How to create differential backups

[spatterman]

I have a LaCie external drive which holds all of my iTunes content (including music, films, tv shows and the library file etc). I'm going to buy another drive to backup the primary drive (so that I don't have a 'single point of failure').

After initially copying everything from my primary to my secondary drive, I want to keep the secondary drive in sync by just adding new or altered content to it once a week (ie. a differential backup).

What's the best way to do this?

 

[h9826790]

Carbon Copy Cloner may fit your need.

 

[edoates]

Cloning hard drives

Carbon Copy Cloner may fit your need.

I've also used SuperDuper with great success in the past:

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

 

[westrock2000]

You are looking for a form of "versioning"?

Time Machine does versioning, and you can tell it to back up to two separate locations so you have redundancy of your backups.

Or are you looking for a quick way to find newly created or modified files?

 

[spatterman]

Thanks for your replies - sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I have Time Machine which is already backing up my onboard hard drive. My problem is that my music, film etc is on an external drive. I think that the only way Time Machine could help would be if I could configure two separate backup processes, one for my hard drive, and one for my external drive.

Will have a look at SuperDuper and Carbon Copy...too.

 

[sparkie7]

CCC yes. Lacie no.

 

[hfg]

Thanks for your replies - sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I have Time Machine which is already backing up my onboard hard drive. My problem is that my music, film etc is on an external drive. I think that the only way Time Machine could help would be if I could configure two separate backup processes, one for my hard drive, and one for my external drive.

Will have a look at SuperDuper and Carbon Copy...too.

Time Machine, by default, excludes "external" drives from the backup. However, you can easily go to the "options" page and remove the excluded external drive from the list, and then your TimeMachine backup will include all files from your internal primary drive and your secondary external media drive. Your "backup" drive capacity should be 1.5-2 times that of the contents of the files being backed up in order to preserve adequate versioning so as to be useful in recovering historical files.