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Back Up Your Mac (Before It’s Too Late!)

There’s nothing quite like the stressful agony of having your computer die, especially when it’s the sole repository of your important work or valuable files. Usually, it only takes one computer disaster to teach people how essential it is to maintain good backups, but why go through even that one torturous disaster unprepared? Get on the ball now — before calamity strikes!

Toward that end, I offer these two tips, both for Mac OS X users:

  1. Clone Your Mac — Lifehacker has an excellent guide to making a bootable clone of your Mac. By following its advice, you’ll be able to boot from an external FireWire drive with all your data, settings, and applications ready to go should your Mac ever kick the bucket. Mirror Your Mac on a Bootable External Drive

  2. Educate Yourself — Joe Kissel’s Take Control of Mac OS X Backups is essential reading. Says the blurb on the TakeControl website: “In the best-selling Take Control of Mac OS X Backups, backup expert Joe Kissell gives you the straightforward advice you need to go beyond the false security of copying a few files to CD. You’ll find an at-a-glance comparison of different backup strategies (low-cost, easy, safest) for backing up and restoring data, including digital photos and video projects. You’ll learn the pros and cons of each type of backup media, including hard disk, recordable disc, tape, and more; discover how to pick the best backup software for your needs; and find time-tested recommendations for setting up, testing, and maintaining backups, complete with instructions on how to restore after a crash. Important lessons you’ll learn along the way include the utility of having both a duplicate and an archive, the necessity of testing backups, and the role of offsite backups. Includes over 20 pages of step-by-step directions for Retrospect!” Take Control of Mac OS X Backups

This entry was posted on Monday, September 17th, 2007 at 12:05 pm and is filed under Miscellaneous, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Back Up Your Mac (Before It’s Too Late!)”

  1. Stephen Says:
    October 3rd, 2007 at 8:32 pm

    And don’t forget that loss of data isn’t limited to just a computer crash. What about complete destruction such as in a fire. I always keep two back-ups on two different hard drives. One I keep at home, and one I keep at an off-site location such as at work or safe deposit box.

  2. Brian Tanaka Says:
    October 4th, 2007 at 9:39 am

    Excellent point, Stephen!

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