Backing up a messed up older Mac?

October 28, 2009 8:59 AM

Best method/software for efficient, non-annoying backup for a slightly older Mac (G4 running 10.3.9)?

Trying to back up a ton of Pro Tools sessions and other audio junk from an older G4 running OS X 10.3.9 onto a newish LaCie external drive. From several years of misuse, mismanagement and abuse, there are a lot of duplicate and corrupt files. Simply dragging and dropping the folders in Finder is getting annoying, because every time it encounters a corrupt or wonky file I have to start over and be super-diligent to ensure every single possible file is copied. Trying to get about 200G copied this way is becoming annoying and wasting lots of time.

Is there a better method or application I could use (ideally, free or cheap) to let this run for hours and have it automatically skip, check or even fix any messed up files -- and just have it done?

posted by southvie to computers & internet (4 comments total)

Carbon Copy Cloner
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:02 AM on October 28, 2009

Also, Super Duper! The current version would require a newer copy of OSX, but if you scroll down, you can find older versions that would be appropriate for you.

I LOVE Super Duper!, and I think it can be run in a free trial mode, though doing so would not enable the fast copy feature. I'm a big fan.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 9:09 AM on October 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

Super Duper. The current version works with 10.4 or above, so you'll need a slightly older version (warning, direct link to .DMG file, which will download to your computer).
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:09 AM on October 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

Any program with "sync" in the name will do a better job than dragging in the Finder. I use Chronosync, but there is also Synk and whole lot of others that are similar. All of these will copy all the files they can and then give you an error report of the files they couldn't copy, rather than bailing at the first hiccup like Finder does.
You can set Chronosync to just update the backups of files that have changed since last time and schedule it to run automatically. I would like it to run faster than it does, but I thinkit's worth the price.
The advantage of these over SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner is that the latter are designed to copy whole disks rather than just folders or whatever, but they will also work.
posted by nowonmai at 5:36 PM on November 7, 2009