mac mini

I’ve been working through a script to backup the Mini nightly to my 320 GB firewire drive. I’ve had some challenges, but it finally appears to be working as it should. I’ll probably write it up and post here. In general, though, I think I’ve got all the backup needs covered on this machine. I do:

1. Small off-site backups with Mozy (primarily iTunes library and documents).
2. Regular Time Machine backups.
3. Full bootable rsync backup nightly.

The rsync backup had some additional challenges. For example, I like to keep the backup partition hidden – I don’t want it mounted and on the desktop. So, I need to mount it when the script starts and unmount it when it’s finished. And, since the UUID seems to change, I also need to modify /etc/fstab with the new UUID to make sure it doesn’t mount the next time I log in. Everything runs from crontab and, as I said, appears to be working.It’s one of the beautiful things about the Mac that I can open the terminal and create a bash script to accomplish these things, just as I would in Linux.I’ve also created a secure partition on the 1 TB firewire drive for sensitive financial information. Maybe more fodder for PitO writing …