This is close to other questions, but I'm having trouble narrowing down the 'optimal' solution for my use case, if there is one. AFAIK this is not a dupe because OSX has different options relevant for its particular flavor of hard drive format. This is also a laptop use case, so I'm looking for solutions that are relatively quick, and they probably can't run on a cron (in case I forget to plug the external drive in before bed).
Here's what I'm using:
- using OSX snow leopard 10.6.7
- rsync version 3.0.7 protocol version 30
- backup to laptop hd in external enclosure
- one partition only
Here's what I want to be able to do:
- shut down my laptop
- take the disk out of the external enclosure and put it into my laptop
- run laptop
So, this is not a true backup system per se -- deleted files remain unrecoverable, just an insurance policy against hd failure. Note that I should not have to reinstall any applications or operating systems.
Here's what I'm doing now:
sudo rsync -aNHAXx --fileflags --protect-decmpfs --force-change --progress / /Volumes/EXTERNAL/
I have yet to test this. (So first question, you think this will work?)
My question is, what can I do to improve on what I'm doing in this command line (other than putting it in a script)? What am I not considering?
Thoughts I have:
- am I really preserving everything I will need
- what can I exclude? -- spotlight files? caches?
(Inspired by codinghorror What's Your Backup Strategy? post which is now dated.)