2 Months or so ago i bought the new 27″ iMac, last summer i bought the then new MacBook Pro 13″.
And both needed backing up.
With the ever bigger harddisks and increasing lazyness when it comes to connecting peripherals to computers i wanted something simple. I have never really backed up any iMac. Just the MacBook as i drag it around to places and thus is more prone to defects. however, with me moving my development files to my iMac and the hassle for IF it goes wrong a backup is just nice to have.
I used to back up my MacBook Pro with SuperDuper, which i bought, and synced an Western Digital 500GB Hard disk with every wednesday and sunday. It was manual and tedious. Too much steps for something i didn’t really want to do. Later i figured out that Time Machine didn’t really need the disk at all times and wouldn’t make a fuss if the disk was not found. I still use SuperDuper regularly for various things and i like it alot. But for a drive that isn’t always there it’s not really what i wanted.
So here’s how i do it now. In iCal i have made a repeating event to make some noise 3 times a week, prompting me it’s time for the backup. Then i simply hook up the drive and let it connected for a bit. And a few hours, or minutes, if i think about it. When Time Machine did it’s thing i simply disconnect the drive again.
I now do that for my iMac too since this week and it’s been really simple. For the iMac with the ports less accessible i bought a Western Digitial 1TB drive that shut’s itself off after a minute inactivity and just leave it connected.
It almost couldn’t be simpler.
So here i am, ending up using Time Machine and even liking it. When it was first introduced i didn’t like it much for it’s lack of options. With some tweaks using the preference pane Secrets even that can be solved. Like setting a longer interval for backups every day or every 12 hours instead of every hour.
