Recommended Backup Software

[Chedmeister]

Hi, i dont own a mac (yet) so i cant test the various contenders but i have a mac customer who needs a good backup program.

Can anyone recommend a good, reliable one that i can give to her?

Also, where are all the locations i should be backing up on OSX?
On a PC i would usually target the following.
My Docs
Favourites
Desktop
Email folders

One more thing, can i back up entire programs on a mac with the intention of restoring them to the reinstalled operating system in the event of a disaster? Or is that a myth inside my newbie mac brain?

Thanks so much in advance!!

[ElDiabloConCaca]

What kind of backups does she want? Mirroring? Synchronizing? Incremental backups? Bootable backups? Scheduled backups? Manual backups? Compressed backups? Accessible backups? "Don't have to think about backups" backups?

If she intends to use the folder structure of Mac OS X in the way it was intended, then to back up everything that "belongs" to her, you would simply back up her entire user folder... that would include music, movies, documents, preference files, etc. Bear in mind that no one "owns" an application that resides in the "Applications" folder, so if you wish to back up applications as well, you would have to target that folder, too.

Most applications can be backed up and restored without incident under Mac OS X, with a few exceptions: most notably, Adobe and Microsoft applications (two companies which just don't seem to "get it" when it comes to nice, clean installation procedures), which litter preference files and application support files all over the system. For the most part, though, you can back up an application bundle and restore it as if it were a single file.

If she's using Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5), I would recommend getting a large external USB 2.0 or FireWire hard drive and let Time Machine (Mac OS X's built-in backup system) do its thing. She'll barely even know when it's running, and it's a completely transparent and (in my opinion) reliable solution that backs up everything, and then incrementally backs up new/modified files over time. The larger the hard drive, the farther back in time you can restore from.

In the event of a hard drive failure or something, you can simply boot from the Leopard install DVD and tell it to restore your hard drive to the last known state it was in using Time Machine. It's easy, painless, and transparent -- you'll even forget you're backing stuff up at all using Time Machine.

[Chedmeister]

Thanks for the quick reply.
i am happier if i can get all the files and folder a customer wants to keep on a portable device. That way thay can keep it away from the computer and not blame me if the backup wasnt effective enough.

On the PC, i use a brilliant little app called syncback. Its simple enough, it allows me to pick the folder/files i want to backup from a folder tree and then copies them over to a usb stick or something at the click of a button. What i like about it is that it doesnt zip them up in its own format so they can be easily restored and found.

Im not interested in incremental because it uses storage space exponentially.
Syncback simply copies over items that are not in the destination or items of the same name that are more recent than the one on the destination. Pretty much a one way sync i suppose.

Above all its gotta be idiot proof. My custs dont pay me to make things complicated.

Thanks for all your help so far.

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Check out Chronosync for Mac OS X, then -- it does exactly what you specified: pick a folder, choose some options (replace older items, move older items to trash, archive older items, etc.), and click "Synchronize."

[VirtualTracy]

I have just recently purchased SuperDuper by Shirt Pocket and use the Smart Update Backup option which copy/erase files on my ext HD to make it identical to my internal HD which kinda sounds like Syncback ... first off though I wanted a bootable ext HD so I cloned my internal drive to the ext then after that each backup takes much less depending on what has been added/deleted from my internal ... so it's not an archival backup by any means.

This is just another available option to add to the above ...

It has to be one of my best decisions to date, and I am still using Tiger FWIW.

[Chedmeister]

Thanks for all your support on this. I think im gonna try out the Chronosync as it look more llike what im after.

Thanks again!!