Time Machine can back up your Mac. But ChronoSync and ChronoAgent can back up all your Macs.

Time Machine is great for backing up one or two Macs, but when backing up a larger network of Macs, it’s better to use a more sophisticated backup program that gives you more control over the process. Your best bet for powerful network backup software is the combination of ChronoSync and ChronoAgent (www.econtechnologies.com). Together, these applications give you almost unlimited flexibility for scheduling backups, backing up multiple sources to multiple destinations, creating bootable backups, and more. You’ll also get enterprise-level features like central management of your backups from a single Mac, email notification of errors, and detailed backup logs. These instructions will help you set up one “server” Mac to back up any number of “client” Mac home folders to an external hard drive attached to the server Mac. (Note that we’re loosely using the term “server” to refer to the main Mac that controls your backups, and “client” to refer to any of the other Macs on your network. You don’t actually need to have a real server running Mac OS X Server.)

Difficulty Level: Medium

What You Need:

>> Multiple Macs on a LAN or WAN network, all running Mac OS 10.3 or later

>> One or more external hard drives, with enough space to hold all of your Macs' home folders

>> One copy of ChronoSync for your server Mac ($40, www.econtechnologies.com)

>> One copy of ChronoAgent for each one of your client Macs ($10 per Mac with volume discounts available, www.econtechnologies.com)

1. Install 'Em All

Once you've filled out all the fields (you can leave port number alone), click the Start button to activate ChronoAgent on each client's Mac.

Install ChronoAgent on each one of your client Macs. Then go into System Preferences > ChronoAgent and set a name, username, and password for each client. Click Start to activate ChronoAgent. (This is the last time you’ll touch your client Macs; the rest of the instructions are all done on the server Mac.)

2. Make the Connections

We've successfully created connections for five client Macs. You can even connect to the clients over the internet by IP address!

Install ChronoSync on the server Mac and launch it. Then go to ChronoSync > Preferences, click the Connections button, and click the plus sign to create a connection to each of the client Macs that you configured in Step 1.

3. Mount the Iron

One folder for each client Mac, nice and neat.

Connect your external hard drive to your server Mac. In the Finder, create one folder for each one of your client Macs on this external hard drive. Don’t skip this important step, or ChronoSync might overwrite one client’s files with another client’s files during a backup. And that would suck.

4. Sync Up

This synchronizer document will back up Rachel's home folder to the Rachel folder on our external hard drive.

In ChronoSync, choose File > New > Synchronizer to create a new backup document, aka “synchronizer document.” For the left target, choose one of your client machines and select its home folder. In the middle, choose “Backup Left-to-right” (to send the backups in one direction), “Synchronize deletions” (so if a file is deleted from the client, it’s deleted from the backup), and “Archived replaced files” (to save all versions). For the right target, choose the folder you created on the external hard drive for that client. Also choose the option that says, “When deleting files, move to archive,” so you have a chance to restore deleted files before they’re gone forever.

5. More Options

We set Archive Handling to 7 copies, and we're purging deleted files after 30 days.

Click the Options tab. Under Reporting & Error Handling, select Skip for the Errors and Roll-backs dropdown menus. This will let your backup continue without pausing for errors whether you’re there minding the store or not. Under Archive Handling, set the maximum number of versions that you want in your archive. If you set this to 7, that means that you’ll be able to restore the seven most recent versions of any backed-up file. We typically set “Purge files archived more than” to 30 days, which means that any files deleted from a client machine over 30 days ago will be removed from the backup drive too. This can help prevent your hard drive from filling up sooner than expected.

6. Name It Well

Our descriptively named synchronizer document, as seen in the Finder.

Save this document in a new folder called ChronoSync Documents, which will hold all of your synchronizer documents. Name the document something descriptive that mentions the left and right targets. For example, “Backup Rachel to External Drive 1.”

Next Page: Back Up Your Entire Network continued >>