Mac Newbie needs backup advice

Hi,

I have just bought my first Mac i.e. mac mini Server.

Normally when i buy a new Windows Laptop the first things i do are :-
1) boot up notebook via Acronis and create an image of the whole HDD. I restore to this when i am getting rid of the laptop
2) Fresh install of windows on laptop and then I create image of HDD

my questions are :-
(1) cold backup - What software is available to allow me to boot into a backup software to create an image of the whole HDD(s)? or how can I achieve this?.
(2) hot backup --What software for Full backup to restore the "whole" system?

cheers

css_jay99

 

As for what you call "hot backup," OSX's Time Machine feature is a fantastic, incredibly-refined backup setup. I used it to do a full system restore onto a new HDD when I upgraded my MBP to a larger 7200 rpm HDD, and I was very, very happy with how easy it was to do. And routine backups of the HDD are easy as pie. I'd just stick with Time Machine for your hot backup.

As for the cold backup, I don't know.

 

Check out Carbon Copy Cloner for your cold backup. It makes an exact image of the drive that you can even boot from. Carbon Copy Cloner - Home

 

I use a combination of Carbon Copy Cloner and Time Machine.
I do a TM backup every few days, and a full clone about every month or so. More often if I am busy with a project.
I used to do continuous hourly TM backups to my NAS, but I no longer trust, or would find sparsebundles practical.
How often is completely dependent on the activity of the changes you make to your system. Back-up as often as in necessary such that your last backup will always be sufficient for your purposes.

Carbon Copy Cloner is about the best free Application I have ever used.
I like the bootable clones that let me try things I would never do before.

 

Ok I have read a little about this software and I am slighly unclear about some things...

Assuming I was going to get a mackbook from a mate and connect it to the mac mini using a firewire cable in "target disk mode".

here is what I was going to do, please let me know if this is fine

1) Create two partitions on the backup/destination drive.
2) Use CCC to create a (bootable ?) clone of Macmini into partition 1
3) use CCC to create a disk Image of Macmini and store it in partition 2

cheers

css_jay99

 

Why would you want an image file in addition to a clone on the same physical drive? If you have lots of room on that one drive, use it for Time Machine. Then use a smaller drive, closely matching the mac's internal drive in size, for your clone image. Forget the non-bootable image file altogether.

IMO, for redundancy you need two different external drives.


When people started having Time Capsule failures after about 18 months, and griping they lost their only backup, Apple responded (paraphrasing here), "You don't have a backup, unless you have it on two separate drives". At first, i thought it was BS that Apple would have such an attitude. Then I pondered our own backup regimen that I follow within my company. We have 5 rotating backups on separate drives. Then over time i accepted that users who value their data to be available when the worst happens, are far better off with two independent drives for backup. I have since read the heartache of many users on boards plenty disappointed when their one and only backup drive was either corrupted when the unthinkable happened, or ecstatic when they had a second in that instance.

I found out the hard way that my NAS-AP Extreme setup was not a great way to go. Convenient to backup, yes, but a royal pain to do a restore.

 

And ideally, at least one of those backups should be offsite.