Posts Tagged
backup
Although Macs don’t come with much of the bloatware suffered by PC users, they do come with a few apps (and associated data) that most users don’t need. The problem is, they hog up hard drive space – often a problem when you also have mammoth video files and thousands of jpegs all fighting for space.
There are many utilities on the market that can help with this problem, but Contents looks aims to approach it from a different – and cheaper – angle than most. Better yet, it also includes some excellent utilities, making it a great value for the money.
So what makes Contents different from the competition? Let’s find out.
If you’re a long-time reader of the AppStorm network, you’ll know how much we all love and adore Dropbox. It’s an absolutely fantastic application – for so many reasons – and often crops up in our reviews and how-tos. Simply put, you have to give it a try.
Yesterday, our sister site Web.AppStorm posted an absolutely fantastic article entitled The Ultimate Dropbox Toolkit & Guide. I don’t often cross-post to other articles on AppStorm sites, but this is such a fantastic post that you really owe it to yourself to check it out.
Whether you’re completely new to Dropbox, or a real seasoned power-user, I guarantee you’ll find something interesting to read about in this ultimate guide.
I don’t think any AppStorm reader would disagree with me on this: you would be crazy not to back up your Mac. Whether you use Time Machine or a complicated NAS with off-site redundancy, it is vital that you make sure data loss isn’t a possibility.
While many people find the default Mac OS X backup features to provide all the features they find necessary, some users – including myself – don’t enjoy the large downtime involved when recovering from a Time Machine backup (which, if you haven’t done before, can take hours!) Restoring a single file is easy, restoring a full computer isn’t the fastest thing in the world.
Today we’re going to be taking a look at a utility called SmartBackup to see how this handy little app can make backing up easy!
We Mac users like to scoff at our PC-using peers, what with our lack of viruses, spyware and Internet Explorer. But when it comes down to it, our beloved Macs are simply computers, sharing nearly identical innards as the PC. Though we hate to admit it, our systems can become sluggish and frozen, our memory can become corrupt, and our hard drives can fail. SuperDuper! is an application from Shirt Pocket to help us through those tough times.
SuperDuper! is an extremely simple backup solution for your Macintosh. With a few simple clicks and a bit of patience, you will have yourself a fully bootable carbon copy of your hard drive. What this means is, when and if your hard drive should fail, you can boot from the backup file and run Mac OS X, your files, data, settings completely in tact, just as it were.
Today we’ll walk you through the whole process from start to finish!
With the use of tiny USB flash-drives becoming increasingly common in our lives, it is scary how heavily we rely on these not so reliable storage devices. They can go missing, get stolen, or just pack it in and die. And if you haven’t backed up all your files from it, then this can be really devastating.
But few people remember to regularly backup so here’s an easy tutorial on how to get your computer to automatically backup your flash-drive for you. Following this, you should be able to rest assured that everything is safe. This how-to uses SilverKeeper, a free backup application made by Lacie.
This article will also show you how to make backups happen as soon as you mount your flash-drive using Do Something When, and a basic Automator workflow. Without further ado, let’s get started!
I have tried a number of online backup solutions – among them Mozy, Carbonite, JungleDisk, MobileMe’s iDisk, and CrashPlan. This article is not about those products, but I can tell you that all of them let me down in one way or another.
I hit problems with one of them when disaster struck and I found that I couldn’t actually use my backup files; another was terribly, unusably slow and gave little control over when backups were run; another kept my MacBook’s fan’s running all the time, because the backup app was leaking memory all over the place.
Despite all these disappointments, I do feel that I need an off-site backup (along with my Time Machine and SuperDuper! backups) – it’s an extra line of protection that helps me feel more secure – so I’ve kept looking for a solution that’ll do the best possible job.
For the last few months, I’ve been using Dropbox and, although it’s not expressly designed for the purpose of backup, it just works, and I’ve been very happy with the service. My only complaint is that Dropbox is a little expensive for my needs – after all, I’m only currently using 12% of the 50GB my $10/month buys.
I recently came across Haystack Software’s Arq, and I’m thinking this may be a very good option for keeping online backups running smoothly and seamlessly. Join me after the break for a walkthrough of its features.
Windows users have had the luxury of using an application like GoodSync for years, giving them the ability to sync or backup important folders both over a local network or even remotely.
Siber Systems has finally developed a Mac version of GoodSync and, though it’s not as feature-rich as its Windows counterpart, it still does an admirable job of ensuring that your folders and files are safely copied and archived.
The bonus is that it can do this between various directories, be they two computers (Windows or Mac) or a computer with an external storage device, FTP, WebDav or another server. Plus, GoodSync doesn’t need to be installed on any of the computers you’re tapping into. Let’s take a look at how it works.
SpiderOak is an online backup, syncing and sharing service similar to Dropbox or SugarSync. It is powerful, versatile and free to use for up to two gigabytes of storage.
Today we’ll look at how to setup SpiderOak on your Mac, how to use its main features and how I think it stacks up to some of the other services out there.
How many times have you wished you could easily backup your data on-site or onto a remote server? Parachute is a simplistic backup application that is designed to compliment Time Machine with features that allow you to back up locally and remotely. On top of this you can set the scheduling of the backups as well as ‘smart backups’ (similar system to Time Machine).
The most obvious reason for backing up to a remote location is if your computer/hard drive become damaged or stolen. However it’s always a good idea to have a ‘second backup’ – better to be safe than sorry right?
In this Quick Look, we’re highlighting SpiderOak. The developer describes SpiderOak as providing an easy, secure and consolidated free cross-plaform online backup, sync, sharing, access & storage solution for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux (Ubuntu, Debian & Fedora). You can manage your shared files from anywhere securely with our iPhone application, and keep all your devices backed up, accessible and synchronised.
Read on for more information and screenshots!
