Q: The hard drive in my Mac laptop just crashed, now I am afraid that the drives in my studio Mac drives will go down. Any suggestions on backup?
A: We consulted our own Editorial Director Mitch Gallagher, who said:
“I use a Glyph FireWire RAID on my Macbook Pro, it’s managed by Time Machine on an automatic, regular basis. I use a RAID because the data on that machine (my life, basically) lives on there pretty much permanently. I have a portable USB2 drive that I back up my wife’s Macbook onto periodically using Time Machine.”
“For my studio, I have an extra drive installed in the Mac Pro that is used for backup by Time Machine. I manage when Time Machine backs up this machine manually, usually at the end of each session. I don’t use a RAID because data doesn’t live on that Mac forever. The data is used for sessions, then it comes off and is archived to CD/DVD and an external drive.”
“In all cases, all that is backed up is user-generated data. I don’t back up sample libraries, applications, etc., under the assumption that I can re-load those things from download or CD or DVD if the worst happens. I do keep a running list of all applications with serial numbers, challenge/response and authorization info, manufacturer contact info, etc., that is stored separate from the computer.”