Article:		Automated Backups with Existing Tools
Subject:		ASR vs. CCC
Date:		2004-02-10 21:14:11
From:		fdiv_bug
Thanks for posting an informative article -- /usr/sbin/asr is indeed a very handy utility. There are, however, some issues which I'd like to raise with your new backup strategy. The first is that you mention that Carbon Copy Cloner requires you to remember to run it which is not the case. Once you've configured a clone operation, but before you click the Clone button, click the Scheduler button. This will enable you to make a scheduled backup without you having to remember to do anything. The second issue I have is that ASR seems to be a bit inefficient. You'll end up with multiple disk images over time, which is fine I suppose, but each one is making a full dupe of your hard drive. Setting up CCC with the proper preference settings and psync requires it to only copy what's changed, thus saving time on your backup. Thanks again for the informative article!

Showing messages 1 through 2 of 2.

• ASR vs. CCC
  2004-02-11 01:34:04  peterhickman [Reply | View]
  
  
  You are correct that Carbon Copy Cloner allows scheduling, that is an error on my behalf. Indeed CCC is a great tool and is very adaptable. However one of my requirements was for several generations of backups so that I could restore to a previous state.
  
  I never worked out how to get this to work with CCC but my script did what I wanted. Being a programmer I must confess to coding up my own solution to a problem rather than looking for pre-existing solutions.
• ASR vs. CCC
  2004-02-12 08:23:28  kelleherk [Reply | View]
  
  
  In fact, when you set up a schedule in CCC, it actually creates a full custom shell script and adds a cron task to the system crontab to execute it. So the CCC program itself does not actually open and run ... it has just automatically created a sophisticated synchronize shell script (which you can customize yourself if you are a programmer).
  The nice thing is that with the pysnc functionality enabled in the preferences, the backup is super quick. I have an external 60GB Firewire drive on my desk at home. Each night when I get home I just plug the FW drive into my powerbook (also with 60GB drive) and at midnight, the CCC backup script runs.
  I have about 45GB used on my drive and the whole backup task which insludes permissions repair and syncing the changes to the backup drive takes about 18 minutes every night usually.
  The only drawback is not having incremental restore points. But, for me having a backup clone of my drive lets me not worry about Powerbook theft, field damage, hard drive failure, major upgrades, trying a hack on the OS, etc.
  Try CCC .. it's great and free! ... all you need is a FW drive the same size as your internal drive.