that wasn't stored somewhere else.


So basically you want to do two things: perform a backup of your system drive, and store data externally. That's all perfectly fine, as long as you keep in mind what I said above.


I would stick with time-tested tools like Time Machine and/or Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper. The first, TM, runs in the background and makes constant backups, the other two can clone your system drive to your external to give you a snapshot that you could even boot from in case of a data disaster. It really all depends on what you prefer.


Make sure to format your drive with Disk Utitlity to HFS+ before using it on the Mac to guarantee full compatibility.


Hope this helps,


-Christian

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I have two hard drives plugged into my iMac.


The first is my backup drive. I use SuperDuper

once a month to back up all my files to that drive.

I cannot tell you how many times SuperDuper has

saved my life. If anything crazy started happening

to my Mac I simply booted up to the backup drive

using SuperDuper and copied everything over to the

main drive without a hitch.


The second hard drive is for Time Machine. I keep

this hard drive running all the time and usually I have

a month's worth of data stored for easy retrieval.
I would not consider Time Machine to be a reliable

backup tool if you need to restore your computer.

Instead, I find Time Machine invaluable if I erase a

file and then suddenly realize that I need it a few

days or weeks later.

If you have one backup drive, I would personally

recommend using SuperDuper to back everything

up. It's very easy to use, extremely reliable, and

probably the best of the backup programs out there.


...but from your post it doesn't seem like you really

want to back up, but rather, just take space consuming

files off your computer and place it on an alternate drive

for retrieval. That's fine and dandy, but as explained by

Christian, you no longer have a backup drive. You can

throw all your iTunes music on the external and play

off of that.

 

[TonyD]

I already used time machine and let it do whatever it does to back the entire macbook onto the external.

I;m doing everything from a macbook, only other thing i have is a pc desktop that I only use to get on the internet when my macbook is not available.



Anyway, so i know have my entire humongous 79 gb's of stuff on the external.

if I want to free up space you recommend using my external drive and super duper to do this?


I really need to free up space on the macbook as i'm actually right to the end of the space on the drive.

I'm getting a pop up that tells me that space is full and i need to close things, usually firefox.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Anyway, so i know have my entire humongous 79 gb's of stuff on the external.

if I want to free up space you recommend using my external drive and super duper to do this?

This is a bit tough and perhaps others here will help out.


You can back up your entire macbook drive on the external

using SuperDuper. Then you can remove select files that are

taking up space on your macbook.


However, when you do that, realize that the next time you

backup your macbook it is going to overwrite and erase the

valuable files you originally backed up on the external.


I suppose what I am saying is that if you back up your entire

drive just ONCE and keep all those valuable files on the external

just so you can take them off the macbook -- you don't want to

back up again nor do you want to use that same drive for Time

Machine just in case it wants to erase data that is already there.

 

[DaveF]

Originally Posted by TonyD /forum/thread/304486/back-up-use-time-machine-or-included-wd-external-drive-sw#post_3733925

 

[TonyD]

thanks for the advice guys. I really don't have anything so important that I need 3 separate backups one should be fine.

 

[TonyD]

downloaded superduper so give me a week and I should have figured out how to use it by then.

 

[TonyD]

"

1) How do I move my iTunes library to an external library.

You want to look into this type of question and answer: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1449"


After this I should be able to load my entire itunes music collection right onto that new folder located on the 500gb external drive, yes?

 

[DaveF]

I've not done it before, but that's telling you how to move your iTunes library to an external drive. So it should work for you.

 

[TonyD]

Dave it does work, I was able to delete my itunes library from the macbook and use the external as the itunes database. best part is I can use the external to have separate folders, one for the backups and one for itunes and others for anything else.

Just has to be conected to the external whenever I use itunes.


It's a revelation.

 

[TonyD]

Originally Posted by TonyD

thanks for the advice guys. I really don't have anything so important that I need 3 separate backups one should be fine.

Said that october and now here 3 months later, the external hd has kicked the bucket.


I get the little lite on the side but the drive just clicks a few times and nothing.

60 gigs of music and whatever else was on that drive kaput.

 

[TonyD]

trying again, this time with a seagate drive with goflex whatever that is.