storagepipe

Backing up Macs can be interesting... Not because of the operating system, but because of the way they are used.

Many of the Mac clients I see will usually be in industries that produce very large amounts of data. (Graphic Design, for example)

For this reason, a robust online backup may seem completely out of the question. But the low-end solutions often lack the quick, secure, reliable recovery capability required for a proper disaster recovery plan.

So how can a Mac user back up their data in a quality manner?

My advice would be to set up some sort of archiving policy.

Archiving is simply an inexpensive backup method that only stores a single version of a file. This is usually reserved for files that are rarely accessed, or never change.

For example, a doctor may want to store the digital imaging files (x-rays, etc...) to an archiving solution, and use a backup solution for their critical business files (Word docs, Spreadsheets, Etc...).

The same thing would apply to a wedding photographer: only about 5% of the pictures taken on any given shoot may be working files for Photoshop. The rest would all be RAW archival data that will never change.

By changing the way you look at your data, you can really reduce your potential online backup costs without having to sacrifice on quality of service.