OSX Backup utilities

[emad]

I know a bunch of you guys have macs now, so this place is ripe for the picking with my upcoming question.

I've got about 60gb of files I need to back up on my mac. I initially tried plugging in my ntsc external hdd using the nifty little hack that lets you perform full i/o operations on ntsc devices but i found that it was taking WAAAY too long - several hours just for 10 gig chunks of folders. The problem, after some research was due to some limitation with Unix and OSX... they don't play nice when it comes to copying thousands of files at a time.

So, I tried running SuperDuper... unfortunately, that wasn't interfacing with the hard drive due to the driver that I used for the ntsc drive. I compensated by running it through parallels and sharing the drive through that. Unfortunately, my best speed there was .85mb/s - that would result in over 14 hours to copy my documents folder.

Is there a faster way about backing this up? Really, all I need is to retain the file and their respective time stamps (if possible). The issue is that I want a clean Leopard install rather than this upgrade I accidentally performed. The installer was supposed to dump my prior installation to a new folder and install cleanly... it decided to do that and simply migrate my files and programs over.

The reason I want clean is because I borked Quicktime's handling of various codecs by installing some codec pack... and I've tried twiddling around with things I really should have left alone with Terminal. I'd feel more comfortable with a clean install. Of course, that means I need a proper backup first.

Any suggestions?

 

[Sage]

I’m slightly confused by one thing – are you saying that you chose “Archive and Install”, but it did a normal upgrade for some inexplicable reason? Or are you saying you accidentally chose the normal upgrade?

 

[emad]

I’m slightly confused by one thing – are you saying that you chose “Archive and Install”, but it did a normal upgrade for some inexplicable reason? Or are you saying you accidentally chose the normal upgrade?

No. What I think happened with the archive/install method is that it asked me if I wanted to transfer my user account/settings. I said yes to that, thinking it meant my passwords and user space (desktop/documents folder). It turns out that the installer looks as though it meant that it would transfer my applications as well.

In either case, I want a clean install to clean up some of the mess I made in the back end of the OS. The Leopard install may have fixed it, but frankly, the Windows IT guy in me says I should go clean.

 

[Sage]

Ah, I see.

Well, this is really tough (frankly, I didn’t even realize it was possible to transfer data from a Mac to a NTSC drive). I did a search through MacNN’s forums and Apple’s Support forums and turned up nothing relevant, so you seem to be in mostly unchartered water.

I suppose you can’t use an iPod?

The only thing I can think of – though this is risky – is to maybe coalesce the data that you need into one folder, and stick that folder somewhere in the System folder where it won’t cause any problems (maybe the Screen Savers folder?). If I remember correctly, when you do an Archive and Install, even if you don’t do Preserve User Settings, it’ll still save the entire old System folder and dump it on your desktop. So, if something’s in there, I would think that it would be saved. Of course, I take no responsibility if you try this and lose anything.

 

[emad]

I'd still like to be able to dump this all onto an external drive for backup purposes anyways. That's part of the issue. I'll be getting a new motherboard to get my desktop pc fixed soon, but that's a Windows box. I can use the 750 gig drive on there for storage, but the same issue will come up with speed. It's simply not possible to copy thousands of files with OS X efficiently. At least not with the traditional methods I know of.

As for the NTSC hack, check this - I'll post a new thread on it too since it's insanely useful to have.

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/li...write-ntfs-windows-partition-on-mac-os-x.html