Protecting My Precious
Life • Web Design • April 18th, 2006One summer day in the early 90s, while my sister and I were vacationing at my parents’ place in Caracas, I was returning home from a morning at the pool. I was preparing to take a shower, and as soon as I had pulled my shirt off, a horrible emergency siren went off. Apparently there was a fire situation and all dwellers needed to vacate the buildings immediately. In the few precious seconds I had, I took as many CDs from my collection as I could, and then I ran out just wearing a bikini top and a tanga. To that day, I had always said that my most precious possession was my music collection… That morning, my almost naked butt proved it to the world.
Thirteen years later my music is still important, but the rescue priorities have changed a little. Today, if I had to evacuate in an emergency, the three things I would want to take with me would be “Pillo” (the little Pooh bear Joey and I have raised as our son), our wedding photos, and my Mac. Pillo and the photos are not a problem. The Mac, however, is a big, heavy, G5 horse, and the truth is that logistically I probably would have to leave it behind with all its precious data.
That would really suck, man… The truth is that there was a time when all my critical files could easily fit a floppy disk and backing them up was easy. But over the last years the equation has changed, and my computer has become the sole repository of a big chunk of my life. With so much data there, backing up has become a lot harder, and of course, I haven’t done it as much as I should. However, backing up has been the top item on my To Do List for quite some time, and after a long tortuous five-day process, I think that today I’ll be able to mark it done.
Did it take me FIVE days to back up my stuff? Well, no… But technically… yes.
It took me five days to research, select a product, buy it, set it up, and finally: back up. Here’s the story:
Day 1. Google Search: “Mac OSX backup”
It starts as naive as that… Just a plain innocent Google search to see what quick tips I can get. Google answers back with several resources pointing me to different applications and backup strategies. One article discusses how to use the Disk utility to create a clone of your system, but I can’t pass the first few paragraphs before it becomes a deal involving copying and moving of funky files, and typing precise keystrokes in the command line, so hell no! I’m not doing this. I reluctantly download the Data Sheet for EMC® Retrospect® and fall in love with the software. Automated bootable duplicates and archive backups sound beautiful. I download the trial version and go to sleep.
Day 2. Oh, wow… I actually need hardware.
As I decisively walk towards my office, the clear path in my mind is to create an encrypted copy of my system and put it in one of my web hosts. Before I jump into action, I deem prudent to check how much I need to back up. 35GB. OK, sure… Let’s see how much pressure I’m going to put on my host. Hmm… Total capacity = 2GB. Well… how embarrassingly naive… I guess I actually need hardware… Google-Google, what’s the product I should buy?
Google returns several resources with product reviews. After copious amounts of research I find this review from Macworld and decide to buy the Black Series Triple Interface hard drive from Iomega. I move on to the proof of fire: Customer reviews. But Amazon customers are NOT HAPPY with their external hard drive purchases. The more I read, the clearer it is that all 50 products suck, and they will ALL either kill my computer, or break, or worse: not work the day I actually need to restore. For the first time ever, I give Amazon feedback on those reviews I think are helpful, and those that are just useless, meatless “Hey, I just unwrapped this product and it’s beautiful!”.
Iomega gets ok reviews, but it’s only four of them per product. Not statistically significant. The most recurring complaints involve drives not working on a power strip, and freezing your Mac when the system goes to sleep. Compared to all the other horror stories, I decide I’ll have to take the risk with this one. But, because the other typical complaint for all brands is shipping orders arriving with defective drives and missing cables, I decide I’m not buying this puppy online.
Day 3. What the heck is this cable?
Morning breaks, and I call four different stores to see if they carry the Iomega drive. None of them do. Most of them carry Maxtor. I’ve read several mixed reviews about Maxtor, so I try one more source: The online Apple store. Apple seems to sell only Maxtor and LaCie. I’ve read that LaCie drives are beautiful at the expense of function, and they tend to heat up, so that’s not an option. Mac users are far more benevolent to Maxtor drives with average 4-star reviews for the drives in question. I guess I’ll buy a Maxtor OneTouch II after all.
Joey and I go out for lunch, and on our way back we stop at the closest store that told me they carry Maxtor. They have ONE Maxtor product in stock, not the one I want, of course. The second store that told me they carried Maxtor does not have the OneTouch II either. Joey sighs in agreement to drive me to CompUSA. We get the drive. I make sure it’s the FireWire 800 Edition, because the other one has been practically rated as a wounded turtle by Macworld. I’ve read plenty that Maxtor ships without the right cable, so before I check out, I ask if I can be sure that the cable I need is there. Without opening it, they bless the package and we go.
Midway back home I open the box. I inspect the contents, and find a cable which looks nothing like the FireWire cables I remember. I knew it! All those pissed off customers kept saying that the box didn’t include the right cable. Joey asks if we need to return to CompUSA. I say no, let’s get a FireWire 800 cable at our neighboring Best Buy.
We get to BestBuy, me carrying the drive as a baby and the cable as a dirty umbilical cord. A pretty girl asks if she can help me. I explain my problem being specific about the fact that I don’t need a FireWire cable. I need a FireWire 800 cable. Her job really is only to be pretty and smile to customers, so she quickly asks somebody else for help. A friendly guy comes and gives me a FireWire cable. I ask if it is 800. He says it’s 400. He says 800 does not exist. I give him a puzzled look. Friendly guy proceeds to give me a physically illustrated explanation about bus and pipe sizes. I interrupt his performance to tell him that I understand pipes well, but I’m completely confused because I have just bought a device specifically designed to support FireWire 800, I know my Mac has a FireWire 800 port, and yet, you dude keep telling me that there’s no FireWire 800!
I guess my Colombian is coming out and getting vociferous, because the Manager approaches me trying to help. I explain the problem: I don’t know what is this cable that came with my drive, but I KNOW it’s not a FireWire 800 cable. I need a FireWire 800 cable. Nobody around me can recognize the cable either. A young BestBuy guy joins our discussion as Friendly guy asks him if he’s ever heard of “FireWire 800”. Young dude says Yeah. Embarrassed Friendly guy disappears ipso facto leaving clouds of smoke. Young dude takes a look at the strange cable and says he thinks it’s an old modem cable. It sort of looks like that to me as well. Manager guy grabs the cable and decides to enroll the help of Geek Squad. Geek guy has never seen the cable either. He doesn’t know about FireWire 800 either. I begin to think I’m in an episode of The Twilight Zone. By now Joey has started to bark at me “YOU HAD TO PULL ME INTO THIS PROJECT, DAMN IT!”. The bear’s nap time is well overdue… I know it… Joey-bear gets me the hell out of that ignorant store and heads back to CompUSA.
CompUSA has Macs. We hope we’ll see if one of the ports on their G5 looks like it fits the strange cable. It sure does. I’ve been dead wrong for the last hour and the strange cable has been the right cable all along. The CompUSA guy tells me that FireWire 800 and 1394b (the big label wrapping my cable) are the same thing. Joey’s look is very expressive. I believe deep inside he wants to hurt me for the melodrama I’ve just caused. On our way back I promise him sexo tonight in compensation. He gladly takes it, along with an ice cream cone. He’s greedy like that.
Day 4. Back me up
I invest several hours cleaning up my iPhoto library and deleting old files I don’t want to perpetuate in expensive backups. Before I install the hard drive and the new software, I do a manual backup of critical files, all purchased iTunes music, four years of digital photos, and all of my web work, just in case that tragedy strikes. I finally install the software, and mentally prepare to create a duplicate backup.
The so awaited duplicate is interrupted by the very important question: How should I partition the new drive? It seems that fixing a bad partition after the fact would be a true pain, so once more I need to do some research. Again, Google comes to the rescue with an article that helps me decide how to best partition my backup drive. I pull out the handy-dandy HP 17B II, do some calculations, and end up allocating my drive like this:
- 70GB for a bootable duplicate of my system
- 40GB for scratch disk
- 170GB for Retrospect backup sets
If that configuration is good or not, I don’t know. I make an executive decision to finally move on and create a bootable copy of my entire system. Two hours later, ta ta!!!
Day 5. Dealing with the software
I read the whole User Manual for Retrospect Express. Then, I attempt to create a first backup set, but I keep quitting the process because nowhere throughout the interview the software asks me in which partition of the external hard drive I want to save the backups. For all I can tell, it’s going to save them right inside my hard drive: NOT the intended destination. I don’t find that issue addressed in the manual, so whipped to death, and trusting the quality of the duplicate I already have, I finally let Retrospect do his thing. Magically the software picks the right destination for the backup. How that happened is a mystery. I move on to create a script to automate daily backups.
At 9:00 pm the script starts executing. Retrospect runs tonight’s scheduled back up, and the whole thing takes less than 2 minutes. SUCCESS!
The prize: Finally having serious, painless, frequent backups of my data, plus, the option to save it all (including music) should I ever have to run again for my life… Hopefully wearing clothes next time.
