Suggestions for a backup/cloning strategy for a two-drive Mini

[pullman]

I received incredibly helpful suggestions in this recent thread to get my mum's Mac Mini 2011 up and running with two drives.

There's an Intel 520 120GB in one bay and the stock 500GB (5400rpm zzzzz) in the other.

Currently the SSD holds both Lion and the user folder. There is a copy of this on the HDD.

I am inclined to believe that it would be better performance-wise to create a user folder volume on the SSD and a corresponding backup/clone volume on the HDD. The user folder is some 20GB so there ought to be room to grow as my mum doesn't save lots of data.

Then I could set up a SuperDuper cloning (smart update) schedule between these two volumes.

Does that sound like an ok idea?

Also, can SuperDuper do smart update of a boot volume?

Naturally please come with better suggestions!

Thanks a million
Philip

 

[opinio]

I received incredibly helpful suggestions in this recent thread to get my mum's Mac Mini 2011 up and running with two drives.

There's an Intel 520 120GB in one bay and the stock 500GB (5400rpm zzzzz) in the other.

Currently the SSD holds both Lion and the user folder. There is a copy of this on the HDD.

I am inclined to believe that it would be better performance-wise to create a user folder volume on the SSD and a corresponding backup/clone volume on the HDD. The user folder is some 20GB so there ought to be room to grow as my mum doesn't save lots of data.

Then I could set up a SuperDuper cloning (smart update) schedule between these two volumes.

Does that sound like an ok idea?

Also, can SuperDuper do smart update of a boot volume?

Naturally please come with better suggestions!

Thanks a million
Philip

SuperDuper can do smart update of the OS drive, but it does not do the recovery partition. But neither does Time Machine.

I find sometimes you need to choose 'erase' (not smart update) in the options for the first time you do the image. Also you can either clone the drive or you can backup to an image file. This would leave a single file on a back up disk instead of a mirror of the disk.

Personally, I would probably rely on the second HDD as a Time Machine drive and back up to it. Because the SSD is only 128 it should fit on the 500GB as long as the OS is not too big. Then you do not need an external (knowing you don't want to complicate it for your mother). I.e. Keeping it simple. If you want you could then do SuperDuper clones of the SSD every week or so on an external USB drive as a secondary backup.

 

[Weaselboy]

SuperDuper can do smart update of the OS drive, but it does not do the recovery partition. But neither does Time Machine.

Time Machine will backup the recovery partition since Lion 10.7.2.

OP>> Just so I'm clear, are using this internal HDD as your only backup? That might not be such a good idea. If a power surge hits that machine you could lose both drives and your data would be gone. IMO you would be better off using an external drive of some sort for backups.

 

[opinio]

Time Machine will backup the recovery partition since Lion 10.7.2.

OP>> Just so I'm clear, are using this internal HDD as your only backup? That might not be such a good idea. If a power surge hits that machine you could lose both drives and your data would be gone. IMO you would be better off using an external drive of some sort for backups.

When you recover form TM then how do you get the full OS and Recovery partition on the drive? When ever I have done it TM only puts back the OS and not the recovery drive. I must admit I don't use TM all that often to recover (its more peace of mind) but I am interested to know how I can do that because I prefer to have the recovery partition on my macs.

Thanks.

 

[Weaselboy]

When you recover form TM then how do you get the full OS and Recovery partition on the drive? When ever I have done it TM only puts back the OS and not the recovery drive. I must admit I don't use TM all that often to recover (its more peace of mind) but I am interested to know how I can do that because I prefer to have the recovery partition on my macs.

Thanks.

The TM restore will put it back.

As long as you made the TM backup to an external drive with Lion 10.7.2 it is there on the TM backup drive.

So let's say you put in a new, blank drive. You would just plug in your USB external and option key boot to it. That would bring up the same recovery screen you see if you do a command-r boot to the regular recovery system. Then you can use Disk Util to format the new drive and just click restore. That will put a recovery partition as well as the OS and all your data back on the new drive. It works pretty nicely.