Fanbois howl over data-munching Snow Leopard bug More than month after reports of a home-directory-eating Snow Leopard bug first surfaced, Apple fanbois continue to howl that the new Mac operating system is munching their personal data. CNet's MacFixIt site first reported the alleged bug on September 8, after noticing a few posts on Apple's support forums, and now, as ITWire …
Who really does backups?
If you have a 100G of media files etc then doing backups is theoretically a good idea, but it s far from practical. Telling people to do a backup before a sw installation is just legal weasel-wording.
Sometimes I miss the days when a whole PC hard disk could fit on a box full of floppies.
Utterly inexcusable- especially on a Mac. They're the overpriced Duplo version of computers, meaning that (a) the owner has disposable income to blow on, say, a cheap external hard drive and (b) backing up is a piece of cake (I think it's Time Machine on Macs?)
Also, even on the supposedly utterly hacker and virus proof Macs who the good-God-damned-Hell enables the guest account? Never, EVER enable the Guest account. You're just asking for trouble.
"iHate" icon because the Jobsian (w)hordes appear to have convinced themselves that Apple stuff's always going to be safe to use. But remember, guys- even on those bigger, more colourful blocks you can still catch a corner!
(For some more stereotype reinforcing, Windows users wouldn't have a computer that stayed stable long enough to build up 250GB of data, and Linux users would have 250GB of data (comprised entirely of torrented distros) spread over some obscure version of a tape-based RAID array just to prove how hardcore they are to both of the people they talk to in real life).
But here's the obvious:
"Users who had Apple's Time Machine backup service running say they were able to restore their lost data."
As system bugs go, this is pretty severe, but if you don't back up your Home Directory on a regular basis - sorry for you. There's no excuse, because Time Machine does it all for you. Switch on and forget about it. How easy can it be?
It's not a bug, it's a perfectly working feature working to design. The system it's perfect in every way, which is why it's so hard for you all to be humble.
Not only is it not a bug, but it's *wonderful* and radical, and I've no doubt that in 10 years from now, Windows will steal the idea.
Unless the profits speak to Steve in a dream and give him an *even better* idea, such as altering this perfect feature so that it no longer deletes files, in which case those changes will be **sooo** much better than how it is now.
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So it wipes your home directory. Whoop-dee-doo. Just reach for the back-ups and recover most of it.
Yes, it's a pain in the ass.
Yes, the bug should have been fixed before release.
But not backing up YOUR data is YOUR fault.
Regardless of OS.
However if MS had done this the Appletards and Lintards would be swarming, I agree. But as it is Apple, there's nary a murmur from the usual suspects. Strange that. Probably too busy praying to The Holy PocketProtector that they don't get hit.
I'm going to Karmic shortly after the release...guess what I'll be backing up?
but while there is great good sense in saying 'always have a backup' and people who work in IT can all say that's what they always do, I think the average home user of any system, but especially one that has a reputation for 'just working' would expect to their upgrade to have been tested as safe to install
"Who does a backup?" People who have lost their work in the past and / or people who have a brain.
100Gb is nothing - we're not talking enterprise-grade backups here, that goes without saying that an enterprise should know better than to have 100Gb of un-archived data, we're talking home users.
- Go to Maplin.
- Buy 1TB removable drive for about £70 (or 250Gb for about £30 last time I looked).
- Copy your entire 100Gb data over about once a week, deleting old copies every couple of months.
Doesn't take much, because you do it while the computer is idle and most people barely notice the copy taking place in the background. Don't need secured backups, encrypted backups, multiple backups, grandfather-father-son, or any other stuff. I do that for networks, but home users don't need to go that far to give themselves *some* protection (as opposed to none at all). Use the old version of imaging software that are thrown onto the cover CD's of any computer magazine about three or four times a year, or just do a copy/paste of the documents folders.
My rule as an IT Manager is : if your data doesn't exist in two places *minimum* (not counting extra "copies" I do for you, like backing up the network shares), then it doesn't exist. I don't particularly care if it's a USB key or a floppy or a hard drive or an email account... if you don't have at least two copies, why should I even try to recover it for you? Users quickly pick up on this (usually when they lose 100Gb for the sake of a £20 external drive and one hour a month of "backing up") and do it and within a week, it's second nature.
When users say "Yeah, but I bet you don't do that on the network.", I 'misuse' the terms a little but say that the bare minimum before we even allowed users onto the system was:
Three hard drives, each with a copy (actually RAID5, but it takes too long to explain).
One daily backup (cycled through seven tapes).
One weekly backup.
One termly backup (I work in schools).
One off-site termly backup.
One external "fast" backup to a hard drive enclosure (cycled between two enclosures).
PER SERVER. With Shadow Copies, etc. to catch accidentally deleted files.
And that's the usual system in place for a *primary* school, for God's sake.
So they can't take twenty seconds to connect a large, cheap, external hard drive / USB key, copy/paste their documents folders and do that once a week or even once a month so they don't lose *everything*? There's no excuse.
Until it happens to you, you won't care. Then you'll realise how little effort / money it costs to back up. Workplaces throw away 20/40Gb laptop drives, the enclosures for them cost £1 and can fit into a jacket pocket or laptop case pocket easily. It takes seconds to initiate the copy and then you can work as normal. And when your harddrive dies, and you're staring at a blank screen, you'll have the nerves of "I hope my backup works okay, I'll go copy it onto John's computer to make sure" rather than "Oh, sh**, all my files are GONE!".
Remember: AT LEAST TWO PLACES or it doesn't exist.
>Who really does backups?
Who has data they value and doesn't do backups? I have well over 300G of RAW images, working files backed up twice onsite + once offsite, plus originals archived to DVD 3 times, held in 3 different places. Not a lot of hassle and far cheaper than reshooting or explaining the loss to clients. Anyone who doesn't back up and relies on stuff on their machine to make a living has evidently seen the toast fall butter side up a bit too often.
And yeah, AC 04:10, wait plenty till the gremlins have been squashed - or are at least well known and manageable. Especially if its an OS upgrade.
Terminator, cos the machines really are out to get you
1TB external USB hard disks now cost under £80.
Get two, keep one at work, swap 'em over every week and you've even got full off-site backup for less than you paid for your monitor.
Backing up 250GB of stuff onto them doesn't take very long - set it copying, go to bed, all done by the time you get up. There's a fair few apps that do incremental backups, some are even free.
That said, erasing *anything* at login is completely insane. Who wrote that login script?
Charles Manning: "If you have a 100G of media files etc then doing backups is theoretically a good idea, but it s far from practical."
Actually, quite practical. Last time I passed their IT stuff shelf, I noticed my neighbourhood supermarket selling a portable 750G USB-connected hard disk for 75 euros, and it is probably not even the best deal for those gadgets. I used to burn home directories and such on DVD:s when upgrading my Linux, next time I will probably use a drive like that. Not necessarily cheaper, but much more convenient. Those USB drives are not terribly fast, but not having to swap disks compensates for it.
If you allow guests on your computer, then certainly you want your personal data secure. How to better achieve this than by deleting your personal stuff so prying eyes can't see it? Makes sense to me.
Mine's the one with the holes in the pockets; a thief can't steal from empty pockets.
If you put a million fanbois in a room each with a keyboard with only two keys, a zero and a one, how long will it take them to reproduce the lost 250GB by repeatedly slamming their heads into the keys?
Oh, my, I just had the most bizarre mental image of the penitents of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. With wireless keyboards.
Looks like someone doesn't know what a partition is or never to keep anything important on the main partition! I keep all of my files on separate drives/partitions so that if Windows does bomb I just format and loose nothing. Maybe that's because I know how to use a computer and don't just go for shinny looking objects (based on said 250gb users English I feel this assumption is fair).
"Who really does backups? If you have a 100G of media files etc then doing backups is theoretically a good idea, but it s far from practical. Telling people to do a backup before a sw installation is just legal weasel-wording.
"
You're kidding right? A 250GB external drive is only £40, and Time Machine makes backups so simple a child could do them. There's no excuse *not* to back up!
Why the hell have we even got guest accounts enabled on OS X?! Christ, we moan about WIndows secuirty, then sit there all smug with our Apple kit, banging on about never putting a foot wrong, then the Lord Jobs deems that it's OK to open the machine up with a freaking guest account!!! Love using my Macs, best move I made, but Apple are so up their own fundament as to no longer live the real world with the mere morals. The real world, where the nasties are around every corner. No guest accounts! Lock it or lose it!
If you don’t need a port/service open, close it!
If you need it secure, encrypt it!
If you ever want to make sure you see it again if you F-up, back it up!
“Security is not a dirty word Blackadder! Jobs is positively filthy word! Security isn’t!”
Music and videos being lost isnt too much of a problem as im sure they are tagged to their itunes but photographs and documents not being backed up is just plain lazy. Data that isnt backed up is data you dont want.
As for 250Gb not being backed up *before* an OS upgrade, that is just sheer lunacy. These days a 500gb external drive would be perfect, you just need to drag a folder FFS and leave it overnight, its not brain surgery.
This particular one hasn't bit me but then I do backup. But there are others out there: there seems to be a problem with wifi + DHCP and the most annoying one is application stalling.
It does seem that SL was a bit rushed. While I think it's an important upgrade if you haven't already done it it might be worth waiting a service pack or two.
"Telling people to do a backup before a sw installation is just legal weasel-wording."
Too bloody right; if the Redmond Beast DARED suggest anything like that, the rabid packs of howling Mactards would descend like furies on the spokesdroid responsible, but if it happens inside the Jobsian RDF, nary a murmur. Evil Bill because 10-1 they'll still claim it's his fault somehow :-P ...
>Who really does backups?
Are you for real?
How about this for an answer: 'anyone who cares about keeping their data!'
Backup is the #1 essential principle of computers. I know this is preaching to the converted to most Reg readers, but obviously some fools have still not got the picture.
How stupid does one have to be, to store their entire life in an electronic box of tricks and not even think about what will happen if one day the lights don't come on? Despite the fact that one is repeatedly reminded by anybody else with a clue (as well as the "legal weasel wording" - like that one) that such an eventuality is worth at least thinking about.
As mentioned above, if these morons have the money to buy fruit-flavoured equipment in the first place, then surely they can get themselves an external hard disk, or at the very least some DVDs and a pen drive!
I have no time for these whining incompetents. If I were to meet one, they would deserve it if I were to laugh in their face!
Time machine on OSX is so trivially easy to use, and external usb disks which it would work with aren't exactly pricey, especially if your willing to fork out for an expensive machine from Apple... There really is no excuse for not having a backup, and as bad as a bug which wipes out your home directory is, recovering it from time machine is trivial.
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