Enormous drives have become inexpensive. So what to do with that terabyte external drive when your Mac’s internal drive is only a fraction of that size and prudent use of the internal drive suggests that you use only a fraction of it for your operating system, applications and essential data? Bulk data such as movies, photos and infrequently accessed files are best stored on an external drive. However, you cannot keep a clone of your internal drive on an single partition external drive that is also used for storage. The clone must have its own virtual drive or partition. The solution is partitioning the external drive using Disk Utility to a minimum of two separate partitions. You might call one “CLONE” and the other “BACKUP.” The BACKUP partition can be used for Time Machine and data files. CLONE will keep only your bootable image.
In the partitioning process you determing the size of each partition. CLONE does not have to be the size of your internal drive. It only need be about twice the size of the storage you actually use on your internal drive. For example, If you consistently store most of your data on your BACKUP partition, you may only use 20 to 30 GB of your internal drive. The CLONE partitiion need only be 40 to 60 GB. Apple claims that you can resize a partition non-destructively with Disk Utility in Leopard, if you find later that you misjudged your needs. (I find that the resizing feature needs more work.)
You will notice that opening Disk Utility and choosing the Partition tab reveals in the left panel that the computer recognizes three hard drives. Other World Computing Firewire drives have two FW ports which enable daisy chain linkage of multiple externals to the the computer.
The cloning applications available to Mac users are remarkably easy to use. Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper! are two of the most widely and favorably reviewed. Both can be used for free. SuperDuper! has features in the shareware version that are well worth its $27.95 fee. Among these are the ability to make incremental updates and scheduling of the cloning procedure. The initial cloning will erase the CLONE partition and then install the bootable image. This may take most of an hour depending on the amount of data on your drive. Subsequent “Smart Updates” take only a few minutes to make two drives identical.
Here you will note that both external drive CLONE partitions are scheduled for daily update.
Additionally, you might consider using yet another (third) external drive for a manual, weekly cloning. (Remember these drives are really cheap.) Many viruses are capable of jumping partitions, meaning that if an external drive can be seen in Disk Utility it too may become infected. Hence, the third clone is to an external drive that is only connected briefly. If you update clones frequently you may copy the virus to your CLONE before you have recognized its presence. The third CLONE should avoid this. Another solution would be less frequently scheduled cloning on one of your external drives or cloning each on alternate days.
8 Comments to “The Importance Of Backing Up and the Increasing Virus Threat”
Good piece man. People forget how important this is.
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I have a RAID setup, it’s perhaps not as simple and easy to setup as what you suggest, but it sure is reliable.
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I have two internal hd’s in my mac pro, and then a lacie external that I use. I need more reliability. I know.
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I’m fanatical about backing up; it’s always good to see this topic addressed.
My backup centers around a FW Drobo with 2 partitions. One partition houses a bootable clone, the other is backup for my actual data which gets sync’d each night with Chronosync. The Drobo has worked perfectly for this, and IMHO is so much easier to deal with than a traditional RAID.
Off-site storage is also something that *should* be done. Whether a cheap USB drive stored at a friends house, or online services like Mozy or Jungledisk, having a copy of your data off-site is critical, but it seems few people actually make the effort.
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great post man, can’t ever hear this stuff too much
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what’ crazy is that i have been trying to figure out to get bootable clones going, and now I can. thanx man.
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I like “The Elegant Solution” part. When put that way, most people should have a clear choice on how they will go about backing up their data. It should be obvious that the “the elegant solution” you propose is a winner.
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I’m really surprised that the vast majority of people have never run anti-virus software. I always assume people have the software and just run it every once in a while. I use ClamXAV when I want to scan a file I’ve downloaded or received via email, but I don’t have it set up to continually scan. I read a post today at Mac Guru Lounge on the Top 5 Mac Security Tips for the Holidays, which also talked about running AV software.
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