Backing Up Your Mac
Don't let disaster strike 2004
28 October 2004 Justin Williams Skip to comments
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Justin Williams discusses why you should backup your Mac and introduces several popular applications to save and restore your data.
There is an updated version of this article located here.
You have all heard the story before. A poor Indiana University student is working on his semester term paper for one of his classes. He has invested a few days of work in the paper and is just putting the finishing touches on the paper before he heads to his professor's office to turn it in.
Suddenly, he hears a clanking noise coming from below his desk. He leans over and bangs the side of the computer. As he makes his way back up, he reads on his monitor, You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button. Kernel Panic.
He tries to restart his computer, but gets nothing. His hard drive is dead, so is his paper, so is his grade.
His friend two hours north at Purdue University has the same thing happen to him. The only difference between him and his friend is that the Purdue student had a backup of his paper on an external hard drive. Obviously, the Purdue student is smarter.
Murphy's Law states if anything can go wrong, it will and it most likely isn't going to be an opportune time. Because of this, you need to take precautionary methods to ensure that you are not going to be caught in a bad place with no backup of your important files. Imagine losing not only your term paper, but all of your family photos, the iMovie you created of last Christmas at grandma's, or that 10 gigs of 'files' you have buried deep on your Mac's hard drive.
This article is not an in-depth review of a single application, but an overview of several Mac backup solutions. I had a few criteria in selecting each of these applications.
- Affordability
- Ease Of Use
- Features
This is why you won't notice expensive solutions like Retrospect on the list or explanations of how to create a cron job to use rsync and ditto to backup your drive.
Synk
Synk was the first application I tried, and I was very pleased with both the application and the support the author provided. Synk has a very simple interface. You set the source drive, the target drive, and tell the application whether to move data from one to the other, or keep them both in sync.
Synk offers all of the options I was looking for: incremental backups, control of file deletions, rules, scheduling, and a log. The application also offers the ability to backup your data as the root user. Why is this a good thing? No permission conflicts. Your stuff WILL get backed up.
If you visit the Synk website, you will notice one of the features of the application is personal support. The developer, Ben Rister, is very helpful and prompt at responding to your support requests. I had an issue with the application not recognizing my scheduling data in the application even though the SynkHelper application would still run the backup every night. He helped me iron out the problem over the course of a few hours. That is a rarity these days. Usually it takes a days just to get a single reply from a developer.
One tip I will offer for the application: I had my backup file stored at the root of my Firewire drive and Synk kept moving it to the deleted items folder. To avoid this, simply create a rule telling the backup service not to move the file.
Synk costs $20 for non-profit and $40 for commercial licenses. There are discounts for bulk licensing. Educational customers can receive a free license code. In short, I can't say enough for how much I am impressed with Synk.
Deja Vu
Deja Vu exists as a Preference Pane in System Preferences. It features a scheduler, the ability to produce a bootable clone of your MacOS X system disk, incremental backups, and network based backups. With network backups, you can backup your data to another volume on your network using AFP or Windows File Sharing (SMB). Like Synk, Deja Vu offers a simple set it and forget it interface. You set up a daily, weekly, or monthly backup and then let the application do the rest. After it completes each backup, it will prompt you to view a log to see if there were any errors or problems.
Deja Vu also offers manual backups if you want to be in charge of when you backup. This is most useful for those that want to backup their data to a DVD or CD at a certain time.
The only problem I had with Deja Vu was the amount of system resources it took u when running a scheduled backup. It usually isn't a big deal since I run my daily backup at 4am, but I was battling a case of insomnia one night, and the only thing that sent me back to bed was my inability to use my G5 because Deja Vu had taken over. On a positive note, it did get me back in bed!
Deja Vu is bundled with Toast 6 or can be purchased from Propaganda Productions for $24.95 for a single user license, or $34.95 for a household license.
Apple Backup
If you are a .Mac user, Apple has included a backup application appropriately named Backup. By default, Backup wants to save your Address Book contacts, Stickies, iCal calendars, Safari bookmarks and settings, and Keychain data to your iDisk. You can easily customize what else you want backed up and where you want it backed up to: iDisk, removable media (CDs & DVDs), or another drive on your machine.
Backup also has an optional scheduler that lets you choose between a daily or weekly backup that is scheduled at a certain time. The backups done by Backup are incremental like the other applications, so you aren't going to be wasting many resources with each supplemental backup sending the same data over and over.
Backup works as described, but it not nearly as powerful as the other solutions available. If you are going to backup to an iDisk though, it is probably the best solution.
Backup is free to .Mac subscribers. .Mac costs $99 a year and also gives you iCal, Address Book, and Safari bookmark synchronization, iDisk, and Homepage among other things.
PsyncX
PsyncX is a frontend to the Psync command line application. It allows the user to easily create multiple backup scenarios and give each a scheduled time to run.
The advantage of simply writing a frontend to an existing command line utility is that you get most of the functionality with minimal work. As a developer, you can focus your time on creating a great user experience. Unfortunately, while PsyncX works well as a backup solution, it's experience is somewhat lacking. One of my main gribes is that double clicking on a row in the table doesn't open up the modify sheet. Instead, it lets you manually edit the value in the table. While this is also useful, I think the data contained in that sheet would be more useful and intuitive.
Spoiled by Synk, I also wish that any deleted item would be moved to its own folder so I could review those items before I completely removed them from all of my drives.
PsyncX is free, but seems to have been abandoned by the developer. It has been almost a year since the last update.
LaCie SilverKeeper
SilverKeeper is a free application available for anyone to use, and also bundled with each drive LaCie sells. LaCie has a simple, easy to understand interface. You set your source, destination, and schedule when you want it to run. While the interface is simple, it does not feel like an OS X application at all. The interface is very clunky looking, as you can see from the screenshot.
While the interface is not appealing, the application works just fine. SilverKeeper lets you setup numerous backup sets from within the application. A backup set is basically just the source to backup and the preferences to go with it. I wish that when the application launched it would remember my previous set. I was confused when I relaunched the application thinking that my backup set had been lost. I then realized it was stored under the top left popup menu.
I had SilverKeeper crash on me a few times when I would try to delete a backup set, but it didn't effect the applications ability to backup my data. SilverKeeper is free from LaCie's website or on the disc that came with your Firewire or USB2 hard drive.
MimMac
MimMac is designed to aid with moving your critical data between systems, and merging your old data with fresh system installs. It can also be used for simple backups, selective incremental backups, and full system clones, according to their website. It does just that.
With MimMac, you can create several backup operations and run them at your convenience. While MimMac works as stated, I did find a few things either missing or inconsistent with what I was looking for in a backup application. One thing is the inability to exclude files from a backup set. This is a key feature for anyone that doesn't have a need to backup certain files. A way to get around this is to create a lot of backup sets and exclude the folders you don't care about.
I was also confused by the applications lack of a Run This Set button. On the interface there is simple a Run All button for the backup sets. This is going to run through all of your backup sets. If, for example, I only want to run a certain one nightly and the rest weekly, this doesn't seem possible.
Finally, there is a single option that makes me very frustrated as a Mac user. If you click Filters or Options, a drawer slides from the bottom of the application allowing you to specify how to filter the data you backup or erasing the target folder. If you click these options, but don't remember to click the Remember Options or Remember Filters buttons, the preferences won't save. This is VERY much against the Mac paradigm in my opinion. It is akin to a Windows user having to click the Apply button before he can save his preferences and then having to click OK. I would appreciate the application automatically wrote preferences as the user clicked the items.
As a mass backup application, MimMac is affordable and does the job just fine. I just hope that some of the missing features and interface/usability inconsistencies are fixed. MimMac is developed by Ascendant Softworks and costs a mere $10.
Conclusion
No program is perfect for every user. While you may find one to be great for you, your buddy may like something else. I personally prefer Synk. It exceeded my expectations in terms of features, support, and simplicity. When I finished all of the application reviews, I went back to Synk immediately. The main reason was by far the ability to move deleted items to a separate folder before deleting it immediately.
If you have used any of these applications, leave a comment telling us what you think of it. If you think I missed an application, and want to suggest it for other readers, leave those comments as well!
Resources
- Synk Homepage
- Deja Vu Homepage
- Backup Homepage
- PsyncX Homepage
- SilverKeeper Homepage
- MimMac Homepage
Justin Williams is founder and chief author for MacZealots. He switched to the Mac almost five years ago hasn't looked back since. When not blogging or coding, you can find him watching copious amounts of TV. Justin can be reached at
Reader Comments (28)
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#1) On October 28, 2004 10:31 PM
I’ve been using ChronoSync. I use the scheduler to back up my home directory to a server volume mounted via NFS. My linux server has a RAID array and a tape backup unit, which I use to back up my Mac backups on the server.
#2) On October 29, 2004 9:20 AM
While this article is well done, it does not cover backing-up multiple computers. I’m working in an office with about 10 macs and I’m looking for an alternative to Retrospect to backup them all in one place. All the “personnal” backup applications i’ve tried so far cannot backup “clients” to a “master” computer. In most of them, the backup disk must be mounted on the desktop.
Does anyone know a solution that is both simple and effective to backup more than one computer?
#3) On October 31, 2004 3:00 AM
I have to add my voice to the second poster (no name man of mystery). We have been using Retrospect for many years are desperate for a real solution. Surely there are so many tools built into a system like OS X that can be utlitised for backup without ported graphic interfaces, complex script setups (choose subfolder, define subfolder, select subfolder!) that will let us backup servers and remote clients. We have to restart our OS X server only when Retrospect craps itself. It seems to be still a ported application from OS 9 days - the methodology hasn’t changed and it’s stability leaves a lot to be desired. There was a promising product called BRU for a while but they have totally ignored Apple’s design directives to create a complete unintelligible mess. If I was a programmer, I would pay me to create something simple, fast, easy to use and powerful. There’s money on offer here, people…
#4) On October 31, 2004 1:24 PM
@comments no. 2 and 3: Try www.bacula.org and also see www.freebsddiary.org/bacula.php for more information. What I am looking for is a combination of ChronoSync, Impression by www.babelcompany.com and freshmeat.net/projects/webcdwriter/!
#5) On October 31, 2004 6:12 PM
Backups via network can also be done by using Dejavu by www.propagandaprod.com!
#6) On November 1, 2004 5:42 AM
Yes, there is an enterprise-class client-server backup solution for Mac OS X Server: NetVault from www.bakbone.com. In addition, there is Archiware PreStore from www.joseph-computer.de (but I am not sure if this is a direct hit). Perhaps also worth mentioning when it comes to networked backups is Duover (www.interfacethis.com).
#7) On November 2, 2004 1:41 PM
I tried Deja Vu and liked it except for one thing: If the computer was asleep when a scheduled backup was to occur, the backup got forgotten completely — even after the computer woke up. Did anyone else have this happen? I wanted a program that would complete a scheduled backup upon waking. I found that solution in ChronoSync. Now, what would be ideal is to have a prgram wake the computer to do its scheduled backup, but I don’t know of a single-program solution for that.
#8) On November 3, 2004 3:14 AM
@Andy: There are computer restart or wake-up scheduling tools such as www.ibeezz.com or ResurrXtion. If you want to prevent your Mac from falling asleep, take Jiggler (www.sticksoftware.com). If you want certain commands to be executed when your Mac wakes up or goes to sleep mode, use SleepWatcher (www.bernhard-baehr.de) - however, this tool requires some Unix commandline knowledge. Further tools that may be helpful to get your job done the way you want: StartupItem Manager (septicus.com) and StartupSound.prefPane (at osx.hyperjeff.net/Apps).
And last but not least there is yet another sync/backup tool that can be scheduled: securiDATA (www.jumbosoft.de).
#9) On November 3, 2004 7:39 AM
Check out CarbonCopyCloner, it’s a simple and free backup solution. I’ve been using it for two years mirroring my bootdisk and I’m happy with it. (http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html)
#10) On November 5, 2004 7:10 AM
SuperDuper! is a CarbonCopyCloner with some interesting additional features and increased speed! However, it is no free lunch app (see www.shirt-pocket.com for more information).
#11) On November 5, 2004 9:28 PM
Super Duper is the best. I have Apple Backup and Tri-backup. Tried psync and silverkeeper. The reviewer should give this a try and report back.
#12) On November 7, 2004 2:22 PM
I use Databackup by prosoft, a shareware product, on a network for 3 computers with good results. Free to try but kind of expensive for multiple users. Backs to network drives cd’s dvd’s, internal, usb and firewire drives.
http://prosofteng.com/products
#13) On November 8, 2004 3:15 PM
You forgot Impression, which definitely also deserves a review.
http://babelcompany.com/impression/
#14) On November 14, 2004 7:46 PM
An article about Mac OS X backup software and no-one mentions RsyncX?:
http://archive.macosxlabs.org/rsyncx/rsyncx.html
I use it with an external Firewire drive to do periodic backups and it works really well. It’s also got a lot of flexibility, allowing you do do things like push out loadsets to client machines, generate a CD that’ll boot a machine and pull a loadset from a server, create bootable drive clones, do two-way replication, etc. It’s perfect for a Mac lab or corporate environment :)
In response to Comment No.2, the above software should do what you need: it’ll run an rsyncd daemon (server) on one machine and allow the clients to all backups to this, so you shouldn’t need to mount a backup location first. Can’t say I’ve ever tried it, though, so your mileage may vary.
#15) On November 26, 2004 9:35 AM
I have a NAS device (network attached storage). It’s a NetDisk from Ximeta. I have it plugged into my Airport Extreme and can mount it to the desktop of any of my 4 macs for back up purposes. Ximeta’s OSX driver does not support multiple users mounting the disk simultaneously as of yet, supposed to be coming Jan. 1. Anyway, I’ve been searching high and low for a backup software application that will work in this environment (it’s a network, but not a network - meaning, the Net Disk does not have an IP address, it just shows up as a local drive automatically). Also, want a solution that will work once Ximeta updates the driver and all computers can back up at the same time. Any recommendations for me on this? Would be incredibly grateful.
#16) On May 9, 2005 9:26 PM
You can also use rsync and then edit your crobtab to do nightly backups.
open your terminal and type > man rsync
#17) On May 12, 2005 1:32 AM
I agree with all of the above comments. Every application mentioned is worth for its own purpose.
I use Ben Rister’s Synk for quite some time (ever since version 5 was released) and am very satisfied with the application.
Lately I’ve been trying to learn more about CLI backup (via command line), and found rsync to be a viable alternative. There is also a GUI version, RsyncX.
Speaking of enterprise backup solutions (but also for stand-alone systems), Tolis Group BRU LE for Mac OS X stands out. I have tried it, and many comments about the app on the Net favor it over Retrospect. The only drawback for a stand-alone version of BRU LE is a price tag, $129.
#18) On May 20, 2005 5:19 PM
I am just getting an external firewire HD, and found your site very useful and interesting. I have upgraded to Tiger, 10.4.1, and was thinking of starting by using the built in Automator program to do the backups. I think it will work if you go to Applications…finder…then select the files and folders to be backed up. Then choose …copy finder items , and have Automator save them to the external drive.
Given you knowledge of the software out there, does my intended approach make sense? Thanks.
#19) On May 21, 2005 3:40 AM
I got a laugh out of your “lost paper” story. As a new professor I was shocked at how many students suffered hard drive failure around the time a paper is due.
Given the frequency of this problem, I suspect there must be a really nasty virus of some sort that strikes campus wide during finals week (and only affects student owned computers). Who knows. Add in the huge increase in “family emergencies”, unspecified general illness as well as the number of papers that were emailed to the professor but somehow never arrived, all of which also occur around the same times and I’m beginning to think there is some kind of plot against our hapless college students. Poor things. ;)
#20) On May 22, 2005 6:19 AM
I haven’t been able to back up my macs for about two years (well, one exception—when I bought my new powerbook, the first back up I did worked). This isn’t for lack of trying. I’m one of those people who has tens of thousands of files they carry around and several times I bought a new hard drive, tried some new back up software that promised to be the answer, went out for a day with the drive humming and a window telling me the operation would complete in 5-7 hours…but then I ALWAYS come back to find it’s failed somehow. The last time it failed the reason was some file couldn’t be copied because it had a name that was too long (I didn’t give it that name—it was a LimeWire temporary file, but it made the whole operation fail.) Would seem like just a lot of frustration, except last year I had an iBook stolen and didn’t have all the data backed up for the above reasons. Anyone experience problems like these?
#21) On June 1, 2005 9:44 PM
How have people gotten DejaVu to work over a network? I tried twice to use it to back up my iTunes folder to another computer on my little home network. Both times it completed the task suspiciously fast and when I investigated, I discovered that it had wiped out every file in the target folder.
Silverkeeper won’t back up over the network; Prosoft’s Data Backup says there’s a permissions problem when I try to back up the iTunes folder. Retrospect’s Duplicate function won’t do it either.
With the iTunes folder getting bigger and bigger, I’d love to find an app that would do a mirror backup over the network to a hard drive on my backup Mac. Right now, t’ll have to resort to using a Firewire drive and then moving it from the source machine to the target machine.
#22) On June 6, 2005 4:35 PM
I guess i need clarification. I have 15 Macs that are Served by a windows based file server. Will the difference in platforms affect backing up this server by most of these Network capable backup applications? If so is there a clear solution or is that a pipe dream?
I want to set it up to back up the windows server and the 15 Mac worksations then forget it about it till the next day when I must copy it to a tape, alternate drive or, DVD.
#23) On June 11, 2005 5:44 PM
I’ve just bought a G5, so I am absolutely newbie for mac. I’m looking for a back up software which “understands” user needs. I do not want to have to select what data I want to back up (essentially user files, but also navigator bookmarks, emails and their attached data, program preferences…). Of course, if I decide to backup my whole disk, I’m done, but really this is not the solution I want. I am not willing to buy an unreliable tape drive (thanks, I’ve used a lot of these!), nor an array of external fixed disks to store my 80 gigs of internal data and my 320 of usb data disk, in three copies.
For PC I use Eazybackup, (it has some inconvenients, I am not trying to push sales on it). This program downloads “standard” data configuration for most common applications, and eventually you may add any file/directory you may need. Anyone knows a similar application for mac. ?
In the meanwhile, I have tried Retrospect for Mac. On its first run, it simply wiped out all the information stored in my target disk without a warning!!! by chance, data had been backed up the night before :), but this is a really naughty behaviour. Remember if you are planning to use applications from these guys.
I will keep posts on my experiences.
#24) On July 6, 2005 5:12 PM
I too would like to read a review of SuperDuper. The one comment I heard was:
“SuperDuper sounds good, but it didn’t work for me when I was backing up my HD prior to upgrading to Tiger (basically my backup file image got too big).”
but I don’t know how big “to big” was for this user.
I’m looking to replace Retrospect which I had been using for 15 years. When I upgraded to Tiger and Retrospect 6.212 it destroyed my old data on the first run and on the second it ran very slowly displaying the beeachball most of the time.
I’ve tested Synk and although it is not my dream backup system, it works well enough and Ben Rister has been most responsive to my requests.
#25) On August 19, 2005 10:29 PM
.Mac Backup is a bust. After doing a clean install of the program it runs a couple of times and then hangs up [internal error, file can稚 be copied etc.] The discussion board is full of complaints like mine.
Does anyone know of a program, besides Backup that is, that can back up to space on the .Mac server. I asked apple tech support and they have no clue.
Thanks
dan
#26) On October 21, 2005 5:04 AM
I use superduper … works perfectly for me
Their script backup is great
I tried retrospect or bacula
either to simple either to complicated to setup
1. install
2. configure script (files you want to backup)
3. click copy files and relax
Emmanuel
#27) On December 9, 2005 5:50 PM
Superduper crashed my startup drive when I tried to use it. Could not boot the computer. It took me a week to get it working again. Silverkeeper works much better.
#28) On February 3, 2006 4:21 PM
Under ‘system preferences’ and ‘energy saver’ there is a tab to schedule a wake from sleep, turn on, or turn off on a schedule. I use this with a cron based rsync script, that mounts the drive i wish to back up to, (which is a server)