Mac backups - Burning to CD or DVD
Now that I've told my Mac burn folder what files and folders I won't to burn to disk, the next step is to tell the burn folder to burn this data to my DVD. To do this I just click the Burn button on the Mac burn folder, and then my Mac prompts me to insert a disk, as shown in this figure:
This dialog is nice in that it again displays the size of the contents about to be burned. I insert a DVD-R, and in a few moments OS X displays the "Are you sure?" dialog shown here:
This burn folder dialog lets me cancel the burn to DVD process, put a different name on the disk, or choose a burning speed.
The burn speeds I'm offered for a DVD-R are "1x (slowest, more reliable)", "2x", and "4x (fastest)". I don't have any expert opinions here. I have always taken the middle road with the 2x speed and I haven't had any problems using the DVD-R later, but I can't remember if there's some reason I don't use the 4x option. If you're really concerned about reliability, I'd use the "1x" option, and make sure you leave enough time for the DVD burn process to do its thing.
(Note: The dialog for burning a CD-R on my MacBook Pro is very similar, but only offers an "8x" option.)
To proceed with my Mac backup, I click the Burn button on this Mac burn folder dialog, and after a few moments a burn folder progress dialog is displayed, as shown here:
It takes a little while to burn 1.03GB to a DVD-R at 2x speed, so I can either work on something else, or in my case, since it's lunch time, I'll go eat.
books by alvin
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