Computer Troubles - The Importance of Backup Software

If anyone noticed, I haven't posted in a few weeks.

My MacBook Pro developed some problems and had to go off to the depot level to be repaired. (I love Applecare... under warranty they fixed the problem and did a lot that wasn't necessary such as replacing the keyboard, touchpad, hard drive, dvd burner, etc. leaving only the display, battery and bottom half of the case original.)

Almost as soon as that failed, we developed a problem at work that kept me working odd hours during most of the day for almost two straight weeks.

All is back in good shape now though. The fun part was setting my MBP back up. I had an older backup of it as well as a fresh "most important" I did in the Apple Store before it left. And plenty of my stuff is on other computers and drives.

MobileMe's sync (.Mac to most of us) was backing up my preferences folder as well, so that helped a lot.

This time around I'm doing the backups a little differently.

1. I finally have a dedicated external hard drive for Time Machine, connected via Firewire 800. It is a 500GB LaCie d2 Quadra. It seems rather small at 500GB but my MBP currently only holds a 200GB hard drive. This solution gives me a full backup plus previous versions of files that have changed. The 500GB drive was more expensive than the 1TB Western Digital MyBook but considering my experience with the MyBooks (I own four of them) is worth the money.

2. I will be adding a second external drive that will be used for a bootable backup. For this, I'll use Synchronize! Pro X from Qdea. I could use Carbon Copy Cloner which is another popular backup program and is donationware/cheaper than Synchronize! Pro X, but there are issues restoring cloned drives to drives of different models. So I'm not personally convinced that I should switch. I personally KNOW that Synchronize! Pro X works perfectly.

3. I changed the way I install applications. Usually I installed them to the default Applications folder. However, I simply created an Applications folder inside of my home folder and put the applications there. For the most part, the only ones in the main Applications folder are those supplied with OS X. The reason? I can take a Mac with freshly installed copy of OS X, restore/copy over my home folder and be back up and running.

4. In addition to the MobileMe synchronization, I have a subscription to DropBox where I keep my programming source code. I have a "dropbox" folder on each of my computers (Windows and Mac) which is automatically kept synchronized on those computers and an encrypted account on getdropbox.com for web access. Any file added, deleted or changed on one computer is almost instantly reflected on all my other computers. I will probably be adding an account from SpiderOak.com as well. Both offer 2GB for free... SpiderOak offers 100GB for $100 a year vs $200 a year at GetDropBox.com. Plus with SpiderOak, I select which folders are synced rather than having to use one master folder. (I.E. I can select my "pictures" folder and an "important stuff" folder instead of having to put both into one dropbox folder.)

All in all, this should make my life easier the next time something bad happens. And since we're talking computers/electro-mechanical devices it is indeed WHEN and not IF.