New to the Mac world

[JohnFLand]

I bought my wife an Intel iMac, and want to back up to an NTFS drive on a NAS device on my network. I'm used to 2 kinds of backup: a complete clone to a single disk file (like Acronis TrueImage does), and a file-and-directory replication of a directory tree, which includes from the root (such as Beyond Compare and most Win file managers do).

Queries:
1) Will SD allow me to make any kind of backup to my NAS NTFS drive?
2) It appears that SD readily does complete clones; correct?
3) Can SD do a file-and-directory tree replication, such that individual files can be retrieved?

TIA, John Land

[dnanian]

Hi, John.

As long as the NAS is truly NTFS and not FAT32, you can back up to it. Mount the volume with SMB, and then back up to a disk image, as explained in the User's Guide.

A Backup - all files is a complete, bootable copy. But, in addition, it replicates the files and folders, and you can retrieve individual files easily, right with Finder.

[JohnFLand]

Thanks for the quick response. Since I can presently see the files on the NAS NTFS (verified as being NTFS) drive from the iMac, I assume that I've properly "mounted the volume with SMB" [and Macs are supposed to be easy? Sounds like a Unix wonk acronym ;-)]

John Land

[dnanian]

SMB = Server Message Block -- basically, that's the file protocol used to mount Windows volumes. It's implemented on the Mac by "Samba".

As long as it's mounted, and you have read/write/create permission, it should work. Give it a try!