Alternative Backup Options to Time Machine - Mac OS X Leopard

If you use Leopard, you may be leaving all your backup tasks to Time Machine. With Time Machine, backing up can be mindless, but Time Machine has its limitations and it is not necessarily the best backup option for all Leopard users or for all backup tasks. Some of the shortcomings of Time Machine include the need for a significantly large extra external hard drive, use of the Leopard Install disk to restore a complete system and backups that only occur automatically once an hour, although you can back up manually at any time. And, of course, to use Time Machine, you must be using Mac OS X 10.5. In this article, I describe alternative backup options that can be used with Leopard as well as with older versions of Mac OS X.

Cloning a Boot Drive
Probably the most important type of backup is a complete backup or clone of your boot drive, usually to an external hard drive. The easiest way to create a clone is to download the demo version of SuperDuper! This application makes cloning a no-brainer -- just select your source and destination drives, enter your user password and SuperDuper! does the rest. If you purchase the full program for $27.95, SuperDuper! can be scheduled to do automatic incremental backups so you will have peace of mind that you always have a perfect bootable backup of your drive.

If you do not want to use SuperDuper!, you can clone your drive using Disk Utility's Restore feature. However, I recommend SuperDuper! because Disk Utility's Restore feature may result in a clone with permission errors. SuperDuper!, on the other hand, consistently produces perfect clones. You can also use a donationware program called Carbon Copy Cloner, which is very similar to SuperDuper!

Backing Up Specific Files and Folders
In addition to cloning your drive on a regular basis, you might want an easy way to back up specific files and folders, especially if you do not store valuable data files on your boot drive. Many Mac OS X applications, such as word processors, spreadsheets and databases, include a special option for automatically creating a backup of your work every time you save it. If you use this feature, select a backup location on a second drive so your most important data will always be saved on two separate drives.

Another way to back up critical data is to use a program like Apple's Backup, available for free for MobileMe users. You can schedule Backup to automatically save data files to your iDisk so you will know that you always have an offline backup of the data. The full version of SuperDuper! and Carbon Copy Cloner also let you save selected files and folders to an external drive on a scheduled basis.

Another easy option is to purchase a USB flash drive and manually transfer critical data files to it as necessary.

Backing Up to CDs and DVDs
Some applications, like iTunes and iPhoto, have built-in features that let you back up your valuable data to CDs or DVDs. This is the perfect solution for data files that are very large, such as a photo or music collection.

Large folders of data can also be easily backed up to CDs or DVDs using the Mac OS X 10.5 Finder Burn feature. Simply insert a blank CD or DVD into your computer's optical drive, move files and folders onto it and click the Burn button on the Finder window or move the disk to the trash to create a permanent copy of your data. You can also use a free application, such as Burn, to create backup CDs and DVDs of your data.

With so many easy-to-use options for cloning your system and backing up your valuable data, there is no excuse for any Mac user to lose data and precious time trying to recreate or restore original files. And, if you use Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, you have the additional advantage of Time Machine.

Copyright 2009 Claire J Rottenberg, All rights reserved

Claire J Rottenberg writes and publishes ebooks on Mac OS X (http://www.cjrtools.com/ebooks). She is an established writer with a distinguished career in educational research and writing. In her spare time she develops blogs for her hobbies and her most recent one is on major league baseball (http://www.baseball-fever.cjrtools.com).