Mac Geekery

I’ve read the article on taking backups seriously, but I’m wondering if there’s something a little more up to date.

I’m also not afraid of command line, which is currently my preferred method of backing up.

I’m on 10.4.5 (going to .6 tonight) and keep reading about how the latest version of rsync on Mac OS X makes psync look outdated. I’ve downloaded 2.6.7 of rsync and can see that it supports the -E flag for resource forks (I’m also wondering how bad it to not copy over resource forks).

The one thing that is nice about psync is how it supposedly yields a bootable copy. However, I think it may have issues on 10.4. in terms of permissions when it comes to certain files (like the Spotlight V100 file or something)

I would much rather use rsync since it seems to be maintained better compared to psync. Blessing the partition so that it’s bootable is also not a problem for me. What command would do it for me with rsync? I’m looking to basically mirror my drive, and do incremental backups after that.

I’ve used the excellent carbon copy cloner, but recently an odd problem where it keeps asking me for my password while hitting certain folders has annoyed the heck out of me. I start my backup when I go to sleep, and would like it to be done when I wake up, not have to fill in the password again and again. I’m hoping the next version he puts out might support rsync out of the box, or something. Also read on their forums about the install of psync slowing down backups.

Sorry if this post is all over the place. Really, all I’m looking for is an effective way to make nightly backups of my drive, preferbly using rsync, or something that is proven.