tim@j.cc.purdue.edu (Timothy Lange) (03/05/87)
The following is my summary of responses to "What do you use to backup your Macintosh Hard disk?" I have received six replies after waiting three weeks for replies to trickle in. Not much of a return I am afraid. Three people use HFS Backup from Personal Computer Peripherals Corp. $40 One person uses SuperBackup from SuperMAC. $?? One person uses HD Backup from FWB software. $35 One person uses DiskFit from SuperMac Software. $70-80 Tim. ---------- Date: Wed, 18 Feb 87 10:29:45 CST From: dorner@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner) I use HFS Backup from Personal Computer Peripherals Corporation (the makers of the MacBottom hard disk). It does full and incremental backups. You must use the program to restore files--you can't just drag them back from the backup disks. It will backup files larger than a single diskette, and can use either 400 or 800K disks for backup. It (optionally) checks the disks before and after backing things up on to them. You can specify specific files to back up (or specific files NOT to back up). It costs around $40, and is available mail-order or direct from PCPC, whose memorable phone number is 1-800-MAC-BUTT. Steve ---------- Date: Wed, 18 Feb 87 12:59:23 PST From: Sigurd Meldal <meldal@shasta.stanford.edu> I use SuperBackup by SuperMAC, a program that was bundled with my DataFrame hard disk. It does volume, incremental and selected files backup and restore in a straightforward manner. The only thing I miss is the ability to backup a single folder without having to select all the files of the folder (the select function applies only to files, with a shortcut for selecting all files in a given directory that are not in a sub-folder (if you understand...)). SuperMac claims they'll be releasing a much enhanced version, which I have not seen. Whatever you do, you do not want a program that does an image backup. It makes incremetnal backup impossible, and does not allow you to restore selected files (as opposed to volume backup). Sigurd Meldal ---------- Date: Wed, 18 Feb 87 16:27:35 PST From: William Equitz <equitz@isl.stanford.edu> I use HD Backup from FWB software. It packs files into a special format and backs up one chunk per floppy. This means there is less I/O and the program runs faster. They support complete and incremental backups and backing up and restoring selected files. This program does everything I want. The backup format is readable only by the backup program. I have had occasion to restore selected files and it works quite well. You tell it what you want and it say "insert disk 12" or whatever and it gets restored. My original copy had a bug in it, by I wrote them and they sent me a new version which has worked ever since. I don't recall what version I have now, but I can tell you if you need to know. In other words, this program (~$35) is just what I wanted it to be and is much faster than copying folders by hand. -Will Equitz (equitz@isl.stanford.edu) ---------- Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1987 20:46-EDT From: Duane.Williams@f.gp.cs.cmu.edu I use HFS Backup from Personal Computer Peripherals Corp. on a Photon 20 SCSI hard drive; I assume that it would work on any SCSI drive that was formatted for HFS. It works very well and allows total and incremental backups. There's a new version (2.0) out, but I haven't seen it yet. You should be able to get it for around $40 from discount places. -Duane ---------- Date: Wed, 18 Feb 87 19:39:27 pst From: rutgers!ames!ucbcad!opal.berkeley.edu!ucbvax!csaron@ee.ecn.purdue.edu (Aron Roberts) There is a new program for backing up the contents of hard disks onto floppies, joining the likes of HFS Backup, Flashback, HD Backup and others of their ilk. The program is published by SuperMac Software, a spinoff from the company that makes DataFrame hard disks and memory upgrade products; it was developed by Dantz Software Development of Berkeley, CA. I looked at the product at the SuperMac booth at the January MacWorld Expo in San Francisco, and received a photocopy of the first eight pages of the manual from Dantz in response to my inquiry. The product differs from many other hard disk backup products in at least two ways: 1) It stores files on the backup disk in Finder-readable format, rather than in some compressed or encrypted format (with the exception of large files split over more than one disk, which are Finder-copyable/deletable files which must be joined before they are usable as applications or data files. This greatly enhances the integrity and usability of the backup copies, particularly if the "backup directory" common to many other backup programs is lost or damaged (and usually, this directory is placed on only one disk, although it can--and should--be copied to others), or if the backup program itself is in some way unavailable. It's also more convenient to Finder-copy a backup of a file back onto the hard disk, rather than having to run the backup program each time you want to just restore one file. 2) It does intelligent incremental backups. That is, if one adds or deletes files from the hard disk, the backup program will also add or delete these files from the backup set. This feature means that it will always take, for example, 30 DS floppies to backup a full 20MB hard disk, rather than taking 30 floppies for the first backup plus an additional 1-5 floppies each week/month/backup period. This not only eats up additional floppy disks unnecessarily, but also makes the process of restoring a hard disk much longer, as more disks are involved in the restore. The product is called DiskFit. It will sell for something like $70-$80 list (probably 50-75% of that price at discount), and should be out right about now (I haven't yet called any dealers to see if it's in stock, but I'll probably be doing so very soon). I don't know if this program is fast, reliable, or any of the other crucially important things one wishes a hard disk backup program to be. It looked pretty good when demoed, but that don't mean nothin'. It is definitely worth checking out, however. I've played with a predecessor program from Danz, called MegaCopy, and used it to copy (via backup and restore) ~16MB of files from a MacPlus w/HD20SC to a 512K Mac w/external 800K disk and HD20. It was no picnic, but it was reasonably fast and worked reliably. Disclaimer: I have no connection with either SuperMac Software or Danz Software Development, or any of their employees, other than as an interested prospective purchaser of their products. Aron Roberts Tolman Microcomputer Facility ---------- Date: Tue, 24 Feb 87 09:44:42 est From: wanginst!elrond!anson@harvard.harvard.edu (Ed Anson) I currently use HFS Backup. It does full and incremental backups. It also can do selective backups. You can even tell it not to back up certain files. It works fine, but I'm considering a switch to tape backup because I'm tired of pushing 20 diskettes into the drive every time I do a full backup. Also, each incremental uses at least one diskette. Ed ---------- -- Timothy Lange PC Learning Resource Center Purdue University Computing Center West Lafayette, IN 47907 317-494-1787 tim@j.cc.purdue.edu