[DM-MUG] Fwd: Dr. Mac's Guide to Backing Up Your Mac -- The Mac Observer

[kristau]

On 3/4/07, Victoria L. Herring <lists at herringlaw.com> wrote:
> I do have a couple of Q arising out of your post and hope anyone who
> knows can answer
>
> 1.  is the System [OS X] folder so unimportant that it can be
> discarded/not backed up?  What's in it that might be worth 'saving'???

I don't have enough experience with OS X itself to know for certain,
but I believe the main things you miss by not backing up the System
folder are any updates and patches that were applied to the OS.  For a
production or business system, a backup of System will save you the
time needed to re-apply all OS patches and updates.  If I'm missing
something critical by not backing up System, perhaps I should start
backing it up?

> 2.  I have backed up Applications mainly because I have alot of apps
> that it'd be a royal pain to reinstall...though you make a good point
> about that being possible.  One Caution however = there are some
> Apps. that have essential files inside their  Apps. folders and if
> you don't back those ones up, that could be a problem.

Certainly any applications which require the entry of  a license key
or require some sort of online activation which places data under
Applications proving you have rights to the software will benefit from
a back up.  On my system, 99% of the software I use came bundled with
the OS or is Free Open Source Software.  The only licensed software
I've purchased so far is Parallels Desktop and EyeTV (for my EyeTV
hybrid).  Also, most applications should place their custom settings
under the /User folders so that each user can have their own setup,
but some system-wide settings may be stored under /Applications.

thanks,
Kenneth Ristau (aka kristau)
-- 
Tired programmer
Coding late into the night
The core dump follows

My GNUPG public key is available at http://www.kristau.net/public_key.asc