[efenili]

I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware of how great a backup program like Time Machine is. I plug my Mini9 OSX into an external 500GB HDD (Plenty of space to backup my tiny 32GB SSD) and run time machine constantly if I am at home and it saved me a lot of hassle!!

When I initially updated to 10.5.7 I was one of the people with horrors of my Mini9 not running properly anymore after that with OSX. Even trying save mode and DellEFI didnt help me. But luckily booting back into my OSX Installer via instructions here and using "Restore from Time Machine" instead of a regular install I was able to restore my Mini9 OSX back to exactly where it was before and save all my programs/files etc etc =) I was as relieved as can be and even managed to update to 10.5.7 with the new DellEFI release afterwards.

Just a friendly reminder that backing up is always a good thing to do
Cheers!

Ed

[DELLsFan]

I love Time Machine! So much ... that I have a Time Machine screen saver that runs on my iMac.

I'm not really into screen savers per se, but the Time Machine background effects are just too cool to ignore.

Thanks for the tip/reminder, Ed!

[oatmeal]

Did they ever get backup via wireless working?

[ThePimento]

Originally Posted by oatmeal

Did they ever get backup via wireless working?

I've got a Time Capsule and it works great.

[herooftime]

I have an Ubuntu server and using some guides I was able to set up a AFP share and create a sparsebundle that Leopard backups to.

[Enigmafan420]

Originally Posted by oatmeal

Did they ever get backup via wireless working?

Yep Me too-didn't spring for the $$$ for a time capsule but am using Airport Extreme with a 1 TB WD MyBook (I think?) hooked to the Airport via USB. Works perfectly wirelessly.

[DELLsFan]

Originally Posted by Enigmafan420

Yep Me too-didn't spring for the $$$ for a time capsule but am using Airport Extreme with a 1 TB WD MyBook (I think?) hooked to the Airport via USB. Works perfectly wirelessly.

Way cool. Just bought an AEBS and will soon be setting up my backups to an external drive hooked to it.

[ian]

I agree that it is vital to backup regularly - I'm amazed by people who don't do this - e.g. who have just one copy of their Ph.D. work stored on a USB stick!

However, to do it properly you should make sure that you have an offsite backup. If your only backup is local to your computer, it is as "at risk" as your computer. A break in, a theft, a flood, etc would not only mean you lose your computer, but also your backup.

The easy way to do this (what I do) is to have two backup discs - one of which is connected to my computer and one of which is at a friend's house. About once a week, I will swap these discs over - so if something happens to my local system, I know that I will have a backup which is a week or less old.

[DELLsFan]

Originally Posted by ian

I agree that it is vital to backup regularly - I'm amazed by people who don't do this - e.g. who have just one copy of their Ph.D. work stored on a USB stick!

However, to do it properly you should make sure that you have an offsite backup. If your only backup is local to your computer, it is as "at risk" as your computer. A break in, a theft, a flood, etc would not only mean you lose your computer, but also your backup.

The easy way to do this (what I do) is to have two backup discs - one of which is connected to my computer and one of which is at a friend's house. About once a week, I will swap these discs over - so if something happens to my local system, I know that I will have a backup which is a week or less old.

Great strategy! Another less physical solution for those inclined is online backup ... like with Mozy, Carbonite, or even DELL's online backup solutions. These are offsite backup alternatives. IMO, they are worth the investment for the peace of mind they provide (Carbonite has saved me more than once).

If it's important enough to be worked on your Mini, it's important enough to back up.

[Tamerlane]

Originally Posted by DELLsFan

Great strategy! Another less physical solution for those inclined is online backup ... like with Mozy, Carbonite, or even DELL's online backup solutions. These are offsite backup alternatives. IMO, they are worth the investment for the peace of mind they provide (Carbonite has saved me more than once).

If it's important enough to be worked on your Mini, it's important enough to back up.

I'm sure everyone here is probably aware of this already, but I just thought I'd throw in my two cents: use DropBox. For me it is especially useful, as I edit the same documents on my Mini 9 and my iMac. Using DropBox allows me to keep everything in sync, something Time Machine sadly does not cater for. I have set up a special folder where I drop my bittorrent files. If I'm at the office for instance, and I see something I need, I upload that to this folder. My home Mac has an Hazel action associated to this folder, and as soon as the torrent file is dropped in this folder it will feed into my BT client. If you do not yet have an account I would be beholden to you if you could use the referral link in my sig. They also have a little tutorial on their site explaining what it does.