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SSD and Backup Help

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I know I've seen a few mentions of some backup around here, but I want to confirm a few things.

In my system, I have a 64GB SSD that contains the OS, while I have a 500GB HDD that contains my home folder. Ideally, I would like to have the following happen:

For a scheduled period (once a week, for example), have my computer wake from sleep in the middle of the night (2 AM, for example), start Carbon Copy Cloner, make an incremental backup of both drives, and then go back to sleep.

What I'm really trying to figure out is what my best option is for backing up, and then restoring. How do I need to backup my system so that I can easily restore my system from that backup, should something happen? I know that you can restore from a .DMG in disk utility by booting from a snow leopard disk, for example, but is it possible to make incremental backups to a .DMG file in CCC? Does anyone else have any recommendations for a backup solution that would be cleaner/easier/more efficient?

The last question with regard to my SSD. I have a SSD that doesn't have one of the sandforce controllers, so I thought I read that I will need to do some maintenance on every so often on the drive, but unsure of what is recommended. Does anyone have any experience with this? Is it as simple as wiping the drive and restoring it from a backup?

Thanks all for your help.
 
Is it as simple as wiping the drive and restoring it from a backup?
It's not quite as simple : You need to reset the disk periodically. ('Zero option' under option tab in the erase menu).
It shouldn't take more than a few minutes (took 6 with my 90Gb Vertex 2) but The only point is that you have to relaunch multibeast once you cloned back your drive.

My personal back up strategy (which I decided after a massive data loss 2 years ago due to a personal mistake). Simple but efficient :

1 System drive (SSD or not)
1 drive with documents (and windows Virtual machines and/or windows partition)
1 drive with 2 partitions : - Documents back up (sync 2 folder) and/or time machine...
- System back up (Clone done before any important system modification)
 
slyooney said:
Is it as simple as wiping the drive and restoring it from a backup?
It's not quite as simple : You need to reset the disk periodically. ('Zero option' under option tab in the erase menu).
It shouldn't take more than a few minutes (took 6 with my 90Gb Vertex 2) but The only point is that you have to relaunch multibeast once you cloned back your drive.

My personal back up strategy (which I decided after a massive data loss 2 years ago due to a personal mistake). Simple but efficient :

1 System drive (SSD or not)
1 drive with documents (and windows Virtual machines and/or windows partition)
1 drive with 2 partitions : - Documents back up (sync 2 folder) and/or time machine...
- System back up (Clone done before any important system modification)

What exactly needs to be chosen in multibeast in order to install the bootloader? Also, what do you use to backup/restore?
 
I also have a similar setup like yours:

- Main SSD drive with OS/Bootcamp
- Second HDD with Home folder

My backup strategy is simple. In a three partition external HDD:
- Backup both disks to a Time Machine to partition 1.
- Using CCC, make a bootable backup of the SSD OSX to partition 2.
- Using CCC, make a copy of Documents folder (to have them accessible for HDD failure) to partition 3.

Separately, I have a 2nd copy of my photos (~100GB) onto NAS.

Maybe could be improved, but had no problems up to now.
 
javimdq said:
I also have a similar setup like yours:

- Main SSD drive with OS/Bootcamp
- Second HDD with Home folder

My backup strategy is simple. In a three partition external HDD:
- Backup both disks to a Time Machine to partition 1.
- Using CCC, make a bootable backup of the SSD OSX to partition 2.
- Using CCC, make a copy of Documents folder (to have them accessible for HDD failure) to partition 3.

Separately, I have a 2nd copy of my photos (~100GB) onto NAS.

Maybe could be improved, but had no problems up to now.

You do, indeed, have a very similar system.

After doing a lot of research online, I think I've figured out how to get things setup. I have an external setup with two partitions that I will have each of my internals back up to. The OS will backup Monday morning at 4 AM, and the Home Folder drive will backup on Tuesday morning at 4 AM. The machine is scheduled to wake from sleep at that time, backup, and then I have a script that should email me the results and then go to sleep. Tonight will be the first night I test it, so I have my fingers crossed. :ugeek:

On a side note, does your SSD have the sandforce controller?
 
Vendetta said:
On a side note, does your SSD have the sandforce controller?

No, as fas as i know, the Intel's does no have this type of controller.

Please, let my know if the backup process worked for you (with the wake from sleep schedule)
 
Vendetta said:
It's not quite as simple : You need to reset the disk periodically. ('Zero option' under option tab in the erase menu).

After playing with OCZ Vertex SSDs for awhile (about 6 months or so) in OSX, I've come to the conclusion that it was a mistake. OSX does not play well with SSDs and they start out great, but get very slow after just a month or two. It seems that OSX does not support the SSD TRIM command:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/0 ... rives.html

Any of the disk tools can verify the performance degradation. Mine get to be as slow as my WD Green platter! :beachball: It's not a simple matter of reformatting the drives (Is that what resetting (zero option) the drive is?)

To restore performance, I've been using Llyoyd Chambers DiskTester's SSD recondition function: http://diglloydtools.com/disktester.html

I'm sick of this routine, so I just purchased an OWC Mercury Extreme SSD from OWC that claims to work well on Macs. http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/internal ... _Sandforce
We'll see.

Here's their claim:
Screen shot 2010-10-25 at 12.03.15 PM.png

As an aside, my OCZ SSD running Win7 doesn't slow down at all, I guess that just proves the value of TRIM. With SSDs being used more and more in Apple products, you'd think they'd have a native OSX solution to this o_O . Maybe I just missed it. :?:
 

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I guess you're talking about Vertex 1 series as the 2 series have the exact same controller you find in OWC drives.
All the other drives need a monthly maintenance routine (except Sandforce equipped and in a lesser extent Intel drives according to a lot of mac users)
 
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