We just had full moon, and it seems like it brought a ton of new Data Recovery jobs into the MacMedics offices. Spooky!

Now that it’s Halloween, I offer you the perfect metaphor for your Mac’s (or iPhone’s) Back Up. Don’t play “Trick Or Treat” with your valuable data.

When we have clients show up at our Mac Lab with data we can’t recover it just breaks our hearts. We’ve got a great track record for Recovering AND Rescuing data for folks, but there are cases we we can’t help with. We will refer these jobs off to Clean Room recovery firms, and often they can save your data in exchange for fees as high as $2500. But, not all data can be saved, and about 10% of the cases we refer, there’s not a positive result, and that data is gone forever.

As soon as you buy a new Mac, or get an old Mac’s hard drive repaired, you need to have a back up program running. On any Mac that is running Leopard (10.5) or Snow leopard (10.6), use Time Machine! It’s very, VERY powerful, and has been used to save lots of our client’s data.

The important thing is to PLAN AHEAD. Your back up is not complete if it’s not:

1. Automatic (Use Time Machine and this point is covered)
2. Redundant (Double your back up with a clone of your data and this point is covered)
3. Off-Site (Take your double back up off-site or get Mozy and this point is covered)

See how easy it is to be 100% covered! Now think of how much better you’ll feel knowing this little project has been taken care of and that your back up has been certified! If you need help getting a back up in place, we can help. On-site, In-lab, or even Remote Desktop Support, we’re there, and we’ll help get your back up configured and tested!

While all of us at MacMedics are HUGE fans of Time Machine, it’s not 100% infallible. MacMedics recommends that you ALSO back up your hard drive via a “clone” use Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner, as that way you can “test” your back up to insure you have a good, bootable copy. With a “clone” back up AND a Time Machine back up, you’re covered for TWO types of back ups, and you’re DOUBLING your chances for a successful recovery.

This might also be a good time to enhance your back up plan by adding an off-site back up. MacMedics is now a Mozy partner, so click here if you’d like to sign up for that (this like usually has the current Mozy discount coupon codes on it as well). You can get a free account that will back up 2 Gigabytes of data. It’s silly not to take advantage of that. We had a client in with a bad MacBook hard drive just a few days ago, and she was mostly backed up, but she was working a major project for her employer that had huge amount of Excel data in it. All she wanted was that one folder. Sadly we could not get it for her. If she had set up Mozy, even if she did not have a back up drive *a common problem for portable computers), her data would have been “automatically” backed up AND “off-site” thus completing two points of the golden triangle of data protection. Best of all, it would have been 100% free!

We also work with CrashPlan for on-line backups, so if you’d like to check out their current off-site back up plans see this link.

We have tons of posts on Time Machine and we even have a free White Paper on it If you’d like a copy, let us know. If you’re not using an automatic backup, your data is at risk!

Also, don’t forget that hard drives don’t last forever. Our rule of thumb for hard drive retirement is as follows. In Apple laptops the hard drive should be proactively replaced after 2 to 3 years years. In Apple desktops the hard drive should be proactive replaced after 3 years. You can find out more about this on our website http://www.HardDrivesDie.com.

There’s one more thing I would like to mention here. iPhones and iPod touch models also need to be backed up. All you have to do is to sync with you Mac from time to time. People are starting to treat these portable Apple products as stand alone devices, and when you think about it, many people are generating data on their iPhones and iPods just like they do on a computer.

You’ve got photos, e-mails, text documents, bookmarks, files, contacts, calendars, and videos that all can be generated or sent to your mobile device. All you have to do is connect to iTunes, and it will back up your device.

There are not too many ways to get mission critical data off a dead iPhone. We can often do it, but the data is all stored on the logic board of your iPhone or iPod touch. If it gets wet, gets dropped, or gets lost or stolen, then there goes your data. If we can’t get your logic board to fire up, then we don’t have access to your data.

This iBook hard drive came into the MacMedics Lab for data recovery. The hard drive came out of an iBook G4. Sadly the client did not have their data backed up. This hard drive has a serious problem and it now sounds like a chicken!

Please ensure you have an automated, functional, and fully tested back up system in place. Hard drives can die at any time. See our website www.HardDrivesDie.com for more information.

Update 1/27/10: This topic was mentioned on the Apple forums. See the link here.

Apple released Snow Leopard to the public on August 28. This new version of OS X leaves behind support for the Power PC and it will only run on Intel based Macintosh computers. It’s faster, smaller in size, and much cheaper then previous Apple operating systems. At $29 it’s a good value and well worth the investment. It’s $29 for the single user, $49 for a 5 user family pack, and Tiger users can upgrade via the Mac Box Set which includes iLife ’09 and iWork ’09 as well as Snow Leopard.

Update 9/12/08: MacMedics has both Snow Leopard and Snow Leopard Family Packs in stock in both Lanham and Millersville locations.

Our initial reaction to Snow Leopard has been good, and most of the MacMedics are running it now and have been using it and testing it for some time. While we are excited for it, we have not yet begun to install it for clients just yet.

Before you take the leap to Snow Leopard (or any other update to Apple’s OS) be sure to read our software upgrade warnings page first. It can be found here, but to get the word our we’ve copied the text of the page to this Blog post.

As noted below, MacMedics also strongly recommends you have a tested and fully functional back up in place BEFORE you install any Apple system software update. Something could go wrong, and you could have a major problem on your hands. Whenever Apple releases a major update to OS X we usually see 4 or 5 clients’ hard drives die that first day. If your hard drive is dying or already unhealthy, the extra hard drive activity needed to install a major update is often all it takes to kill a hard drive. Please see our web page on the subject of hard drive failures.

For more detailed information on installing Apple system updates, please see details below.

Upgrading to Snow Leopard and/or installing any Apple OS X software update

Running a software update from Apple (or elsewhere) as soon as it pops up is not always the best plan. In our travels we very frequently see clients who have run a software update without planning ahead for it, and as a result end up with annoying issues, sudden incompatibilities, and even data loss. One thing to consider is how healthy your hard drive is overall before running an update. Never try to solve an issue such as system lock ups or crashing by installing the latest update, as symptoms like those can be exasperated by applying a software update.

Here’s our safety checklist for running software updates or installing a system upgrade.

6. Consider the possibility that major applications and/or features might be affected by an Apple software update or system upgrade.

Don’t run a software update on a production machine while on a deadline. You want to be certain that the update will not cause more problems than it was designed to fix. If your machine is working, let it continue working as is, and plan to install the update after you know it’s not going to cause any issues for you. We install the updates on our test machines here at MacMedics as soon as they are released to Apple Developers, and again when they are released to the public.

Can your hard drive handle Snow Leopard?

Installing a new OS is like taking your hard drive to the gym. It can be quite a workout for an older hard drive, and whenever a new OS comes out, we always see a few dead hard drives as a result. No matter what you do, make sure you have a back up of your data before you begin! Also, don’t forget (or skip over) the important task of TESTING your back up. Time Machine is what many clients are running, and while it works most of the time, it can suffer from issues. It’s very hard to test that a Time Machine back up is totally working, and we often find ones that don’t work. Just keep that in mind when you plan your upgrade.

Prices have dropped significantly on hard drives over the last year or so. MacMedics now recommends retiring hard drives after three years in desktops, and two years in laptops. Be sure to check out new web page to find out why you should retire your older hard drive and to learn about our 5 rules of data protection and preservation. Why take a chance with your data when faster, larger, and generally more reliable drives are available. Moving to Snow Leopard is a great opportunity to get a new drive, while at the same time insuring your data is safe.

I’m using Leopard with Time Machine to do my data back up on my MacBook Pro. I’ve been pleased with how it works, and I even used Time Machine once to recover some e-mails that got accidently deleted. It was amazingly simply to find them, and pull them forward to my current e-mail. After using Time Machine since Leopard came out, I have noticed a few things that might weaken it’s appeal some.

1. Time Machine runs all of the time. So if you’re busy like me, Time Machine can slow your machine down enough for you to notice as you rush to get other tasks complete. I’ve considered moving my back up to my home office, and letting it run there while I sleep at night. But, as you recall Time Machine already saved some e-mails for me once at work, so if my back up drive had been home, I would not have been able to make a recovery so quickly. So for that fact, I think Time Machine needs to reside at your office to be completely effective.

You can change the frequency of Time Machine’s back up process by installing a little program called TimeMachineScheduler. With it, you can change how often it runs from anywhere from 1 to 12 hours. Take care, because changing TIme Machine’s settings could change the way your back up runs, or cause it not to run at all. Because of this, it’s extremely important that you test your back up after you modify it ANY way. This brings me to my next point.

2. A back up is only as good as it is. In order to KNOW this and completely OWN your back up, you MUST test your back up often, and in different ways. I learned this the hard way with a recent hard drive upgrade on my MacBook Pro. I wanted to move to a larger size hard drive, as I suspected that my old drive was starting to show signs of failure, and I had been using it for about 2 years. Since I’m a heavy user, I work on-site at client locations frequently, and I travel with my MacBook Pro wherever I go, there’s a time limit to how long a user like me can count on their installed hard drive. See my website http://www.HardDrivesDie.com for more info on “retiring” hard drives.

So I went to install a new 500 GB hard drive, installed a fresh copy of 10.5, and prepared to migrate my data from my old 250 GB hard drive. It said it was going to take a few hours, so I set up and got to work doing some Mac repairs in the lab. Now I suspected that the old drive might be dying, so I was not too surprised that it was taking so long, but I let it go. I ended up letting it run after I left the office for the day. I came back the next morning to see it had locked up. No biggie, I’ll just re-format, and start over, and use my Time Machine back up instead. Sadly, this too did not work, and I ended up manually copying my data by hand. Not the end of the world, but certainly alot longer and alot more tedious then just letting the OS handle it automatically. I was not too worried about my data, as I have several back ups, and all of my data was still present and accounted for on both my old hard drive, and my Time Machine back up.

3. So after my computer was back in business, I went back to my Time Machine back up to see if I could figure out what had happened and why I could not restore from that volume. I first tried a simple disk repair in Disk Utility, and that worked for a while and it came up an error that it reported is could not fix. I tried to repair the directory using a third party program, as Time Machine volumes are notoriously prone to directory damage. I had not done this in awhile. I set it up on one of my data recovery machines and went back to work in the lab on a client machine. I came back several hours later to check on it, and the repair software reported that the drive was running slower then expected due to a “hardware malfunction”. So it appears that even though I’m extremely careful, and I do monitor my primary and back up hard drives very carefully, I still ran into some issues. Now I was lucky because I did not have any data loss, and all I lost was time, and that brings me to my conclusion.

Time Machine is a fine program. It’s incredibly protective, easy to set up, and it’s free if you own Leopard. All things that we love here at MacMedics. Why do we love it so? Because, when our clients’ data is backed up it makes our jobs easier, and we hate to see data loss. With so many clients running new machines with Leopard pre-installed, more and more people are running Time Machine. Fantastic! Right? Well, it is great, but Time Machine is not a bootable back up. That means that if your computer were to have a problem, and that does happen, then you’d have to find a Mac to use, possibly install a fresh OS, then wait for your data to migrate over to the new computer. This is 1000 times better then not having a back up at all, but if you’re a power user, then you might not A. want to wait that long, or B. want to take your chances with only one back up.

Ideally, in a perfect world you want to have TWO back ups. 1. Your trusty Time Machine back up for grabbing a file you need from two days ago that you over designed and want to go back to the original and 2. a bootable back up, so if something bad happens to your computer you can boot from your back up and be right back in business right away (from another computer or at another location). Bottom line? Two back ups are better then one. Both types of back ups have their strengths and weaknesses, so the best thing to do is have both. I’m now recommending that prior to any major changes in hard drives, or major system updates that it is wise to have a “clone” of your hard drive on stand by in case you run into issues. That “clone” should be tested by “booting” off of it to ensure that it’s fully functional and ready to go should you run into any trouble.

4. When I get my Time Machine hard drive back on line, I am also going to use the same drive to be a bootable “clone” back up of my entire system, so I will have two fully functioning back ups of two totally different types. I’m simply going to partition the drive in such a way that Time Machine will have the space it needs, and my other back up program will have a cool 501 GBs to copy my bootable clone to.

If you want my help in setting up a MacMedics “Double back up”. then give me or any of the other MacMedics a call. We’ll be delighted to help you get it set up. Also, ask us about our “Advanced Back up” options where we can also use a RAID to give your back up a back up. You can never have too many back ups! In fact I now have a third back up! I’m storing my old hard drive at an undisclosed location as a “Snapshot in time” back up just in case something terrible happens, and I lose my computer, and my other two back ups. It never hurts to store a few DVDs or in my case, and old hard drive at your parent’s house, or with a neighbor or friend.

A close family friend here in Severna Park had his house burn down to the ground. Computers, back ups, photos, documents, everything was lost. How cool would it have been for him to go next door and get his old hard drive, and still have data from a few months ago? Here’s hoping that your data is backed up!