Time Machine best backup option on Leopard?
Dear Lazyweb,
Is the best way to backup Mac OS X Leopard, Time Machine? Will it give me full, reliable restores, in case all goes to hell?
On Linux, I use rdiff-backup, which is a phenomenal tool, that is quick and easy to use from the command line. Its restores are proven (even across Linux distributions). Do I need to bother with it on OS X?
Is Time Machine space efficient? My Macbook comes with a 250GB hard disk, and the largest 2.5″ disk I can buy is a 320GB disk, and that’s currently what I use for Time Machine backups (no, I will not carry a 3.5″ disk for backups - I travel a lot).
Thanks
Technorati Tags: lazyweb, backups, time machine, macosx, leopard, rdiff-backup
March 22nd, 2008 at 4:11 am
Time machine does take a bit more space on your backup disk, as it will backup your WHOLE system, not just the dirs you’d point rdiff-backup at, but I think the conveniece of restoring to a working system would outweigh the space issue.
March 22nd, 2008 at 4:20 am
Thanks Peter! I’ll just use Time Machine and hopefully, never have to worry about running out of space on the 320gb disk…
March 22nd, 2008 at 4:25 am
Time machine will tell you when the disk is full and you can then discard entire snapshots to make space available again, more or less similar to the –remove-older-than option to rdiff-backup.
March 22nd, 2008 at 4:44 am
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