Local backups copy files to an external drive that’s connected to your Mac, then stored in your home, office, or even hotel room. These backups have two main benefits: speedy data transfers and bang for your storage buck. Many drives 1TB and larger cost roughly $100 to $200, delivering plenty of room for multiple versions of all your documents. The tradeoff is that local backups are just as susceptible to theft, accidents, and natural disasters as your Mac (don’t tell it we said so).
You have three choices when connecting drives to most Macs: USB, FireWire, and Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt offers screaming fast data transfers, but since the technology is so new, you’ll pay for the privilege (some drives start at $400). Prices will drop over time, but for most users today, USB or FireWire drives will suffice, and a few models even sport both interfaces for maximum flexibility. Once you’ve found a drive, it’s time to pick an application that will make backing up -- your way -- as easy as possible.
So easy to use it’s a crime, Time Machine should be the start of your backup odyssey.
Apple’s Time Machine comes free with every Mac, and its simplicity and integration with OS X are hard to beat. It runs automatically in the background (or when you say so with a click), and its application-native windows make retrieving files in the Finder, Mail, and Address Book a breeze. Time Machine backups can easily transport files and applications to new Macs, just the way you left them, thanks to the Migration Manager utility. But there are limitations. You can’t boot from Time Machine backups, and support for customizing what gets backed up, where it goes, and when backups occur is clunky, limited, or nonexistent. Seeing which files have been copied requires searching OS X’s Console logs (Applications > Utilities), and even then the results aren’t exactly user-friendly.
There’s plenty of documentation available in rsync to get newcomers started.
Just as deeply integrated into your Mac, but with a lot more typing, rsync is a free, highly configurable backup and sync utility that runs in Terminal (Applications > Utilities), so instead of sporting a slick graphical interface, rsync is controlled by the command line. Hey, don’t stop reading yet! Once you start an rsync process by entering the rsync –r command, you can drag and drop your source and destination folders into a Terminal window, view file-by-file backup progress, and even perform test runs of file transfers without affecting a single megabyte on your Mac. For more information, check out our rsync how-tos at bit.ly/pdGGMQ and bit.ly/n3D5CQ.
ChronoSync delivers the customization Time Machine lacks.
For a traditionally Mac-like backup app with plenty of options, check out ChronoSync ($40, econtechnologies.com). It’s an entire backup toolkit, compared to Time Machine’s elegant crescent wrench. With it you can run multiple file syncs and backups at various schedules, easily filter specific file types to copy, and build set-and-forget backup rules that include or exclude files on the fly. You can even create a bootable backup of your Mac’s drive so you can quickly get back to work while checking your original drive for problems after a hardware issue.
Cloning your Mac and backup drives is a snap with apps like SuperDuper.
Applications like SuperDuper ($27.95, shirt-pocket.com) and Carbon Copy Cloner (donationware, bombich.com) can back up files, but they both specialize in cloning a drive’s contents, making them great for quickly duplicating existing backups created with another program. If that sounds like overkill, it’s not. Don’t forget that a single local backup can fail just like any hard drive. If you can’t emotionally or financially live without your files, you can’t have too many archives to fall back on.
