oger

I am wondering if it's possible to backup a mac hard drive via a lan connection with a PC ? Thanks.

Gerbill

That would depend.

First of all, which Mac OS version and which version of Windows? If you're using OS X, it's easy, because OS X supports SMB, the standard Windows format for networking.

If you're using a previous version of Mac OS, you will need a special program like Thursby's DAVE to participate in a Windows network. Unless, of course, the PC end has Windows NT Server or Windows 2000 Server with Services for Macintosh installed, in which case it's no problem.

You can also connect a PC to an older Mac network with a product called PC MacLAN.

Back to OS X - you can allow PCs to access your Mac by checking a box in the Sharing prefs pane.

Finally, this is relatively easy to do via FTP, especially if the PC is running Windows 2000.

To sum up: what you want to do is easy under OS X, possible but not so easy under older OS versions.

Cheers :-> Bill

__________________
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."
- Bill Cosby

oger

Thanks Gerbil. I do run OS X and have Samba that shares files but have never done a conplete backup before and want to take advantage of the price difference in PC burners.Do you have any preference on a simple to use backup utility?

Gerbill

What price difference would that be? PC burners and Mac burners are identical, as far as I know. I have a Lite On 48X24X48X burner that came from a PC shop and has no mention of Macs on the box, but it worked great in my old beige G3, and it works equally well in my current G4, with complete support for all the burning functions in OS X (Finder, DiscCopy, iTunes, iPhoto, Backup) and also works perfectly with Toast Titanium.

Basically, any ATAPI burner will work with Toast Titanium in any Mac with an IDE bus and an easily replaceable CD drive. That would include all desktop and tower beige G3s, B&W G3s, and all G4 towers. If you throw an IDE expansion card into the mix, you can use these cheap ATAPI burners with any PCI Mac, and large, cheap IDE hard drives as well.

If you want a burner that supports all the burning functions in OS X, that's a bit trickier. You need to find a burner that is on OS X's internal list of supported burners. The way I did it was to go to the iTunes page at Apple's Web site and look at the list of supported FireWire burners. That list has a column for the mechanism inside the supported drives. OS X doesn't see any difference between a particular mechanism mounted on an internal IDE bus and the same mechanism enclosed in a FireWire drive.

So, to answer your original question, my advice would be to forget backing up to a PC. Just find a burner mechanism that's on the iTunes list, buy one from a neighborhood PC shop (around $50-$75) and install it in your Mac in place of the CD-ROM. Then, join .Mac and use their Backujp software - it works well. If you want to burn other exotic kinds of CDs (VCDs for example) get Toast 5 Titanium. If you have a laptop or an iMac, get a FireWire burner that's on the list - costs abour 3 times as much as the bare drive, but it works externally.

Cheers :-> Bill

__________________
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."
- Bill Cosby