Best Backup Utility

Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
I have two internal hard drives that I would like to backup (fairly regularly) to an external one. What is the best program for accomplishing this? The internals are 80, and 180. The external is 120. I've been looking at Retrospect Express 5, any thoughts?



<mumbles something about corrupted disk wrappers>

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    If you want to go on the cheap, you can download LaCie's SilverKeeper, which is free. Look on VersionTracker or (better) MacUpdate for it. It's kinda buggy, but it backs up my data just fine.
  • Reply 2 of 9
    westonmwestonm Posts: 140member
    My external drive is a Lacie, and I had seen the SilverKeeper software. Is it really very good for backing up data? I would like some kind of compression to go along with the backup program (180+80 > 120). Does the Lacie program offer that? Price (less than a hundred) isn't really an issue. You say SilverKeeper is "buggy". This concerns me...
  • Reply 3 of 9
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    SilverKeeper doesn't offer any compression. All you do is choose the source, and choose the destination. Each source is kept in a popup menu as a "set." You can back up the sets individually, or all at once.



    The bugs in the program have nothing to do with losing data. That little popup list of sets is somewhat buggy... sometimes, it will remove the sets from the popup menu (no data is erased, I just have to go in and make the set over again) and one time it made three or four duplicates of my sets in the list (again, no data was changed, the list just got too many items in it). Now it's fine. Oh, also, it doesn't work with scheduling in OS X, only in OS 9.



    I use it because it's free, I'm poor, and it's better than nothing. But if you have plenty to spend on it and lots of features you want out of the program, then by all means look for something more advanced. I really don't know much about backup programs though, so I can't really help you much.
  • Reply 4 of 9
    badtzbadtz Posts: 949member
    Tri-Backup ?
  • Reply 5 of 9
    enaena Posts: 667member
    Retrospect---I think the personal edition is reasonable $$.
  • Reply 6 of 9
    westonmwestonm Posts: 140member
    Is Retrospect > Tri-Backup? For what reasons do you suggest Tri over Retrospect (besides cost)?
  • Reply 7 of 9
    fahlmanfahlman Posts: 740member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ena

    Retrospect---I think the personal edition is reasonable $$.



    Retrospect Express is only $43.99 at the online retailer that I checked out. Dantz has been in the Macintosh back up business since '84. I remember using Retrospect to back up my Macintosh 128! Not really, but I did use it to back up one AppleShare IP Server and three client (Mac OS 9.X) computers. Never had a problem. Oh, it does do software compression. Also easy to use and Mac OS X native.
  • Reply 8 of 9
    der kopfder kopf Posts: 2,275member
    My question: what is the advantage of using a backup program instead of just copying whatever you want over to wherever you want it?
  • Reply 9 of 9
    fahlmanfahlman Posts: 740member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by der Kopf

    My question: what is the advantage of using a backup program instead of just copying whatever you want over to wherever you want it?



    If you just want to back up you porn...uh...family vacation photos and a few Word documents then there isn't much of an advantage except that it's automated. If you're backing up your entire system then just dragging one hard drive the other hard drive will not back up the system files that are necessary to restore you computer to working order again.
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