Need Advice on how to configure backups of 2 iMacs

kapalua12 said:

Need advice on backup plan for new iMac
Well, the 768 GB SSD iMac should be delivered this week!

I currently have my 2010 1TB iMac on time machine backup to my 2010 time capsule via wireless. I'm also obviously using the WiFi for my 2010 iMac, iPhone, Macbook Pro, iPad and Macbook Air. I'm only backing up the iMac to the time capsule.

So with the new 768 GB iMac coming should I get a new larger time capsule like the 2 TB or 3 TB and also take advantage of it's somewhat better signal strength via WiFi as well as backup both iMacs to a new, larger capacity time capsule?

Or should I backup the new iMac via USB3 or Thunderbolt to an external wired hard drive separate from my current 1 TB time capsule and continue to use the WiFi for all computers without getting a new larger capacity time capsule??

What would you guys do?

Click to expand...

Personally, I connect our iMacs to our home network via hardwired ethernet cables. I also connect our Time Capsules to the network via ethernet. I keep the wireless radios off in the TCs, and i also set them to bridge mode. Hence, they are just "NAS units" on the home network.

There would be nothing wrong with us using one of the TCs as our router... but I have an Airport Extreme that use for that function. This allows me to keep the TC's away from the home office... safely secured. I chose to not have my TCs near the computers they backup... just to prevent the loss of both the computer and its associated backup data should theft occur.

In our case... each of our iMacs has a lot of data on it (about 1.5 TB). I bought dedicated 3TB TCs for both my wife and my iMacs. I also have another TC dedicated to our two laptops. That one is redundant... because we could each back up our MBAs to our own TCs we use for our iMacs. That one is a 2TB that we outgrew as the iMacs moved from 2TB to 3TB models... which is the only reason that I keep it around. If it broke, I would not replace it.

So... my wife and I have 3 total TCs... but we really only need 2.

Each of our daughters has an iMac (1TB) and a MBA. They each have 2TB TC that they use for both machines... plus as their router. One has moved home post graduate school (we hope temporarily)... so now we have 4 TCs in our house.

Personally, I do like each iMac backing up to its own TC. That prevents both backups going dead at the same time due to a HDD crash. One smaller advantage is that a TC will only allow one backup to occur at a time, so if one computer is backing up to a TC... any others wanting to back up will have to wait. After the initial backup, they go very fast... so this is not really a big deal, unless you have tons of computer backing up to a single TC.

/Jim

Since you already have the TC, I'd buy a USB external drive for it to use with the new computer (a 2GB or 3GB). This is much cheaper than a 2nd time capsule but still gives you independent backup disks for each machine.