01-30-2014, 03:25 AM
My favorite backup;
Big backup drive.
Partition into two volumes, one the size of your system drive. The other is "everything else".
(You could also just use two entirely separate drives...).
Set Time Machine to back up to the "everything else" sized drive. Leave that drive on, leave Time Machine running. Leave it the fuck alone. Don't play with it. Don't try new and exciting ways to turn it off, on, force it to back up at other times, etc. Just let it do it's thing - as designed. Time Machine has its problems for some people, but a good HALF of the problems I read about are from people trying to screw with it, and use it in a manner for which it wasn't designed.
Get Carbon Copy Cloner (or SuperDuper, both good tools).
Set it to backup your entire system drive (user data included), every "X" time. I do monthly.
This way in case of disaster, you have a bootable drive with all your stuff no more than 1 month old, PLUS your Time Machine backup, which can restore everything to your bootable backup drive up to an hour or so before your disaster.
You can use the Time Machine backup to restore accidentally deleted or modified files.
If you want to improve this system; add a second (rotating) drive to the montly backup... keep one of your backup set off-site, and swap them every month, or twice a month (depending on your CCC backup schedule(s). )
That's my favorite, anway.
Big backup drive.
Partition into two volumes, one the size of your system drive. The other is "everything else".
(You could also just use two entirely separate drives...).
Set Time Machine to back up to the "everything else" sized drive. Leave that drive on, leave Time Machine running. Leave it the fuck alone. Don't play with it. Don't try new and exciting ways to turn it off, on, force it to back up at other times, etc. Just let it do it's thing - as designed. Time Machine has its problems for some people, but a good HALF of the problems I read about are from people trying to screw with it, and use it in a manner for which it wasn't designed.
Get Carbon Copy Cloner (or SuperDuper, both good tools).
Set it to backup your entire system drive (user data included), every "X" time. I do monthly.
This way in case of disaster, you have a bootable drive with all your stuff no more than 1 month old, PLUS your Time Machine backup, which can restore everything to your bootable backup drive up to an hour or so before your disaster.
You can use the Time Machine backup to restore accidentally deleted or modified files.
If you want to improve this system; add a second (rotating) drive to the montly backup... keep one of your backup set off-site, and swap them every month, or twice a month (depending on your CCC backup schedule(s). )
That's my favorite, anway.