What to backup?

J

johntamlin

Registered
Could anyone shed light on what to back up (system-wise) on a regular basis other than personal folders?
I know I can make a disk image but that takes quite a long time and I don't have sufficient storage. Do I just back up the Library folders from users and system?
Is there also the mac equivalent of windows's Restore Point?
Sorry if appears dim but have looked everywhere.

Thanks

JOhn
 
'... what to back up (system-wise) on a regular basis other than personal folders?' - well, consider:

'/Library/Address Book Plug-ins/'
'/Library/Application Support/'
'/Library/Image Capture/'
'/Library/Preferences/'
'/Library/Printers/' -- If you have added any printer drivers yourself.
'/Library/Screen Savers/'
'/Library/StartupItems/'
'/Library/Widgets/'
'/Library/Workflows/'

Why the above '/Library/' folders? If you installed an address book plug-in, scanner driver, screen saver, widget, contextual menu workflow, etc., for all users to use - the above folders are where such files are installed.

'Is there also the mac equivalent of windows's Restore Point?', try a 'Google' (or equivalent) search.

'Sorry if appears dim but have looked everywhere.', actually - it is not.
 
Your user folder is certainly a good starting point. Since you don't have the space to do a full disk image, the other things that you should back up are dependent on what you're using your computer for. For instance, I'm running a MySQL database on my computer, so I back up the /usr/local/mysql/data folder. I also have web sites in my /Library/WebServer/Documents folder, so I back that up too.

My strategy is to do a daily backup to external hard drive of the data I mentioned above and then I do weekly disk image of my complete system to an external disk.
 
Also - User>Documents folder.

Some apps install folders there.

The Mac doesn't have a Restore like Windows. You would have to do an Archive&Install
 
johntamlin said:
Could anyone shed light on what to back up (system-wise) on a regular basis other than personal folders?
I know I can make a disk image but that takes quite a long time and I don't have sufficient storage.

Thanks

JOhn
Click to expand...

Well if you have enough harddisk, rdiff-backup is quite handy. Like name says, its
backups are difference to previous version, so only first time the backup copies
everything. Following backups copy only files that have changed. This way
(provided you have enought disk) you can return not only previous version, but
also version of certain date.
 
But such a backup of course uses even _more_ space... But for me it always was my home folder. That's a) the biggest chunk and b) the most important one. I can install all the apps again by hand, but my home folder is what I've actually been working on...

plus "/Library/Application Support". That's basically all I backup, since that way I don't loose anything important.
 
Dear All
Thank you very much.
I can set up deja vu and schedule back ups of some of the /Library folders and my personal folders can be backed up separately.
I have an old G4 Gigabit which I will now use as storage and put another hard drive in.
Thanks again for your time.

John
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top