Time Machine Backup: separate configurations for different drives?
Solution 1:
"A few times a year I back up pretty much everything to that."
I suggest you use a cloning software package for making your once in awhile copies.
I use Time Machine to get a historic copies of my files and a cloning software package to get a bootable clone of my Startup Disk.
Carbon Copy Cloner will copy your Startup Disk to an external FireWire drive. You can boot from the external drive to verify that you have a good clone. When you upgrade your existing Startup Disk, you can at any time boot from your external drive and go back to your existing system.
Slightly modified excerpts from SuperDuper's webpage...
SuperDuper is the wildly acclaimed program that makes recovery painless, because it makes creating a fully bootable backup painless. It's incredibly clear, friendly interface is understandable, easy to use, and SuperDuper's built-in scheduler makes it trivial to back up automatically. And it runs beautifully on both Intel and PowerPC Macs!
Give SuperDuper a workout on your own system. Clone to your heart's content, for free. See what else is possible. When you're convinced that SuperDuper is a terrific solution — and a great value at $27.95 — you can register right from the application and start using its advanced features immediately!
Disk Utility Apple has included an option in Disk Utility – ‘Restore’. This option in Disk Utility allows you to copy the entire data of your hard disk to another hard drive or any external media.
dd command
-- the dd command is not for amateurs. -- you have been warned. --
You can use the dd command to backup a drive or partition. You need to be familiar with /Applications/Utilities/Terminal. I added this section for completeness.
# save
dd if=/dev/disk0s10 bs=4096m | gzip | dd of=~/disk0-s10 bs=4096m
# restore
dd if=~/disk0-s10 bs=4096m | gunzip | dd of=/dev/disk0s10 bs=4096m
This is riskie if you have never done it before. It may be hard to figure out the correct drive name.
How do use dd:
get a second disk the same size or larger.
What the unix name of the disk will be depends on how you attach the disk.
without the old drive attached to
diskutil list
df
attach the new drive before booting.
repeat the above so you can figure out the name.
Now, that you name the names, you can copy the old disk, /dev/disk0, to the new disk, /dev/disk1.
sudo dd if=/dev/disk0 bs=4096m | sudo dd of=/dev/disk1 bs=4096m
# this command should do a block by block copy
# this way you will get the whole disk.
# if= is input
# of= is output
mac $ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk0
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_CoreStorage 999.3 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD *999.0 GB disk1
Logical Volume on disk0s2
B5476F09-70EA-41C6-8655-72485151AD19
Unencrypted
/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *4.0 TB disk2
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk2s1
2: Apple_HFS Backup - Mac Mini 999.3 GB disk2s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 784.2 MB disk2s3
4: Apple_HFS Backup - Time Machine 2.0 TB disk2s4
5: Apple_HFS Boot - for Fun 49.5 GB disk2s5
6: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk2s6
7: Apple_HFS 1T Backup 985.1 GB disk2s7
mac $
mac $ df
Filesystem Size Used Avail Capacity iused ifree %iused Mounted on
/dev/disk1 930Gi 864Gi 66Gi 93% 226596185 17296037 93% /
devfs 193Ki 193Ki 0Bi 100% 669 0 100% /dev
map -hosts 0Bi 0Bi 0Bi 100% 0 0 100% /net
map auto_home 0Bi 0Bi 0Bi 100% 0 0 100% /home
/dev/disk2s2 931Gi 765Gi 166Gi 83% 200428475 43553456 82% /Volumes/Backup - Mac Mini
/dev/disk2s4 1.8Ti 1.6Ti 147Gi 92% 441119165 38598628 92% /Volumes/Backup - Time Machine
/dev/disk2s5 46Gi 29Gi 17Gi 63% 7590207 4490899 63% /Volumes/Boot - for Fun
/dev/disk2s7 917Gi 771Gi 147Gi 84% 202019436 38487474 84% /Volumes/1T Backup
mac $
http://www.stellarclonedrive.com/disk-utility-to-clone-mac-drive.php