People trust Microsoft because they use it and that doesn't mean that is a very good idea

At least you picked a more reliable source to trust

The only remote devices that work correctly with Time Machine have to be Time Machine aware ... and currently, that means you are limited to Apple's own product.

Suprisingly, Microsoft's Windows Home Server has partial remote support for Time Machine, but it is still not trustworthy enough ... although apparently this will be fixed in the next major update for WHS.

What is the alternative? I don't have huge amounts of important data, less than 20GB (not including the system stuff, etc), but even that amounts to tens of thousands of files. Impossible to manually open and confirm the contents of each file, it would take forever.

Exactly. All you can do is make several backups and trust the odds that at least one will be good. I have not had any serious troubles with backups so far (touch wood), though I always have several current copies of the important stuff, including at least copy stored off site.

I'm with rickyd on this one, I trust time machine and check it by using it.

BUT... I back up all my music and images and movies to a separate external drive.

i check the backup immediately...

and back up once a month. i think the 13th of every month is a good day to schedule a backup.

Its' even more reliable if it falls on a Friday.

MD5 hash on each file? That could be scripted.

I don't have a huge amount of data on my Mac and what I do have I backup to my IBM Thinkpad on a regular basis. The ThinkPad is backed up to the Mac in the same way and is also backed up to a system at my workplace.

Every six months or so I burn my data to a DVD or two, then eject and re-insert it and copy a selection of files back to the Mac to check that the DVD has burnt OK, then date it and file it away. I've got CD's going back 10 years using this method that are still readable.

I back up with TM and make a DL DVD backup of important files once a month.

I always check my DL DVD backups.

I test my backups frequently by opening files, comparing file/folder sizes and doing md5 checksums. I take it on faith that no one backup method is necessarily reliable and therefore backup several different ways to different places.

My servers: My main Xserve has a mirrored RAID 1 comprised of 2 x 74 GB Western Digital Raptor 10,000 RPM drive modules and a third, 400 GB drive module for storage and backups. Every night, an automated rsync backup script runs including mysqldump directives to backup all important files and directories to the 400 GB drive module. However, putting faith into automated backup systems in itself is terribly reckless. Every day, around this time (almost without exception) I run an rsync script manually which backs up those same important files to another location on the 400 GB drive module. The script then syncs those files to my Mac Pro at home onto a a dedicated internal SATA drive. That SATA drive is in turn backed up by Time Machine to yet another drive, a server grade Seagate ES.

However, I have little faith in Time Machine. Once, when my TM drive had over 30 GB of free space, TM on its own deleted all but three or four daily backups. More recently, I noticed that a home directory on my Debian server which also rsyncs down to my Pro then gets backed up with TM was empty on the TM volume, yet when running Time Machine.app, the files showed. The files were NOT invisible on the TM volume. I checked that straight away in Terminal. So, go figure!

Also, I make a bootable clone of my Xserve's RAID pretty much every month to an additional drive module and test it immediately by booting from it and making sure all the usual stuff works. Additionally, I have a second Xserve whose sole purpose on this planet is to sit below the main Xserve powered down in the event the main Xserve fails so I can just swap out drive modules. I test it from time to time as I have remote power management.

On top of all this, I have a small FW drive that I backup the Xserve files to and keep it in my safe. Recently, I locked my Mac Pros at home to my desk and padlocked their cover latches. My house also has an alarm system and I donate money every few months to the police fraternities just in case I ever need a cop to shoot anybody who messes with my files. =)

In my home office, I have two nearly identical Mac Pros. The second is a clone of the first so that if my main Pro ever fails, I can continue to work on my spare with little time loss.

I also have high speed cable broadband multihomed with backup ADSL in the event one of my internet connections drops.

As a consultant, I see people lose files all the time and more commonly, not even know where many of their files are (when things are working perfectly hardware and software-wise.) I do my best to rescue my clients from file loss hell and they usually listen, but there's one thing for sure: it's not going to happen to me!

Dave

When I buy a new Mac, I use the existing Time Machine backup to restore said Mac back up to date.

Works great. I can have a new machine mirroring my existing machine in a snap.

Something like Sugarsync or dropbox will do this for you automatically. As you update a file, it immediately updates on your pc and visa versa

Its a really good question i think. I'd guess over all a lot of people don't complete test restores. Its really apart of the disaster recovery plan (DRP).

Myself being an IT Manager I know all to well that doing regular test restores is an requirement of a successful backup solution. Also giving that "home users" normally only keep one set of backups aswell compared to enterprise solutions that can cater from 5 to 60 backups of data (depending on the Business requirements).

WoW


This is just here so I can post

Sometimes, when I'm thinking about house fires and stuff, I get a CD and burn off a few vitally important stories I'm writing... but other than that... backup?