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recovering data after hard drive crash

mmd
mmd
in Knox
Hi I am interested in using knox to store personal data. From what I understand, knox does not store data on a remote server, but on my own hard drive. If this is the case, wouldn't all knox data be lost if my hard drive crashed?
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  • khad
    khad Social Choreographer ✭
    edited April 2011
    Welcome to the forums, mmd!



    Thanks for asking such a great question.



    You are certainly encouraged to always backup your data. My rule of thumb is that nothing digital really exists unless it exists in three places: original file, local backup (as with Time Machine), and offsite backup (like Dropbox or Crashplan). Knox comes with built-in backup functionality to help simplify this process for you.



    That being said, please note that Knox uses Apple's "sparse bundle" technology for its OS X 10.5+ compatible (the default) vaults. Sparse bundles should always be excluded from Time Machine and other backup/sync products specifically because if they are currently mounted by OS X at the time of a backup, any utility that backs it up will appear to "succeed" but data integrity is not guaranteed. At some point you may end up with a sparse bundle that cannot be mounted if it is restored.



    That's one of the prime reasons why Knox's built-in backups will always close/dismount the vault: it makes the resulting backup a consistently valid copy of the original.



    You should have no trouble with Time Machine backing up the *backups* of the vault(s) since they are not mounted by the file system. Likewise with an offsite backup solution. I store my Knox backups in my Dropbox folder. <img src='http://forum.agile.ws/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/skype_smile.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':-)' />



    I hope that helps. Please let me know.



    Cheers!
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