Computer backup

SuperDuper is what I use to make my computer backups. I have two big Firewire drives where I can clone my whole drive and then keep it updated.

The backups are exact clones and they are bootable! I have used SuperDuper to restore systems after harddrive failure and migrate to bigger drives. It's very reliable, I feel safe using it.

I also make backups of my important data to DVDs regularly that I store off site.

The solution below still works well but SuperDuper is even better.

For making the first complete clone of a harddrive I use Carbon Copy Cloner.

http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

For my day to day backup I use psync to copy all new and changed files.

http://www.jacek-dom.net/software/psync/

”…psync is a perl script that uses MacOSX::File to implement inclemental backup and restore”

I use psync with this shell script that could be run from cron.

#!/bin/sh
#
# Shell script for backup with psync for Mac OS X
# 2005-02-08 by Fredrik Jonsson <mailto(colon)fredrik(at)combonet(dot)se>

if [ $USER != "root" ]; then
    echo "You must be root to execute this script."
    exit
fi

# What area to backup, the default "/" will include the whole harddrive
SOURCE="/"

# What area not to backup, seperate by space
EXCLUDES=""

# Where to store the backup data
TARGET="/Volumes/[Your backup harddisk]"

# Check if Target exist
if [ ! -d $TARGET ]; then
    echo "Target \"$TARGET\" are not mounted."
    exit
fi

# Which program to invoke
CMD="/usr/local/bin/psync"

# What options to use
OPTIONS="-d" 

# Build a bunch of --exclude ... statements and construct
# a number of arguments to send to psync
for i in $EXCLUDES; do
  EXCLUDE_OPTIONS="$EXCLUDE_OPTIONS --exclude=$i"
done


# Do the backup
echo "Doing this: $CMD $OPTIONS $EXCLUDE_OPTIONS $SOURCE $TARGET"
$CMD $OPTIONS $EXCLUDE_OPTIONS $SOURCE $TARGET

echo "Backup is done!"