Are You Snowed In Baltimore Or Washington DC Today? This Would Be An Excellent Time To Check Your Time Machine Or Other Macintosh Backup System.

Are you snowed in the Baltimore-Washington area? A snow day is an excellent time to review your Mac’s back up plan, add an extra layer of protection, or test the back up you already have running! Don’t forget, there’s no such thing a set-it-and-forget it backup plan! (This post has links to all my other posts on this topic. Read, learn, and protect your data.)

We also see a rise in data loss that can be attributed to folks moving data or computers around during bad weather. If you are moving your data, switching back ups, or upgrading to a new computer, or doing ANY type of data housekeeping, please read this Blog post first.

We had a new MacMedics client call us on the phone and then come by the office with their sick iMac. The complaint was the unit was super slow. Right away I’m thinking a bad hard drive. The client tended to agree with me. The iMac fits our profile for hard drive “retirement” anyways since it’s right at the three years old mark. This is a fine time to “upgrade” and “retire” a desktop hard drive. (MacMedics recommends desktop hard drives be retired after 3 years and 2 years in laptops)

In this case the client was in a hurry, so in trying to find the fastest solution we looked for the “sniper shot” hard drive fix to see if we could put her back in shape without replacing her hard drive. She had a presentation to work on tonight, and she felt most comfortable with the idea of getting her unit back on-line. We offered a low cost rental, since she had her Time Machine data, but she really wanted her iMac back.

We felt comfortable trying some “fixes” on her hard drive, because she had an up-to-date Time Machine back up. Well, when it really came down to it, those fixes and even a new install of her operating system failed to solve the problem. This told us that it was in fact the hard drive that was the cause of the problem.

The client opted for a new hard drive, AND an upgrade to a 1 TB hard drive (from a 500 MB. Read more about iMac hard drive service and upgrades here.), since her hard drive was dying. Because of what we had learned about her drive being super slow, we decided to multi-task and run utilities on her Western Digital TIme Machine volume while the new OS was also installing. As we started looking at it carefully, we learned that the Time Machine drive was also failing.

We’re not big fans of this brand of hard drive, and when we told the client it was failing, she was shocked to hear it. We learned that the drive was less than a year old (don’t forget hard drives can die at anytime. See our website http://www.HardDrivesDie.com for more info.) When I told her that Western Digital was not my first choice for storing data, she was again shocked as she bought it from the Apple Store.

Here’s the facts folks. Any hard drive can die at any time, and just because it was purchased at the Apple Store does not give you an extra layer of protection. The other thing to remember is that the process of TIme Machine running every hour is rough on hard drives. The other item everybody needs to know, is there’s no such thing as set-and-forget-it the world of hard drive back ups.

All hard drive back up systems need to be tested and monitored on a regular basis. Time Machine is no exception. It does a great job of providing extremely easy to use back ups, but it should not be the only back up you trust your data with. (See my previous post about Time Machine here.) We recommend a double back up. TIme Machine for your first layer of back up, and a “clone” back up for your second layer of protection. Ideally, you should also have some sort of off-site back up as well.

As we store more and more of our digital identity and life on hard drives, it’s akin to more “eggs in one basket”. When you have more data stored in one place, you increase your risk, if that single hard drive fails, you could stand to lose all of the data stored on it. The other thing to keep in mind is as the amount of data you have active and live on your computer grows and grows, TIme Machine loses some if it’s ability to keep a longer record of you past data. The larger your Time Machine hard drive volume is in ratio to your main hard drive, the longer Time Machine will keep you data backed up. Of course having any back up is better than no back up, but Time Machine’s real advantage is in it’s ability to to keep months and months (even a year) of data for you to look back on if you should need a file that you accidentally erased 6 months ago (or longer).

As was the case today with our new client, she came very close to losing her data as, both her primary and her TIme Machine back-up drives were both failing in different ways. That could have proved disastrous.

What can you do to prevent this? Make a clone of your drive. For as little as $99 you can by a portable USB hard drive and either clone your whole hard drive, or just copy your user folder to it. You can also start burning some of your data to DVDs or CDs and storing that data off site.

No matter what you need in terms of a back up, MacMedics can help. Call any of our offices, and we’ll be glad to help you add your first, second, or third layer of back up. It’s important, so don’t delay.

Tip: If you bought a Time Machine drive when you purchased your new Macintosh, it needs to be installed in order to protect you. Don’t start generating data you care about AND can’t stand to lose if you’re NOT backed up. If you’re reading this, and you need help checking you back up or getting it configured, call us we can help. It does not matter if you’re local to MacMedics here in Baltimore, Washington DC, or Philadelphia. We can come on-site, or we can visit your computer via our Desktop Support Software. A back up coaching session over the phone can be set up and running in about 15 minutes. PLEASE, don’t wait!

You can read some of my other posts on Time Machine here:

Congratulations your hard drive made it through another Friday the 13th!

Back up and secure your data! (Then test your back up system!)

Do you use Time Machine as your only back up? Double it!

Installing a second hard drive into a MacBook Pro = Very Cool. Having a mobile bootable backup anywhere = PRICELESS.

Leopard’s Time Machine might not be a powerful enough back up for you.

MacMedics Frequently Asked Macintosh Service Questions: Snow Leopard Installation

Do I need to to back up before installing Snow Leopard?

In a word YES! Whenever you run a minor or major software update, you DO need to have your data backed up (and be sure to have that back up tested as well!).

Time and time again we have clients come in with a major hard drive problem right after they have tried to upgrade their Mac OS.

Run Time Machine BEFORE you run that installer. If you are not on Leopard or Snow Leopard, run a program like SuperDuper to make a clone of your hard drive before you perform your upgrade. Even if you have a Time Machine back up, I highly suggest you have a fresh clone of your hard drive on standby whenever you’re running a major Apple software upgrade. This way if something goes wrong, you have a bootable copy of all of your data. Nice thing about a clone vs. Time Machine is you can boot off it and TEST it BEFORE you run a major upgrade. This way if something goes wrong you can get right back to work by booting off the clone.

Never run an Apple software update when you’re on deadline or have a major project due. Updates should always be performed when you’re not under the gun.

Should I unplug my external backup when installing Snow Leopard?

Yes. In fact MacMedics recommends that all USB and FireWire devices (except your keyboard and mouse) should be unplugged before you run the Snow Leopard installer. That holds true for any software update or upgrade as well.

See our full Snow Leopard upgrade Blog post with all the things you should consider here.

Why using a Drobo for Apple’s Time Machine might not be a good idea

We’re fans of the Drobo data storage device here at MacMedics. They are a fantastic, low-cost solution for storing large amounts of data with relative safety.

In a repair that I’m working on that involved a Drobo 4 bay device, I’ve come up with some thoughts on why a Drobo device is not a good idea for use as a Time Machine volume.

1. We already know that Time Machine really puts a strain on the directory of a hard drive. We commonly see TIme Machine volumes with severely corrupted directories. When you combine the action of Time Machine along with the process that Drobo uses to protect and preserve your data, I think that intensifies the strain on the directory of the RAID.

2. Time Machine is a workout for any hard drive when it’s running all the time, and we have seen a few hard drives that have succumbed to the strain of that duty. In the case of the Drobo combined with Time Machine, the drives just go non stop all the time at a fairly intense level. When you consider that all that hard drive activity could prematurely shorten the life of a hard drive in your Drobo. Don’t forget that increased hard drive activity means more heat which can shorten the life of a hard drive.

When you consider both of these factors and add in the fact that having an ever expanding Time Machine volume, Drobo is not the best choice as a Time Machine volume.

Time Machine is the most powerful feature of Leopard and Snow Leopard. Having said that, having a Time Machine backup is highly recommended, but in almost all cases we DO recommend a “Double Backup”. In most cases this can be accomplished with one hard drive. If you have a large hard drive, you can create a partition that’s slightly larger than your hard drive, and then use the remaining amount of space for Time Machine. The trick here, is to clone you hard drive to the small partition and allow Time Machine to use the large one. This way if you ever have a failure, you can boot off your “clone” and then have access to you Time Machine data from as recently as one hour ago.

See my post about Time Machine and for a link to a program that will allow you to adjust it’s frequency here.

See my post about doubling your Time Machine back up here.

Time Machine is an excellent way to back up your files! It's only cool and powerful if you actually turn it on and USE it!

So your computer’s hard drive and hopefully your back up system made it though Friday the 13th. Good job.

Now that we’re approaching the end of the year and the holiday season is coming up right quick, this WOULD be an excellent time to test your back up (or start one) before you get wrapped up in the holidays.

We’ve been over this before, but here on the front lines of data loss we see this just about everyday. It’s senseless the number of pictures, school papers, financial and business documents, and music get lost when a back up system can be had for as little as $99!

You need to make your back up system automatic, or use a program like Time Machine. That’s the first step. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY can keep up with a “manual” drag-n-drop back up! To boot, quite a bit of the data loss we see here at MacMedics happens when someone copies over important data during a drag-n-drop Finder copy. Sometime, folks think they have the data copied, but something goes wrong and they just end up with an alias, then they go and delete the original data, because they think they just copied it.

The second step is to regularly test that back up to ensure your files are there and you’re able to grab them anytime you need them. There’s no such thing as a “Set-It-And-Forget-It” back up system.

If you need help getting your back up set up, our advice is free, and we have external portable and desktop hard drives in stock!

If you have data you care about it needs to be backed up! Just because your computer is new or you just replaced the hard drive offers you very little protection. Hard drives can die at any time, and in fact there’s an increased risk of that occurring in the first 30 to 60 days of a hard drives’ life.

See our website http://www.HardDrivesDie.com for more info on “retiring” older drives and ensuring you have a safe back up.

The pictures we take at the holidays are the most cherished and valuable. Make sure the picture you take this holiday make it onto you back up system as soon as you import them onto your computer. Also, as an added tip: Don’t have iPhoto delete your pictures off you camera. Leave them in two places, in iPhoto AND on your camera until you have them BACKED UP. You ALWAYS want to have your valuable data in TWO PLACES at all times.

This Blog post is from Kory Barrett from MacMedics Washington:

Even the employees here at MacMedics are not immune to Macintosh troubles. No matter how closely we follow our own advice, computers being the mortal devices that they are, we too experience problems.

So it wasn’t a real shock when my MacBook Pro recently failed. But in the process I became a huge fan of a new backup solution.

It all started at home, when I opened up my unit to check email before turning in for the night. However, I immediately sensed a problem. Though the power light on my latch release button was a solid white as normal, my screen stayed completely dark. No matter what I attempted I couldn’t generate video. Thinking it was stuck in a “sleep” state I tried several methods to wake it up. When that didn’t work I shut down the unit and restarted it. I tried several different startup tricks (zapping the PRAM, Option-boot, etc.), all to no avail.

Realizing that I had a real problem, I decided to hold off until the following morning when I’d be returning to our lab. The question of the integrity of my data didn’t really enter my mind at this point, as the symptoms did not suggest a hard drive failure. There were no unusual sounds that I could detect (grinding, screeching that we often hear when drives fail), and besides, I back my data up on a nightly basis using Time Machine to an Apple Time Capsule that I have at home.

Upon arriving in the office the next day, we methodically diagnosed the problem. When we concluded there was an internal hardware failure and began to disassemble the unit, I did finally start to get anxious about my data. What if my backup wasn’t reliable? I do perform sample tests from time to time, but I’d never done a full restore from it, and actually we’ve seen at least a small number of failures when trying to restore from a Time Machine backup. And even if it were successful, A) I’d still have lost all the work I’d completed since my last backup ran (a full day’s worth), and B) my backup was at home, meaning I’d have to leave work and spend a good part of the day going through the restore process, meaning more lost time.

So, it got to a point where I couldn’t wait to get the drive out of my MacBook Pro and attach it to our lab equipment to verify that my data was OK. Thankfully, it was, and the cause of my problem was a bad logic board. We replaced the board and I was back up and running. My worst fears were never realized.

But while the outcome was positive, it did get me thinking. If my drive had failed, how reliable was my backup? How much important data would I have lost in the day of work since my backup last executed? And had I really considered the time it would have taken me to head home and go through a full restore? Looking at it this way I was not satisfied with my backup plan, which obviously needed improvement.

It’s now about a week later, and I feel really good about what I’m doing. A colleague recommended a product to me that I am now using. It runs separately from my nightly Time Machine backup at home, meaning my data is in three places. But, while my nightly backup has its benefits, my additional new backup has others. What I did was install a 2nd, internal hard drive in my MacBook Pro. Using Intego’s Personal Backup software, I “clone” my hard drive to this 2nd internal backup drive several times a day. It runs quickly and does not slow down my machine in the process. Now, if my primary drive ever fails, I can easily reboot my machine to my cloned backup and get back up and running right away.

So now I’m really covered. If my drive fails, I have an updated internal backup. If my laptop gets stolen, I have a separate backup at home. I feel very comfortable that my data is well protected, and shouldn’t we all be?

But there’s the obvious question – “How did I fit a 2nd hard drive inside my MacBook Pro”? To do so, I sacrificed my internal SuperDrive. In its place I purchased a “sled” that holds the 2nd hard drive, designed to fit right where the SuperDrive was. I had asked myself “How often do I really need my SuperDrive anyway?”, and realized it wasn’t too often. For those rare occasions I also purchased an external SuperDrive. It’s small and very portable, and fits nicely in my laptop bag. So whenever I do need to install from a disk or burn a CD or DVD, I can still do so.

Cost-wise, including the internal drive sled, the hard drive itself, backup software, and the external SuperDrive, this solution was only about $100 more than a typical external hard drive backup. For me, it was well worth it.

If you are interested in learning more, please let us know, as we’d be happy to set this up for you. You really can’t be too careful with your data, and remember, it’s not a matter of if a drive will fail, it’s a matter of when.

More reading on hard drive failure and backups can be found at http://www.HardDrivesDie.com. Also be sure to read our post about Time Machine here.

Current and new subscribers to the MacMedics newsletter can request our free Time Machine white paper.

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!

If you’re a MacMedics client, and you’d like a free copy of our 5-page Time Machine white paper, please get in touch with us to request your copy.

If you’re not working with MacMedics currently, but would like to sign up for our free e-mail newsletter, we’d be delighted to share our report on Time Machine with you. Sign up for our newsletter here, and we’ll send you a copy.