Advice on Backing Up: iPods, CD-RWs, etc.?

[WCityMike]

I am wondering if anyone could offer some advice. I have been playing Russian roulette with my backup solutions for quite some time now (namely: I don't backup, despite having solutions available to me!), and I no longer desire to do that.

As a result, I have a few questions.

First, can one successfully partition the iPod's hard drive? I have the 10 GB model, and I was thinking that I would like to partition it perhpas into 8 MB for backup, and 2 MB for MP3s. Or something along those lines. Can one do it without harming the iPod's operating system?

Second, if I do use the iPod as a backup, since I also carry it with me often, I would like to automatically encrypt what I place on there, so that if it's stolen by some tech-savvy thief, they won't be able to get to my data. I'm aware that this can be done with Disk Copy ... manually. But is there any way to introduce encryption into some form of automatic process, using perhaps some of Apple's command-line tools?

Third, if I don't use the iPod as a backup source (since, after all, I do have a 30 GB drive on this iBook, and it no doubt couldn't all fit), I would most likely then use the CD-RW drive that came with my iBook and backup to disc. Again, I have a rough idea of how I could create backup discs in the Finder, but any clues as to how the process might be automated as much as possible?

Ideally, I'd like to do this free; it seems to me that with things like Deja Vu, psync, rsync, etc., etc., out there, there are enough free solutions out there. However, if anyone has used purchased backup applications that they'd like to tout, by all means, please tout.

Another thought is that with hard drive space so low, isn't there some sort of "one-touch" FireWire hard drive out there that I remember hearing about?

Two other factors that I am slightly concerned about: some of the Unix applications out there for backup purposes shouldn't be used by the Mac, right, because they don't handle resource forks?

Also, does one run into a permissions problem restoring from backup, what with user names and groups, in some situations?

Any advice, PERIOD, regarding backing up would be appreciated. How you do it, which particular directories you backup under OS X (obviously, some of those directories are entirely not necessary for backing up, as a system reinstall would cover them), what products (both hardware and software) that you've purchased ... pretty much any and all comments on this subject, I'd appreciate.

Thanks for any and all advice ...

Mike

[mclbruce]

I use a firewire HD and Carbon Copy Cloner. It makes a bootable copy of my entire HD. It works great. CCC is more or less free and firewire HDs aren't too expensive

I have some goofy little ORB disks that I back up to once in a while, and I make CD's of photos and documents once in a while.

Since I run my business on my Mac I'm starting to think about off site storage, sending a CD or two to a relative in another state.

[MitchJi]

Hi,

Every night (Mon-Thu) I do an incremental backup of my home directory. Every Friday I do an incremental backup of the whole OSX partition.

The Home directory gets all of my data, most of my preferences etc.

I use Retrospect Express and backup to DVD-RW discs with the Pioneer (AKA Superdrive). The incremental backups of my home directory only take about 5..10 minutes after the first backup.

I have only used the full backups three times but each time they saved me massive time and hassle.

Mitch

[richardjpratt]

Here is some info I picked up while doing some investigation of my own. I'm not sure how useful you will find it but it isn't completely off topic. Hopefully it is helpful.

utility - preserves permissions, preserves resource fork & creator type, corrects permissions with AFP (needed to back up over AFP)

cp - yes, no, no
CpMac - no, yes, no
ditto - yes, yes, no
rsync - yes, no, ?
RsyncX - yes, yes, ? - slower than ditto
psync - yes, yes, yes
pax - yes, no, ?
hsfpax - yes, yes, ? - many options, complicated (to me)
tar - yes, no, ? - I believe there is a MacOSX version of tar but I don't remmember the name


GUI interfaces

Carbon Copy Cloner - uses ditto
PsyncX - uses psync
Sync - not sure what it uses - yes, yes, ? - nice archiving ability

(please let me know if you see something wrong)

Richard

[MitchJi]

Hi,

This free script might be exactly what you want.

http://www.railheaddesign.com/pages/software/backupscript/backupscript.html

What it is:

BackupScript takes advantage of one of the Mac OS’s main power-houses: AppleScript. Every Mac has it, every Mac can use it, and Apple keeps making it more and more powerful. That said, I decided to finally start utilizing AppleScript and I whipped-up this script to perform my daily backups — on my main system as well as my wife’s iMac over the network.

All you have to do is open the script file, change a few lines to match your setup (I tell you which ones in the script), save your changes as an application, then use it whenever and however you see fit. That’s it! A 110% free backup solution for Mac OS X!

Features include:

* Optional backup of a networked Mac (or PC).
* Full error handling/messaging in case there is an error (like a permissions error, for example).
* Successful backup confirmation so you know your data was backed up properly.
* Simple to set up.
* Optional auto-Trash emptying after the backup is finished to save disk space.

And did I mention that its free?

[mronions]

I've been trying out a program called 'ExecutiveSync',... I found it on VersionTracker,....... it's shareware. You can try it for free for 30 days,... and then if you like it, it's only 20 bucks. So far I've been pretty impressed with how easy it is to set it up and keep track of all updates and backups. Give it a try.

[beedee]

Unless you want to severely shorten its lifespan as a usable device. The hard disk is not meant for constant disk usage (when you play an mp3, it spins for a couple sec. to load the file into memory). I've read a lot of stories about people who really screwed themselves just by running disk scanning utilites on a regular basis (which spin the hd constantly.

Not to mention that it doesn't make a lot of sense to use a device which has regular exposure to the outside world as your backup. What if you drop it, or some other unfortunate event occurs?

Use a dedicated internal or external disk, or re-writeable media such as DVD/CD-RW disks.