Introduction
Nearly everyone understands why backups are important: hard drives fail, computers are stolen or damaged, and files are accidentally deleted. Backups are insurance against all these problems and more. If you've ever lost data—and I certainly have, on more than one occasion—then you know what I'm talking about. (And if you haven't lost data, you're computing on borrowed time.)
Apple feels so strongly about the need for good backups that they built a backup feature called Time Machine into Mac OS X starting with version 10.5 Leopard. I talk about Time Machine quite a bit in this book, and all things considered, I think it's pretty good. But it's not right for everyone, and even when it is a good fit, it can't do everything you may need ...