iMac iTunes and backup

[colterphoto1]

Speaking of iTunes maintenance. I had moved my music library to an external Mac drive some time ago, however my many playlists did not transfer over (not sure where they are stored, even the Apple store wizards could not find a quick way to transfer). So now those songs, and anything I've uploaded on the new iMac are all groovy except miss my old playlists (I put each album in as it's own playlist for easy retrieval). Spent a few hours last night with the old machine doing the File/Library/Export Playlist function for each of 950 playlists. Will burn to CD and transfer to new computer later today. (Yes I did a test run first it works but it horribly tedious). I'm burning up HD space at quite a rate, importing everything of mine (1000 CD's approx) and library finds (a dozen or so per week).

Next stop is getting a backup system set up for both music and photo files. I have an old 500GB PC drive with photos and files, a 2TB drive for music files only, the internal 500GB drive which contains my LightRoom files (Lightroom prefers to store them on the internal drive).

I have another fresh 2TB WD MacBook drive which I plan on using for backing up (none of these drives is near capacity by a long shot). Looks like I can use the TimeMachine on the Mac or the WD software. Any help in setting up something that is incremental, not terribly in the way, and can create an easy to rebuild set of files in the event of tragedy?

[Knorbu]

iTunes does something odd with playlists, I ran into a similar problem last year when I was trying to direct the Logitech Media Server to find playlists. I never was successful, so I am not much help there.

As far as simplicity in a backup drive, apple's Time Capsule seemed like the easiest alternative, although like all their products, ease of use comes with a price. I completely forgot about getting one until I read your post,thanks for the reminder.....I think.

[philipbarrett]

You can use Apple's brilliant Time Machine with an attached Hard Drive or their Time Capsule. Either function is automatic, the Time Capsule syncs via WiFi.

If you go the HD route just plug it in and name it "Time Machine." Your Mac will then ask you if you want to use this for backup, click YES and you're good to go. It will pop up every so often and do it's thang.

And a word to the wise. If you don't think HD failure can happen to you or you'll get some warning, think again. Some months ago I closed the lid on my Mac Book Pro, made a sandwich and a coffee, came back, opened the lid and my HD had suffered a complete failure! Of course, I was 100% backed up and had Apple Care so was up & running again in 24 hours.

[colterphoto1]

Ok, the guys at WD said to use the Apple Time Machine and not their own software? So I managed to get the internal 500gb backed up via the Time Machine, which creates one gigantic file of things, easy for retrieving the whole lot, not so much if you need a single file. But it does the System files too. Only trouble is that it will work (?really?) on the internal HD. l

So instead of having a nice neat auto backup of everything, now I copy the contents of my 2TB iTunes drive (about half filled ) over to this same drive.

Still have a 500gb external Mac drive sitting un-backed up. Guess I'll sift through it, find whatever I want to keep current (data files like all my Klipsch Tech documents that i refer to all the time for you guys) on the internal drive, and all the old photos and stuff on another so it can be backed up. Then possibly reformat that drive as a Mac (it was attached to the old PC).

are you guys as confused as I am? this reminds me of my ramblings about setting up the Jubilees just last month. i'm not a technophobe by a long shot but seem always to have needs just outside of my comfort zone. arrrgggghhhhh

[philipbarrett]

which creates one gigantic file of things, easy for retrieving the whole lot, not so much if you need a single file

If you double click on that file (bundle) it will open in the Finder and you can see and grab all the contents. However, if you go into the Time Machine application "ENTER TIME MACHINE" you can restore any file or fils by date or folder to your System Drive.

I'm not sure I see a question in the rest of your post? You want to use as larger drive as possible with Time Machine as the system makes incremental backups which is a really great feature for recovering that file you accidentally erased 45 minutes ago. Also, storage is now so silly cheap there's no point not to.

For backing up your external drives use Carbon Copy Cloner - http://www.bombich.com/

[colterphoto1]

Ill look up Carbon Copy,

thanks

Time Machine will only backup the internal drive?

Can i use the WD software to create auto backup copies of multiple external drives (not just manually copy every so often)?

do i need smarter software and more hardware to do what Im trying to accomplish?

[philipbarrett]

Time Machine will only backup the internal drive?

If you have an external drive permanently connected or multiple internal drives it will back those up too. Time Machine automatically adds them to it's "Exclude" list, go into the preferences and take them off that list (so they are included as it where).

Can i use the WD software to create auto backup copies of multiple external drives (not just manually copy every so often)?

Carbon Copy Cloner does all this, I'm not sure about the WD software, it used to be pretty iffy maybe it's improved. We have our company servers backing up every night with CCC.

As I said before, get the biggest HD you can for Time Machine, other than that and the aforementioned CCC, you're good to go.

[bobc910]

I second Carbon Copy Cloner. I have been using it for the last 2 years and it has not let me down once. I have two Seagate external hard drives which I alternate.