Backup solutions/ sharing macbook stuff to PC

[zeroboo]

Just wondering what people here do to backup their photos/music.

I currently have a macbook and a PC and use my macbook to centralise all my photos/music. I want to back up everything to my NAS (eg time machine style incase my macbook dies (Im a paranoid guy)) but I also want my PC to be able to access the photos/music.

What is the best way to go about backup/sharing?

[smouty]

SMB/CIFS would be accessible by both.

[EJG1980]

Like you my Mac is my main computer where I store everything, but sometimes I want to access the files via the office PC as well.

I use Time Machine to backup everything on my Mac. I backup to an external USB hard disk but most NAS drives these days seem to have built in Time Machine support so you shouldn't have any problems backing up to your NAS. That takes care of the backing up.

I have Windows (SMB) sharing turned on on the Mac so I can access the Mac's files on the PC directly through My Computer / Windows Explorer. Nice and easy and you can map the folders on your Mac to Windows drive letters to make things even easier:

[Brad]

My stuff is all over the place and a total mess that urgently needs sorting out but every time I go to do it I accidentally start playing Day Z instead.

[zeroboo]

Like you my Mac is my main computer where I store everything, but sometimes I want to access the files via the office PC as well.

I use Time Machine to backup everything on my Mac. I backup to an external USB hard disk but most NAS drives these days seem to have built in Time Machine support so you shouldn't have any problems backing up to your NAS. That takes care of the backing up.

I have Windows (SMB) sharing turned on on the Mac so I can access the Mac's files on the PC directly through My Computer / Windows Explorer. Nice and easy and you can map the folders on your Mac to Windows drive letters to make things even easier:

Thanks for that HumanEnergy. My problem there is that when I'm at home I normally switch to my desktop and don't turn on my macbook. Also, I prefer accessing the files on my NAS instead of my macbook as my desktop is hooked up via cat6.

hmm... my search for the perfect solution continues...

[charlesr]

I use sugarsync for backing up everything online. It works on mac, pc and mobile. It solves all paranoia issues. I believe you can set folders to share across devices, so anything that you put on your mac will just magically appear on the PC in a similar folder (once you have requested a particular folder tree to be synced from from the web copy to the PC). There's also a magic folder so if you haven't got time to set up sync but want an important doc backed up e.g. before leaving the house, just drop it into the magic folder on the mac and it will appear on the PC's magic folder and you can even carry on working on it on your mobile on the train or whatever.

It also keeps 5 old versions, so you can roll back, something I used recently on a doc I was working on - life saver which I never thought I'd need, but was very pleased when I did need it.

Only downside is that it will slow down your machine when you turn it on while it checks latest sync, but my PC is always on, so not a problem for me. I have it on my wife's laptop (you pay for storage size, not number of devices) and she doesn't mind the startup scan, so it can't be too bad.

[zeroboo]

hm... interesting I happen to have dropbox with 50gb so that will cover my music library.

[charlesr]

I need 250GB for my music.... Gets a bit costly, unless you use Carbonite who have no upper limit, but just limit the speed of download after a certain size. I advised my dad to use Carbonite.