Hi!
I would like to use a program for general backups. Could you please advise me on what is a good one for (incremental) backing up folder files and… Devon databases?
I am trying the followings:
a. Goodsync
b. Chronosync
c Synchronize! Pro
Thank you for your help.
You’ll find many and various views on backing up. None will provide a perfect answer; each should reduce the risk of total failure. For backing up to allow you to restore historical versions of your documents or databases, don’t neglect the software you already have: Time Machine. But Time Machine won’t allow you to get started again immediately if your hard disk fails: for that you need to create a clone of the hard disk every day or so. I use SuperDuper for this.
The question then arises: backing up to what? I use two separate, external, partitioned hard disks which I circulate to another building every six weeks or so. But I think other people are increasingly using the cloud: Crashplan, Carbonite etc. - although these cost. Often the decision boils down to how valuable - in financial and/or sentimental terms - the contents of your hard disk is.
I use Time Machine, which has always worked well for me. But as Hugh noted, if your hard disk were to fail, those Time Machine backups would be inaccessible unless you have a bootable OS X drive.
I haven’t had a hard drive failure in many years, and that instance involved dropping my old TiBook, which had its files copied to another Mac before the drop. But perhaps I’ve just been lucky.
Recently I received a Xcanex book and document scanner to evaluate. Currently it runs only under Windows, although Mac-compatible software is planned. The potentials of this small, portable and inexpensive book scanner look good. Before I installed Windows in order to be able to test it, I made a bootable clone of my MacBook Pro to an external USB 3 drive, using Carbon Copy Cloner ($39). So I’ve got a bootable backup disk (containing Carbon Copy Cloner) that could replace the contents of my internal SSD.
If I’ve got a CCC backup recovery disk and a recent Time Machine backup of my SSD, there’s no need to keep making whole bootable disk backups frequently. Were my SSD to crash, I can clone a bootable OS X disk back to it, then update my User Account files from Time Machine. Yes, that takes time, although the external CCC clone and the Time Machine backups are on Thunderbolt USB 3 portable drives. But given the bandwidth limitations of my ISP (15 GB/month daytime, plus 15 GB 2 AM - 8 AM) and download speed (as a practical matter, 1 - 2 Mb/s) a full recovery from a disk crash would not be a practical option via the cloud. (I hear from some users who have much greater bandwidth for data transfers and faster upload/download speeds that recovery from the cloud can take a lot longer than they expected.)
I do believe strongly in having offsite backups. I cover that strategy by using one or more portable drives stored in a safety deposit box at my bank. In the event of a hard drive crash and theft or loss of recovery copies in my office, I can recover from those portable drives–in just a few hours counting driving time to the bank.
About that Xcanex portable book and document scanner: The documentation states that there’s a learning curve in setting up for book scanning, as the height and tilt of the camera, book placement and settings for automatic detection of page flips must be properly set. My first attempt at book scanning was last night. Although I screwed up a few pages, it really works! When I got into the flow of turning pages at the right time, page images came out great (no wavy text lines) and OCR accuracy was great.
But I still detest Windows!