Backup strategy for MBA

[andyd409]

This is my first MBA so I am wondering about a backup strategy.

On my iMac I use SuperDuper! and TimeMachine. On my MacBook I just use SuperDuper! I do not backup my MacBook as often as my iMac because most of my content creation is on the iMac.

I am thinking of just using the same strategy as I currently use on my MacBook.

What strategies are you using?

Thanks,

Andy

 

[maflynn]

Backup your data as much as needed. If there's lots of change, i.e., document creation or alters, then it behooves you to back it up.

I can't that backing up, via CCC or any other app would take too long give the storage size.

 

[miata]

Backup your data as much as needed. If there's lots of change, i.e., document creation or alters, then it behooves you to back it up.

I can't that backing up, via CCC or any other app would take too long give the storage size.

True. CCC allows incremental backups to a bootable image, so you just need a USB2 drive with the same or great capacity as your internal drive.

 

[MikePA]

What strategies are you using?

For my iMac, since it's not moved, I use an external Firewire drive and Time Machine.

For laptops, I use Carbonite.

 

[jamone13]

Why not share your external drive from your iMac and just use time machine with that for the Air? I do this currently at work with an iMac/external and my MacBook Pro 17" Simple to set up, and its a set and forget it system.

 

[cleric]

Timemachine to an iSCSI target on my server which is raid5.

 

[barefeats]

Backing up to a USB drive will be 5 to 10 times faster than backing up to a Time Capsule. I found a nifty 128GB Flash Drive made by OCZ that gives me a small, light, portable, bus powered USB backup solution.

 

[jamone13]

Backing up to a USB drive will be 5 to 10 times faster than backing up to a Time Capsule. I found a nifty 128GB Flash Drive made by OCZ that gives me a small, light, portable, bus powered USB backup solution.

While true, how much data will really change between backups on a 256GB drive max? I usually have <25MB per hour that needs backing up, so its a nonissue for me. And that was on a 500GB HDD.

 

[bcaslis]

Use Time Machine to backup to Time Capsule on network. Do occasional backups with SuperDuper to USB hard drive for safety. Works great.

 

[miata]

I don' t have an MBA yet, but I think my current MBP solution would work fine with the MBA.

1) Time Machine to a Airport Extreme connected USB drive via ethernet (hourly when I'm at home)

2) CCC with incremental updates to a identical bootable disk in a Firewire 800 enclosure
-- the Firewire enclosure would have to be replaced with USB2
-- I would obviously lose the ability to do a drive swap in case of and MBA internal drive failure, but what is the probability?
-- I would use CCC to copy the image back to an MBA replacement internal drive

3) Finally, I backup all my recent work documents to a 8 GB SDHC card every hour using "File Synchronization" just i case. This would be unecessary if you have continuous access to a Time Machine volume. I don't, since mine is at home.

 

[Jaro65]

Use Time Machine to backup to Time Capsule on network. Do occasional backups with SuperDuper to USB hard drive for safety. Works great.

This also used to be my approach. Alternatively you can just back up to an HD attached to your AEBS, instead of the Time Capsule. On top of that do a periodic SuperDuper back up.

 

[andyd409]

Use Time Machine to backup to Time Capsule on network. Do occasional backups with SuperDuper to USB hard drive for safety. Works great.

This process makes the most sense to me and I will probably do something like this.

Thanks for all the responses,

Andy