1. I liked the distinction noted between 'backups' and 'archives'.

2. Cloning a drive is of limited use on any system.
    Isn't "future proof", doesn't scale, doesn't allow for disk size changes or hardware changes.
    Is a necessary part of an Admin Toolkit, but only for very particular situations.

3. HFS+ stores a lot of metadata which OS/X relies upon.
    If you chose to backup system that doesn't capture it, you're losing a lot.
    Not sure if using SMB or NFS stores for Time Machine captures it or not (.../.DS_store ??)
    [There's enough doco out there and enough tutorials on using network filesystems for TM]

4. With a locally attached drive, mds/mdimporter indexes Time Machine for 'Spotlight'.
    This is a very useful feature of OS/X, if somewhat annoying as it hammers the disk.

5. Locally attached drives with HFS+ use hard links to "dedup" at the file level.
    I suspect that on any medium, Time Machine backups up all files modified since last backup.
    Which is painful and slow for big files that change frequently - like my email files.

    As a direct consequence, "mail directory" format is a much better idea than "mailbox" format
    [dir per message + one file per message segment,  vs many messages in a single file]

6. Time Machine backups are "well integrated" with the OS/X.
     when, not if, you upgrade your hardware, including replacing a lost laptop,
     the OS/X install process takes the lastest snapshot as the basis for the new machine.
     This isn't a mere copy, but a very sophisticated 'merge'.
      I upgraded from PPC & Tiger to Intel + Snow Leopard, took 3-4 hours [direct, no TM]
      All apps+data moved & upgraded, modulo PPC-only binaries.
      I know TM upgrade/restores work - a friend used this for his 2 iMac's @ home.

Nothing else I've seen comes close to Time Machine.
The "upgrade & merge" feature alone is worth the price of admission, even for a single m/c at home.
For a workplace, it's an Admins' Dream...

In a workplace, you'll be using network logins and network shares.
There may be no reason to personalise machines because the user's 'home directory' is where everything specific to them is stored, and they don't get admin rights on their machine (to install non-standard Apps), do they?

I did some graduate study at a local University a few years back.
They provided common-access computers:
 Windows & Mac: machines were a standard image with the 'home directory' mounted via SMB.

I thought it worked well for 5-10,000 students.
Because students couldn't install random Apps, virus & malware infections were quite infrequent.

These days, you could use one of the many VM solutions out there to allow users a way to have a reasonably safe personalised environment - that's backed up, accessible 'everywhere' on-net and not subject to upgrade problems (for the system admins).

Do Apple allow OS/X desktop to run under a VM?
They certainly insist that OS/X only be run on Apple hardware.

Hope this is of some use.

Axel Belinfante wrote on 1/10/11 1:19 AM: 
Just curious what 9fans use, for home and/or work, to backup their macs.

time machine?
to a local (usb,firewire) disk?
or remote (time capsule, nas (not officially sanctioned by apple))?

or eat our own dog food and use eg. venti?
or tra?

or no backup necessary because everything important is already elsewhere?
(in the cloud, or in a version management system)

or?


context: we are reconsidering how to do this at work,
and prefer not to reinvent the wheel.

(at home I just backup my mac to a readynas box using time machine).


Sorry for the off-topic nature of this post, but the fact
that 9fans will be aware of less-common solutions like venti -
not to mention the presence of coraid people here -
made me look for experience/expertise here.

Regards,
Axel.


  


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