best backup software.
 

hey people,

I've just installed CCC for making timed backups to a firewire drive but I've heard that sometimes with big files CCC crashes....is this true?

If yes, is there a better (free) alternative or is CCC as good as any backup utility?

tnx for the help!

Re: best backup software.
 

CCC has never crashed for me but then I'm not sure I have any particularly massive files. Anyone else have this problem?

CCC works Great for me and My Clients
 

CCC works Great for me and My Clients......

I did see on Mac central the follwoing free alternitive:
http://www.helios.de/news/news03/N_06_03.html

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When you say big Files are you talking about individual ones or a lot of Data?

I have CCC Cloned virtually full 80 and 180 gig Paritions with out any incident or problems.

The Current Version of CCC is 2.2, and you might want to go to version tracker, besides asking here and read the reviews of both or any resources. I almost always read reviews before assaulting/ trying even on an experimetnal copy of a system with an Application or Utility.

Like in any foroum there are sometimes Padders and Slammers (happends most with shareware and commercalware) and even Flame wars. That said (you can sue your own criteria) any software that gets around 4.5 out of 5 rating or better plus actually read people comments, problems etc. it essentially gives you the common experience. Watch the dates as once you hit read all comments you will have current version and all prior. I wish they kept complely separte each versions comments. You KNOW the release date which version tracker gives you, vs. the Comments post date, same with Star Ratings.

well I was talking about big files and lots of data in folders also.

I'll take your advice and download the latest one there.

true about the comments they give there...I also always read them and most of the times it's almost neccesary to read them =)

tnx man!

CCC is an excellent program.

If you have any other questions about it, post on the Bombich board as well.

Re: CCC works Great for me and My Clients
 

You should only do that if and when you're a lawyer.
:D

:) Ok so I type way bad:)
 

:) Ok so I type way bad:)

CCC does not verify files that it copies.

Thus, it is not a reliable backup application.

If you search the forums, backup software solutions have been discussed in other threads previously.

And, yes, it is very easy to crash CCC during large file copies.

CCC file copying is not very robust.

However, such crashes often may be attributed to hardware issues rather than the software alone.

On the other hand, better backup applications will perform better in regard to such problems.

Peaved posted bad comments, that's his experience I suppose. I disagree and consider CCC quite reliable - as do many others.

CCC is an excellent utility, if you have questions about it go to the Bombich forums for the best advise.

Jacques

Jacques, unfortunately, does not know what he is talking about.

He should learn to read CCC technical documentation, which clearly states that CCC does not verify its copying operations, and instructs the user to do subsequent verification to ensure reliable copying was performed.

And if he had read any of the other threads about backup software here on macosxhints.com forums, he would realize that the shortcomings of CCC are well known by many other users here.

Personally I have never had a problem using CCC. I image all my data needed onto external firewire drives using ccc. I don't know how large of files you are talking about you I will copy directories full of data base files which span back to 1980. So some of the files are several hunder megs, and sometimes around a gigabyte. So CCC may be unstable compared to other back up programs, but it works for me. I probably just jinxed myself though, I bet next back up it crashes knowing my luck. Another app I have used a bit, but unfortunately don't own a liscense to is this I have set it up for people before but never used it in the real world. I liked what little I used of it, so it might be worth checking out.

CCC meets a lot of people's needs just fine. If you like you can learn how to use ditto in the Terminal.

I like ditto and/or Retrospect, depending on the type of storage media being used.

There was a poll conducted here a while back. Retrospect and CCC both received a lot of votes, for what that's worth.

Well there you have it a very small flame war or at least a feisty Difference of opin
 

Well there you have it a very small flame war or at least a feisty Difference of opinon.

I have a ? for those that are not Fond of CCC.


Are there any programs that have worked well for them that do recommend personally.
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Good Luck.

Retrospect. $$ but worth it (Especially in a multi-machine/multi-OS/multi-platform environement).

Retrospect is indeed the gourmet option.

i use it, and am very happy with it.

Okay Okay But
 

Okay Okay But.

I to used to be Fond of Retro and used it until my migration to OSX.

I do have issues with it, In the past and now (in that it creates [as do most back up programs an arhcive and Catalog]) that is not usable with out extraction by the Application.

This is in no way an inditmant of a fine Applicaton. I just Happen to Prefer Backups/clones to be stored in a format that is accessable at any time.

And Capable of making Bootable Clones.

*** Point Taken about Verifcation....


As I mentioned earlier the folowing was just released: Not sure if its quality

I did see on Mac central the follwoing free alternitive:
http://www.helios.de/news/news03/N_06_03.html

******** Anyone have any Favs that does Verification but uses standard Data Structure.

I have used retrospect, and set it up for many users but I don't own a liscense for my own use here in my dept. Then again I really don't need it here. The only thing I need to back up for my own personal stuff is like driver/firmware/bios/software updates, and a few work logs. All the other users that do the business side of things needs retrospect. From what little I have used it, I must say I liked it.

Re: Okay Okay But
 

(As suggested previously, search previous threads here. Craig Arko's poll link contains useful discussion thread- it's not just a poll.)


Currently, www.qdea.com Synchronize! Pro X is the best application.

Retrospect is also very good in all other respects, but I agree with you that its use of a proprietary data format is a huge weakness.

A proprietary way of backing up data and archiving it can be seen as useful too. In one respect its annoying that a lot of systems natively cannot use the back up file. Another view is, it may be more secure and not every system can just access the back ups, and if they could it would be useless. This way it would be harder for people who are not on a "need to know basis" access the data as easily.

I know when dealing with the governent or other private organizations that only want certain people to see certain data will use methods like this. This however this does not stop someone from getting the data. If there is a will there is a way, and hackers can be very crafty. It just makes it harder for the average user who would rather give up than figure it out.

This is not my full opinion just playing devils advocate I suppose to show why it might be a good idea to be more proprietary.

I know we had some previous hacker problems a while back ago, and switching some things to a more esoteric propietary set up stopped a lot of it.

Yes. Another advantage is that Retrospect data backups can be compressed, requiring less storage media.

Compression and Rationalizing it Aside
 

Compression, Rationalizing, and Secuirty Aside.... Drive space is not the Paltry state we used to be in with when Diskdoubler and Stacker etc were necessary.

Compression has Risks of Corruption,
Secuirty/securing of Data has risks of corruption.


Point Taken also if you want to five out Data that is slighly harder to unscramble (in the case we are talking about buying a copy of Retro and Scanning contents of the Archive prior to restore to build the Catalog).

------------------------------------------

I am comfortable with CCC. I would rather have a verift Data Option. I do read the Logs, which is not the same thing.

I took a brief look at SyncX Pro, there was no mention of verification, only conflict resolution between source and Target. I have not yet tried the Demo or Downloaded the full manual.

I also Contacted Bomback of CCC for fun to see if it will be added. I did not see if the heilos priduct offfers verifcation.

Re: Compression and Rationalizing it Aside
 

Actually, Retrospect provides DES encrypted backups which are very secure.

A Persistant Devils Advocate yet Valid Point:)
 

A Persistant Devils Advocate, yet Valid Point:)

I am personally more concerned with corruption from secuirty/compression, long term access to Data with out Retrospects intervnetion etc.

------------------------

I will continue to look for anything that does it all "perhpaps: Sync X pro.

Just to be more devilish- re: your concerns about corruption:

Retrospect verification is very robust, so corruption is very highly unlikely.

Also, consider that if secured/compressed data is corrupted, user is alerted immediately to the data problem. On the other hand, for example, a simple Finder copy or native format backup will not reveal its insideous corruption and perhaps go undetected until it is far too late.

There are actually more safeguards for data integrity built into the secure or compressed data formats than native data.

But, to be anti-devilish again for a moment, the larger resulting comprehensive backup files consisting of many smaller files may be more prone to subsequent corruption than storing separate, smaller native files.

How many Anti = Pro:)
 

How many Anti = a Pro:) :)

Seriously, there is no question that Utitlies that offer verrifcation checksum that the back up has completed sucessfully wether that Data is Native OS readable file or Propritary is Preferrable (if CCC offered I would enable it, no question).

I have had experience with Compressed Data and Archival format Data where that data was partially or completely unreadable and thus am learry of it (with a number of different programs over the last 10 years).

And I had Drive Fulls of Corrupt compressed files, and files that were not sucessfully uncompressed/restored into a readable format (both from compression and Security).

In the case of Retrospect the falures were with the Media (CDR and CDRW) was at fault (not that made one feel better). The data had been verifed at the time of backup and was no longer accessable later when needed.
-----------------

In Short, I only like to work with Native Data. As always multiple copies of Data is good idea, not to mention multiple locations etc.

Re: How many Anti = Pro:)
 

Yup, anyone smart will have back ups in several locations (ie tape, cdrw, networked raid, external drive, other HDs).

Also having the most reliable options is probably the way to go. I would say you can't really put a price on your data since data recovery is uber expensive. I know the company we use for data recovery, the price starts at a $200.00 attempt fee, then X amount of dollars/MB recovered and it can get into the thousands real quick. Sometimes a HD just fails and you gotta ship them out to a data recovery specialist. It's usually due to some user who didn't back up their data on the network share to get archived, but it happens.

Once somene had some crazy project due and the user had not backed up their data onto the network share for like 3 weeks straight. Their drive failed and we had to ship it out to data recovery specialist. $2200.00 later we got the data back on some dvds.

Prices have gone up owing to the Drive Size Explostion and edit {} inflation etc.
 

Prices have gone up owing to the Drive Size Explostion and inflation etc.:

I called one of the more reliable services recently Drivesavers...

They Indicated that for aything larger then a 6 gig drive (or was it 8)
even with Economy service, take your time etc. (the failure was not even mechanical, no exotic drive head platter fun etc).

The Drive was a 40gig 1/2 Full accidently Inited $4000.00 min. and only the files "might' be found no Folders.

-------------------------------

Luckily I had the users data 99 percent backed up. End user in ? has 2 computers and 10 Drives (back ups and primary storage).

I was going to have the system recovered just to take a pulse of Costs. Last Drive I recovered @ drivesavers was 2+ years ago it was 4gig $1000 even (and that was for a mechanical/format failure).

we use drive savers as well. I must say they do very good work. They have recovered many things I thought were impossible to recover. Like water damage to a HD (due to an AC leak that submerged a desktop PC in about 3 inches of water, so the HD was completely soaked).

Yup there site is full of amazin Saves
 

Yup there site is full of amazin Saves....

I neglected to mention that 2+ year old faluire/recovery was 100 percent sucess.

Never say always, though it is better to back up 1000 times:)

OK Not a 1000:)