Backup Scheme

I use an iMac running Windows Vista via Bootcamp to do the majority of my CAD work. It all works great, except that it makes data very complex to access, and even more difficult to back up. I am relatively obsessive about backing up my work, so I have a system in place that allows me to be relatively certain that–come hell or high water–my data is safe. It’s not as bullet-proof as I might like (e.g. when California slides into the Pacific, my data will all be swimming with the rest of us), but the system works well enough for me at the moment.

Here’s how it works:

To make this system work, there are two pieces of software that are a must:

1. Allway Sync: This is a fantastic file sync application, and at only $20 per seat, it’s a steal. I’ve been using it for many months now without a single problem, and it’s actually a really smart little app. The interface leaves something to be desired, but for the function, I haven’t found anything else that even comes close at this price point. I personally own two licenses; one for my desktop, and one for my laptop.

2. MacDrive: These guys have been around forever, and the product works quite well. It’s not completely fail-safe, so I still keep copies of my files on both Mac and PC, thus minimizing the need to mess with my Mac partition from the Windows side for constant saves and updates to files. I tend to do the bulk of my work on the native Windows partition, and then use Allway Sync to synchronize the drives (which is only possible if MacDrive is installed). It might seem like a lot of extra runaround, but having had problems with losing data in translation from Mac to PC, I feel safer this way.

I have two separate 700GB USB 2.0 hard drives that I use for backup purposes: one is a Mac-formatted drive used as a time-machine backup for our Macs (my iMac, my wife’s Macbook Air), and a second drive that I use as a mirror for my Windows project folder. The second drive is both a backup and a middle-man for my laptop, which I sync to the same drive.

The result is that my Mac, my Time Machine, my bootcamp PC, my PC mirror drive, and my PC laptop all have the exact same data, updated at different times. This means that if there’s a serious problem with any one of those backup schemes, I’ve always got another to fall back on. If I make a mistake on the Mac/PC backup, and accidentally sync something I didn’t mean to, the old data is probably still safe and sound on my laptop. Make sense?

It’s taken me a long time to develop this system, but it’s worked really well for me so far. I hope it’s helpful!