Backing up

[vanwel]

I have the macbook air 11 and want to come up with a good solution for backing up my stuff.

I bought myself a Seagate NAS 220 (2x1TB) and a 1 TB WD external usb drive. I want to have scheduled backups to my NAS and to the connected usb drive. I just started using Time Machine, but this software apparently only will backup my whole drive, I can't use it to archive my files. Lots of big files that I download I don't want to keep on my drive, but want to store them on the NAS and external usb drive only (without having to manually copying it over all the time). What is the best way to do this? What software are you guys using for this? I have the feeling that Time Machine is quite useless for what I want :S

Thanks!

 

[Eclipse278]

I have a base 11" Air, and with its 64GB I don't keep too much data on the computer itself. I store most of my music and video on the NAS. You could consider just storing everything remotely.

However, I also use Time Machine. You don't have to have it back up your entire disk. You can go to its settings panel and tell it what directories to omit. I back up only my User directory, so backups are small and easy, and only what I need.

In addition to both the above, I use Unison to sync my photos directory between my Air, my MBP, my NAS, and my windows desktop. Unison is a bit of a pain to set up, but is nice in that it'll keep my photos directory the same between all 4 computers, and works a backup in case one of the computers has an issue. I don't want to lose those photos!

I've made a post about my NAS and unison setup here: FreeNAS Update: Rsync and Unison

Hope it helps.

 

[rebby]

I've made a post about my NAS and unison setup here: FreeNAS Update: Rsync and Unison

Very nice post. I can't help but ask what you do for off-site backups.

When you say that you sync your Pictures directory, does that include any Aperture libraries?

 

[Eclipse278]

Very nice post. I can't help but ask what you do for off-site backups.

When you say that you sync your Pictures directory, does that include any Aperture libraries?

The website is hosted on a remote server that I store some stuff on. The NAS also automatically connects to the webserver to back up the website(s) once a month. Dropbox is a good off-site method for personal use.

And I don't really use iPhoto or Aperture. My pictures folder is pretty much just sorted camera dumps.

 

[rebby]

The website is hosted on a remote server that I store some stuff on. The NAS also automatically connects to the webserver to back up the website(s) once a month. Dropbox is a good off-site method for personal use.

And I don't really use iPhoto or Aperture. My pictures folder is pretty much just sorted camera dumps.

So you do have an off-site strategy then. That's good, a lot of people ignore this aspect of backups.

My backup/synchronization process is similar to yours. Main differences between your configuration and mine is that I have multiple targets for all of my backups (think big triangle, 100+ miles between sites) and that I run my backups on a much more regular schedule (at least hourly to all systems, including remotes). I really should document my backup solution like you did there sometime. I get a lot of questions on the specifics of it and it would be far easier to just point to a doc like that rather than keep explaining it. Nice work.