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Advice sought re Disk Utility settings to create DMGs for system backups

Hi


I wish to create DMGs of my current system prior to OS updates but the various settings in Disk Utility confuse me. One can make the DMGs read-only, read/write, compressed and encrypted. And one can create sparsebundles and other types.


What options should I select? Thanks for any clarification you can give me because I don't get much wiser from DU's help file.


/p

Posted on Aug 9, 2011 3:08 PM

Reply
6 replies

Aug 9, 2011 3:52 PM in response to pullman

Frankly I wouldn't bother with .dmgs at all; far better to make a bootable clone on an external HD. You can't boot from a disc image (at least not directly), so if something goes wrong and you can't boot from your HD, you can boot from the clone, clone the original system back to the internal and try again.


With a disc image you need a bootable drive to mount it on before you can do any of that.


And you should be doing that regularly anyway, not just prior to updates.

Ideally, a bootable clone on one drive and a Time Machine backup on another.

Aug 10, 2011 4:23 AM in response to pullman

Fair enough - can't argue with that.


I'd keep it as simple as possible; read/write, no encryption or compression, standard dmg rather than sparse bundle.


If you need the dmg in an emergency you won't want to be trying to remember passwords or how to open a sparse bundle. Remember, though, that a disc image has to be mounted before you can restore from it, so it's not much use if you have a double HD failure unless it can be mounted on another Mac to restore via FW tgt disc mode.

Which begs the question, "where do you store the dmg?"

Advice sought re Disk Utility settings to create DMGs for system backups

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