On the Subject of Backup Software
For this reason, I'm looking for backup software that can split a volume across multiple DVDs during backup. I do my actual backup with psync, but that only backs up to another volume - in my case a FireWire drive. Occasionally, I would like to burn disk images that I can store away and that are not as susceptible to defects. Any suggestions? By the way, Apple Backup would meet these requirements. Unfortunately, Apple forces you to have a .Mac account in order to start the backup program. So you can only use and restore your backups if you still have a .Mac account. I don't really think that's fair - data backup should be something that isn't tied to a 99 euro per year internet provider...
At Jutta there won't be any updates for now: both the iBook has a disk failure, as well as her Linux desktop. Somehow there's a problem here, first my desktop Mac and now Jutta's two computers.
Hopefully Apple will recover the disk contents during the repair, or I'll figure out beforehand how to save the disk contents, otherwise it's going to get really messy ...
Pretty strange story with the iBook: after a while the drive just keeps clicking, as if it's hammering the read head against the end of the platter. Sometimes it's not even recognized at startup. Sounds like it's done for ...
Small update: the Debian machine is still running after all, there was just a knot in the filesystem, possibly from an earlier crash. But the iBook drive is probably really done for, but we managed to copy down the most important files ...
Probably already blogged about elsewhere, but since I just installed it again: psync is a very practical software written in Perl that makes it possible to copy an entire Apple OS X volume in such a way that the result is even bootable afterwards. With this you can, for example, very easily mirror your boot partition to an external FireWire drive and use it both as a backup and as an emergency system.
There's also a GUI available for anyone who doesn't like using the Terminal.
Here's the original article.