By Graham K. Rogers

I am a firm believer in backing up data. I was not always so sure of the need, but when burglars took my 11" PowerBook a few years ago, I lost much more than the computer itself: that was replaceable. The data, including almost 2,000 photographs, was lost forever.

Introduction

With the price of hard disks much cheaper in the region nowadays, it will not be a hardship to use one for backing up, either by copying data directly, using a clone application (like Mike Bombrich's Carbon Copy Cloner, or LaCie's Silver Light), or Apple's own Time Machine. I prefer the Apple solution partly because of the automated backing up once it is all set up, but also because of the ease with which a user can move the data to a new machine when the time comes to update the computer. Or, of course, if there is a computing disaster.

I now back up several times a week. As a result, when things have gone wrong - such as a broken hard disk which did mean switching between computers - I was able to continue working much more easily than starting from scratch. With Time Machine, I have been able to rescue data easily: not only the complete disk contents, but on occasion odd files that I thought were lost, or old email messages that were deleted but later needed to be retrieved.

Time Machine has been around since, OS X 10.5, Leopard, and makes incremental backups using the fsevents data. I have written before on this and my explanation of using the Time Machine settings in System Preferences is available online.

Previously, switching between disks meant restarting the whole process, but with OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, it has become possible to backup to more than one disk, which makes a transition to a new disk safer and easier.

Background

As it is the end of the year, I have been buying myself some Christmas presents, beginning with a Tamron telephoto lens and an Apple Wireless Keyboard. A third present (to myself) was a Western Digital hard disk.

The company suffered some considerable setbacks last year with the flooding in Thailand but has now bounced back and there have been a number of new products in the last few months. The My Book Studio series was a bit of a departure for WD as this is advertised as "Mac ready". While I have a spare portable hard disk from Imation, this is only 500 MB and I decided I needed to go larger. I also prefer the desktop size enclosure that looks similar to the LaCie disk that is currently in use.

Not long after this series was released, it began to appear on the shelves in Bangkok stores. This is not always the case as even when products are made here, they are shipped to other markets and a Made in Thailand product may not always be available for purchase here.

I decided on a 1 TB disk. While hunting this down I noted that the smaller portable disks were priced in the region of 3500 baht (with VAT) for the 1 TB capacity. Most of the My Book Studio disks I saw in a number of outlets were 2 TB or more, but I finally tracked down a 1 TB disk in the BananaIT store (part of the comseven group that also runs some iStudio outlets) in Central Pinklao. When I checked the price, it was 4390 baht.

I grabbed a 2 TB disk off the shelf. It was marked at 5500 baht -- there was an obvious economy here - and when I paid using my credit card it was discounted to 5,190 baht with VAT ($168). These can be bought for $159 in the US (minus tax). It is shown as $189 in the US Apple Store with 1-2 months shipping, so the price I paid is acceptable. It is not listed in the Apple online store for Thailand. When I bought the disk I was told that if I was not happy, I could return it within 7 days and was also reminded that there was a 3-year warranty.

My Book Studio - The Box

I needed a knife to get in as the box was sealed in an air-tight plastic wrapping. Back and front images of the disk were on the exterior, Apple-style, while the sides were covered with data, specifications and extra labels (Microsoft style?).

Inside, the disk was secured and was wrapped in its own plastic. A cardboard box beside the disk contained accessories: power supply (110 - 240v), adaptors, USB 2.0 cable, FW 800 cable. The power supply came with one of those massive 3-pin connectors for the UK, Singapore (and other) systems; but this could be changed to 2-pin, suitable for local use, by pulling down on a button, marked "Open": quite clever really.

The sealed plastic covering the disk was soft enough for me to tear open with my fingers. The disk itself looks pretty much the part with its aluminium finish: a single light at the front, above a simple WD label. An earlier version had apparently had a display panel.

The business begins at the back, where there are (from top to bottom) 2 Firewire 800 ports, a micro USB port and a power connector. There is no On/Off switch, although an earlier version did have this (MacWorld). I do not like the micro USB connectors: they seem flimsy, and those who suggested them as a solution for iOS devices had not thought things through sufficiently. I have these for my Nikon cameras, but rarely use them, they feel so weak. With FW 800, the USB cable will stay in the connectors drawer.

My Book Studio - The Backup

I began by linking the LaCie drive to one port in the WD drive, then from the other WD FW800 port, connected to the Mac. I powered up the LaCie drive only and the two partitions appeared on the desktop with one being recognised as a Time Machine backup.

I powered up the WD disk and there was a brief delay, but the power light came on and a single partition, marked "My Book", appeared on the desktop. In System Preferences, Time Machine, I pressed the Select Disk button and the 2 TB "My Book" partition was shown. I highlighted this and pressed the Use Disk button at the bottom right. A further panel appeared: Replace GKR_a (the current backup) or Use Both. I selected Use Both: Time Machine will take turns backing up. Immediately the icon of the new disk changed to a green Time Machine display and indicated, Waiting to back up. The icon on the desktop did not change to the green one.

A minute or so later, the backup began with "Preparing backup" and soon began its first backup of just under 320 GB from the Mac hard disk. While everything was simmering (a panel indicated a 7-hour backup time initially), I moved to a cooler room and typed some of this information on my iPad using that new keyboard.

Comments

The My Book Studio disks with Firewire 800 connections do not have USB 3.0 and vice versa. I have been unable to find the disk rotation speed, although a useful review by Craig Simms has a number of data transfer speed comparisons. Some sources suggest the disk rotates at 7200 rpm, while others also say 5400-5900 rpm. Unlike working in photography or movies, backup may not require a blindingly fast disk, so the lower speeds would be acceptable.

That first 320 GB backup did take a few hours, but there is enough disk space to last me quite a while now and I now have that second backup disk for increased safety.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.