tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post116401044117659657..comments2024-02-14T04:12:03.638-06:00Comments on Partial Perspective Vortex: Apple's Backup 3 - Hopeless JunkAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17874730776766584329noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-43903972815722197732007-02-26T18:59:00.000-06:002007-02-26T18:59:00.000-06:00Worth a read: Experts: No cure in sight for unpred...Worth a read: <A HREF="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070225-8917.html" REL="nofollow">Experts: No cure in sight for unpredictable hard drive loss</A>.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17874730776766584329noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-91861591604266120122007-01-17T11:29:00.000-06:002007-01-17T11:29:00.000-06:00Hi,
and for those with musical talent the "Backup...Hi,<br /><br />and for those with musical talent the "<a href="http://netzreport.googlepages.com/all_those_backups_waste_of_pay.html">Backup Song</a>".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-31801256584166036202006-12-29T01:53:00.000-06:002006-12-29T01:53:00.000-06:00You might want to monitor the console log for disk...You might want to monitor the console log for disk i/o errors (bad sectors) that might occur before SMART detects a problem (if at all).sjkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12351484347328208668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-1165753511753406202006-12-10T06:25:00.000-06:002006-12-10T06:25:00.000-06:00I have a bank of hard drives in my PowerMac tower ...I have a bank of hard drives in my PowerMac tower - a mix of SCSI and ATA. Disk Warrior, TechTool Pro and Disk Utility all consistently reported a S.M.A.R.T. failing-disk condition for one of the ATA drives. TechTool Pro indicated that this was a "threshold exceeded" problem. Nevertheless, the drive still seemed to perform well and all read/write functions performed correctly.<BR/><BR/>BelieveingAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-1165724547951628582006-12-09T22:22:00.000-06:002006-12-09T22:22:00.000-06:00I've said it before and I'll say it again:There is...I've said it before and I'll say it again:<BR/>There is absolutely no excuse for not using the best backup solution out there, namely rsync.<BR/>Apple, as part of their campaign to destroy anyone's confidence in the mac platform, shipped a completely fscked up version with Tiger, but, thanks to the miracle of Open Source, you can easily acquire versions that work properly.<BR/><BR/>Full details Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-1165547629181989902006-12-07T21:13:00.000-06:002006-12-07T21:13:00.000-06:00smartmontools works extremely well. The trick is r...<A HREF="http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/" REL="nofollow">smartmontools</A> works extremely well. The trick is remembering that the smart status is worthless because drive vendors have chosen to have the drive status change from "OK" only when you've already lost data (I've heard that this reduces warranty claims for marginal disks which seems short-sighted but depressingly plausible).<BR/><Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-1165547212094413432006-12-07T21:06:00.000-06:002006-12-07T21:06:00.000-06:00I use and love Superduper.You probably already hav...I use and love Superduper.<BR/><BR/>You probably already have tried it, but I have had some amazing sucess using dd to recover data from the dead disk.<BR/><BR/>There is a good thread here:<BR/><BR/>http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050302225659382<BR/><BR/>and I have had success with this:<BR/>dd bs=512 if=/dev/rXX# of=/some_dir/foo.dmg conv=noerror<BR/><BR/>use diskutil list to getAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-1165536239043865422006-12-07T18:03:00.000-06:002006-12-07T18:03:00.000-06:00I've used 'smartmontools' (http://smartmontools.so...I've used 'smartmontools' (http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/) before to further diagnose drives beyond their basic SMART status.<BR/><BR/>At one time I KNEW I had a hard drive problem because of a funny noise it would make now and then. The SMART status would always show as 'verified' in Disk Utility. After some searching around, I found smartmontools and gave it a try.<BR/><BR/>It's a Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-1165532403833424172006-12-07T17:00:00.000-06:002006-12-07T17:00:00.000-06:00You need to test the "restore" function of any bac...You need to test the "restore" function of any backup system before you consider it installed.<BR/><BR/>Buy a blank external firewire drive, restore to that, and then make sure you can boot from it. Then store that hard disk in another building, in case your house burns down, floods, or someone breaks in and steals your electronics.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-1165520148190835062006-12-07T13:35:00.000-06:002006-12-07T13:35:00.000-06:00I've finally weaned myself almost completely off o...I've finally weaned myself almost completely off of Backup, except for that "Personal Data & Settings" plan, which I have saving stuff to my iDisk.<BR/><BR/>The mistake I made was to back my wife's iBook up to a LaCie firewire drive without reformatting it from the factory default fat-32 to HFS+, and as a result any backups that were over 4GB (ie. her iPhoto library) is impossible to mount - murderatorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09892459759049547713noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-1165516385722672092006-12-07T12:33:00.000-06:002006-12-07T12:33:00.000-06:00This truly sucks, but it does illustrate a really ...This truly sucks, but it does illustrate a really good point.<BR/><BR/>Incremental backups shouldn't be used exclusively. <BR/><BR/>at least once a week you should be doing a full backup, then do incrementals the rest of the time.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-1165514025502119422006-12-07T11:53:00.000-06:002006-12-07T11:53:00.000-06:00SMARTReporter does provide a menu bar icon that sh...<A HREF="http://homepage.mac.com/julianmayer/" REL="nofollow">SMARTReporter</A> does provide a menu bar icon that shows different colors for "verified", "unknown", and "failing" states of your drive.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-1165500471140612642006-12-07T08:07:00.000-06:002006-12-07T08:07:00.000-06:00For those who don't have DiskWarrior,try SMARTRepo...For those who don't have DiskWarrior,<BR/>try SMARTReporter, which is free.<BR/><BR/>http://homepage.mac.com/julianmayer/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-1165493800464181632006-12-07T06:16:00.000-06:002006-12-07T06:16:00.000-06:00I've seen many SMART errors, and plenty which have...I've seen many SMART errors, and plenty which have saved a client's data, but never on a Mac. I guess Apple is just going to ignore the obvious shortcomings of Backup for now and devote all their attention to TimeMachine.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-1165488214919932372006-12-07T04:43:00.000-06:002006-12-07T04:43:00.000-06:00There is in fact a nice, free smart status reporte...There is in fact a nice, free smart status reporter for the Mac called SmartReporter:<BR/>http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/23232<BR/><BR/>It didn't indicate the failure of my Powerbook drive beforehand, but as others have pointed out, that is probably not a sign of smart not working.<BR/><BR/>AlexAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-1165485530037078472006-12-07T03:58:00.000-06:002006-12-07T03:58:00.000-06:00diskutil info / gives you information on the root ...<B>diskutil info /</B> gives you information on the root volume, <B>diskutil info /Volumes/volumeName</B> works for any other mounted volume.<BR/><BR/>You can use grep or awk to filter the SMART status:<BR/><BR/><B>diskutil info / | awk '$1 ~ "SMART" { print $3}'</B>juandesanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16315291721183667877noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-1165478920047334622006-12-07T02:08:00.000-06:002006-12-07T02:08:00.000-06:00I use SuperDuper. I have a 250 GB internal drive o...I use SuperDuper. I have a 250 GB internal drive on my Mac, and *three* external 250 GB drives. SuperDuper is dumb and simple: it just makes a bootable clone of my internal drive on each external. One is updated daily, one twice a week, one every few weeks (it's stored offsite). Other than the offsite one, it's all automated. I can verify the backup just my clicking on the drives on the desktop Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-1165477819656048562006-12-07T01:50:00.000-06:002006-12-07T01:50:00.000-06:00So sorry to hear about your backup troubles. I hav...So sorry to hear about your backup troubles. I have tried several backup programs, and I quickly filed Backup in the junk for my part. The clear winner for me is SuperDuper, which you get from Shirtpocket Software (http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/). Brilliant software, does exactly what it should, and the files are saved in proper disk images. Try it, you wont be disappointed.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-1165472557481233492006-12-07T00:22:00.000-06:002006-12-07T00:22:00.000-06:00AFAIK, OS X doesn't have a gui smart monitor (no i...AFAIK, OS X doesn't have a gui smart monitor (no idea if there's a BSD util though). TechTool has one, but I'm not up to Intel, so I don't know if it's Universal or not. But FWIW, I once had a drive complain that it had detected it was about to fail - on a server running windows.Seanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10214429632887053003noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-1165472286731190442006-12-07T00:18:00.000-06:002006-12-07T00:18:00.000-06:00I have actually seen S.M.A.R.T. status tell me som...I have actually seen S.M.A.R.T. status tell me something useful. The problem with it is that you have very little time from SMART failure to HD failure. In my case it was about 15 minutes from me seeing the warning (then copying a Home folder) to the HD never working again.<BR/><BR/>Sorry about your misfortune. I hate Backup also. That's why I use Deja Vu.The Technohippybikerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06776890227725515622noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-1165471005140883612006-12-06T23:56:00.000-06:002006-12-06T23:56:00.000-06:00I have twice had laptop drives fail that SMART sho...I have twice had laptop drives fail that SMART showed as failures. Unfortunately I did not have the DiskWarrior monitor (I wish I did) but experienced some strange behavior and went to Disk Util and saw the SMART status was failing. Each time I managed to salvage "some" data but I have a feeling that an earlier alert would have been a big boon since they were both slow death situations. In Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-1165468857563664682006-12-06T23:20:00.000-06:002006-12-06T23:20:00.000-06:00I've seen SMART work before. It can't always detec...I've seen SMART work before. It can't always detect a crash before it comes, though. Basically, if your drive passes the SMART checks, you might be OK or you might not. If your drive fails the SMART checks, replace it immediately. SMART is meant to try and give you an early warning, but a passing grade doesn't mean there's nothing wrong.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-1165467277653530322006-12-06T22:54:00.000-06:002006-12-06T22:54:00.000-06:00I have an old G3 iBook with a Toshiba drive; Syste...I have an old G3 iBook with a Toshiba drive; System Profiler, Disk Utility and SMARTReporter all say it is failing. Too bad it won't say why or when...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19261025.post-1165466429987726762006-12-06T22:40:00.000-06:002006-12-06T22:40:00.000-06:00I think it's bad when someone who works for .Mac Q...I think it's bad when someone who works for .Mac QA tells you "Remember: It's called 'Backup', not 'Restore.'"alexishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09979112184851323213noreply@blogger.com