Backup Strategies A Discussion November 19, 2015 Tom Davis

Introduction To quote our own Ray Kallman – “This is a good opportunity to ask yourself, What would I do if I turned my computer on and all the data on the hard drive was gone…no operating system…no applications…no files. It’s not as remote a possibility as you might suspect and each of us needs to have a plan to get our data back. We’ve always encouraged computer users to back up their data to another source ….” – Has this happened to you? 2

Why Backup? Is there any data, (files, documents, s, photos, videos, etc.) anything on your Mac you would really miss if your hard drive failed? List the data you would really miss below. _______________________________________ 3

Why Is Backing Up Important to You? You want to protect your important files. – What files are important? Tax Returns, financial records, formal correspondence, personal photos and videos, important , etc. – As we move more to going paperless more of our data (files) will fall into the formal correspondence category What about the operating system? – Although it is convenient to include the operating system it is not necessary. The operating system can be restored directly over the internet All of your settings and additions such as extensions to Safari and applications will be lost and you will have to go in and make the changes back to what you want and re-download and install the extensions and applications 4

What is Your Backup Strategy? ? _____________________________________ P.S. If it’s only in one place it’s not backed up! 5

The Hardware Airport Time Capsule (Apple combination Airport WiFi Router and Hard Drive) External Hard Drive(s) – Number and capacity will depend on your Mac’s HD capacity and whether or not you have data on additional HDs – RAID Array, only required if you are using a RAID system CDs and DVDs Internet Connectivity for Cloud backup 6

The Software Time Machine, Part of Mac OS 10 – Accessed in System Preferences – Time Machine can backup to more than one hard drive Boot Clone Software (A perfect copy of your Mac’s hard drive that will boot your computer.) – Carbon Copy Cloner – SuperDuper – ChronoSync Disk Utility – Disk Utility can be used to make disc images of your entire drive RAID (redundant array of independent disks) – A data storage virtualization technology that combines multiple physical disk drive components into a single logical unit for the purposes of data redundancy, performance improvement, or both. – Not part of a common strategy for personal & home backups – Primarily used by businesses 7

Offsite Backup “The best backup strategy in the world is no good if all of the backups are stored with the computer. You need to keep a set of files in a separate physical location in case your primary location is visited by fire, flood, theft or other disaster.” That means sending a backup disk to another physical location. 8

Cloud/Online Backup iCloud – iCloud does not backup everything unless you keep all of your file in the iCloud Drive folder Cloud/Online Backup Services – Carbonite, CrashPlan, iDrive, Mozy, SOS and many others – Considerations when selecting a Cloud backup service Mac support, Price and storage space, backup and file sharing, security, Mobile access, support Dropbox & Google Drive – Dropbox 2 GB free, Google Drive 15 GB free – All files kept in the Dropbox or Google Drive folders will be saved to the cloud and updated as they change 9

Testing Backups Testing your backups is an easy step to overlook, but an important step to take. Make sure your backups will be there when you need them. The only thing worse than no backup at all is a backup that doesn’t work when you need it. “How will I know the backup will work when I need it?” 10

How to Test Your Backups Time Machine – You can NOT BOOT from a Time Machine backup but you can verify it If the disc that the Time Machine backup is on is a Time Capsule or is connected as a network drive (i.e. not connected directly to your Mac) Time Machine must be in the menu bar which is turned on by checking the box in the Time Machine preference – Option click the Time Machine icon in the menu bar and Verify Backups Create a couple of files, delete them, the finder open a window for your Documents, click on Time Machine in the menu bar, select Enter Time Machine and then go back in time, find the files you deleted and restore them You can also use Disk Utility to verify a Time Machine backup disc by turning Time Machine Off in the Time Machine preference, opening Disk Utility, selecting the Time Machine backup disc and clicking the Verify Disk Boot Clone Backups – Connect the hard drive containing the boot clone backup – Reboot your computer holding down the “C” key or the Option key Press and hold the keys immediately after you turn on your Mac and hear the startup sound. Keep holding until you see the Startup Manager display the startup discs available to use to boot up the computer. If the disc you are looking for does not appear right away wait awhile and it should appear. The Startup Manager will display all of the discs that it can see that have a System Folder with the necessary files to boot the computer. Use your mouse or trackpad to select the disc you want to boot up from and double click or press the Enter/Return key If your computer reboots and you can see all of your documents then your backup works. 11

Testing Cloud/Online Backups Cloud/Online Backups – Follow the instructions online for particular service you are using. Recommend that you do this fairly soon after you sign up for the service and it has done it’s initial backup and a couple of times a year. Create a couple of test files on your hard drive, delete them and then restore them using the instructions for the service you are using 12

Restoring From Backup Why do I need to restore my system? If the reason that you need to restore your system is because you got infected by a virus or malware then you need to make sure that you restore from a backup that is from I time before you got infected Do I just need to restore the operating system or just my documents (i.e. everything in my home folder)? – You can restore just the operating system over the net if you choose the right options but make sure you have a good backup of everything else first 13

References to-a-complete-mac-backup.html to-a-complete-mac-backup.html best-mac-apps-for-making-a-bootable-backup.html best-mac-apps-for-making-a-bootable-backup.html multitalented-file-sync-and-backup-tool.html multitalented-file-sync-and-backup-tool.html machine-backup.html machine-backup.html critical/?awt_l=5FO0Z&awt_m=ItxUVAI5eJdfbL critical/?awt_l=5FO0Z&awt_m=ItxUVAI5eJdfbL 14