Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

AppleMango

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 2, 2019
202
103
Dear peoples,

my first ever MacBook will be delivered next week.
I’m coming from a 10yr-old Windows laptop and I had a broken external HDD which failed in 2019 and had to professionally restored for a lot of money.

Right now I have 2 external WD passport HDDs (1TB) from 2019 which have been used to store photos, documents, music and family videos from the past and which were rescued from that company.

Please, advise me what to do in the future.

Shall I get a 2TB HDD for TIME MACHINE so I can always restore my current system if it fails?
What about the current 2 HDDs, I fear they are endangered (I had a bad dream and read too much on the internet about this stuff and it freaked me out!)

Shall I get SSDs? Thunderbolt? HDDs? How many, like 2 in rotation?

I‘ve especially enjoyed reading @HobeSoundDarryl ’s posts, in case you see this.

I’m just totally overwhelmed and feel like this is such an important thing to get right, especially now with a new machine and completely being in the Apple-ecosystem.

I just want to enjoy that new machine!


MANY THANKS TO YOU!
 
  • Like
Reactions: delsoul

HobeSoundDarryl

macrumors G5
Thanks for the compliment. 2 backups (the two 1TB drives is good). You could suffer the loss of 1 and recover. Ideally, at least 1 is stored OFFSITE vs. both together in the same location... else the very real risk of fire/flood/theft could take out both of them and your new MB in one event.

I presume you've read my posts about TM backups. Remember there's 2 dimensions to TM:
  1. the easy, automatic file backups (which is on your mind right now) AND
  2. the ability to go "back in time" to recover an older version of a file... particularly useful if a file(s) becomes corrupt and you don't immediately notice. Key to this "time travel" is size of drive: the bigger the TM drive, the further back in time you can go to recover files. When a TM drive gets full, it starts deleting the oldest backup copies of files. In the time travel analogy, this is like having a Time Machine that can go back a fixed amount of time. If that's- say- 10 weeks and you wait 2 weeks before you use it, what was possible to reach 9 and 10 weeks ago is no longer accessible. The 10-week window is rolling forwards with you. The Point? Buy more space than some perceived or mathematical minimum so you have more time travel range. This is not a great target in which to try to save a measly $20 or $50.
I've written about the topic more than once and you've probably read the details posted by me so here's my recommendations in a nutshell (ask questions if you need more info):
  1. Get yourself at least TWO BIG HDDs for TM. By "big", I mean at least 3-4 times the total storage size you'll have in that new Mac... PLUS if there are any other Macs in the household that also need backed up (spouse? children? Etc?), add that storage too. For example, if your MB will come with 1TB and someone else has 1TB too, my HDD selections would be at least 2TB times 3+ or 6TB-8TB for each TM disc. 6TB vs. 8TB vs. 10TB HDDs are all CHEAP, so spend a few extra bucks to overdo this decision a little. Good HDDs will last 5-10 or more years (I have some still working that are 20+ years old). Too much TM size is much preferred to barely enough.
  2. When you have your new MB, set up each of them as TM backup drives. Then let it back up to Drive A (first backup will take a LONG time), then Drive B (again a long time).
  3. Store that fresh TM backup on B OFFSITE. A cheap & easy option is a bank safe deposit box but anywhere safe & secure and somewhat distant from Drive A and Mac is fine. Think about the worst-case scenarios. If- for example- your whole town could get flooded, don't choose your offsite location in your town. Some distance between A & B increases the odds of recovery in worst case scenarios.
  4. Enjoy your MB and let A auto backup as you develop/import new files for it.
  5. Think about how long would be too long to lose all newly-created files on that MB. Is that a month? 2 months? 2 weeks? Whatever that is for you, make that your repeating date to "rotate" your TM drives.
  6. Regularly swap the one offsite with the one onsite and then it takes over as the current TM backup drive. If- like me- your timetable was- say- 30 days, worst case scenario would be fire/flood/theft on day 29... because you would be likely to lose any newly created files in that 29-day span of time. But offsite TM drive will recover almost everything, minus those 29 days.
  7. Repeat #6 on your rotation schedule.
If you wanted a bit more security, you could "offsite" backup very recently created files- those you create/add since you rotated your offsite & onsite drives- by using a little cloud space: iCloud, Dropbox, Microsoft, Google and others. Then you'd have a copy on your MB, a backup on your TM drive onsite and another backup on a cloud drive(s) somewhere else. This approach could avoid the "day 29" extreme example described in #6. If you suffered fire/flood/theft on day 29, you could recover almost everything from your offsite TM backup and then the last 29 days of newest files you've backed up to cloud storage. That would get you all the way back.

In my own case, I have "overdone" it with backups:
  • Desktop Mac is my primary Mac.
  • Two BIG HDDs for TM (one offsite, rotated monthly)
  • I have my own Synology NAS with Time Machine set up on it too. So this is a second "local" (or onsite) TM drive. Synology is very much a RAID-like setup, so a drive can fail, be replaced and not lose any data stored on it. So that's kind of like 2 onsite backups in one.
  • Recently created files are duplicated to a MB and some to iDevices, so my "29 day" worst case is not really that risky. As I'm "on the go" regularly, it's automatic to keep 2 Macs in sync. Good software to make that easy is Chronosync.
  • I also use a little free cloud space for select, newly-created files, so some are there too.
  • Very precious files like photos & home movies are shared with other family members on their computers at various distant points, so that's towards an ultimate offsite backup- several actually- for those kinds of files.
That's a LOT of opportunities to recover in about any scenario. But that IS wayyyyyyy overkill. Minimally, the TWO BIG HDDs approach shared above can go a very long way for most people. If you wanted a bit more confidence, make it THREE BIG HDDs with TWO offsite. Even more? Store the two offsite in two different locations.

One last tip: Buy yourself a battery backup in which you plug both that new MB and this TM backup drive. Being able to survive brief power outages by switching to battery means an in-progress TM backup doesn't have much risk of getting corrupted. On the other hand, just plugging into "the wall" and a power blink during a backup could corrupt the TM backup and you have to recreate the entire thing from scratch (cutting the time travel ability down to only the current version of your files).

Sorry you had to pay the hefty fee to recover whatever the drive recovery service could get. Execute the numbered checklist described above and you would be unlikely to have to ever do that again. Enjoy your new MB... and good backup strategy.
 
Last edited:

picpicmac

macrumors 65816
Aug 10, 2023
1,016
1,403
I just want to enjoy that new machine!
Please do.

People have different tolerances for surety against loss. Hence the differences in opinions you will receive.

I have a TM that is a HD. It is a bit more in capacity than 2x the size of the volumes I want TM to back up.

I keep the files I really value in more than one place. Some of my old photos on another HD I have put on an SSD too. The latter if I want to view them or change them. TM backs that up.

Then there are online storage. I use MSOFT 365 suite, and that gets me 1TB of online storage, on which I keep some of the files I do not want to lose.

I also keep some files on Google Drive.

If you want, you can get subscriptions to things like Backblaze. If you are using your computer in employment, then something like Backblaze is recommended.

Regardless, here is the golden rule: Keep at least two copies of your most important files. One copy is in your residence, the other should be elsewhere (e.g. offline.)

I find using SSDs for all bootable, and working files, storage to be best. Hard disks are just too slow for anything but backup.
 

hobowankenobi

macrumors 68020
Aug 27, 2015
2,076
883
on the land line mr. smith.
Good stuff so far. I will add:

Don't forget about iCloud. It is seamless for some of the most important stuff that can change quickly: Contacts, Passwords, etc. It becomes even more essential to sync between devices, especially if you have an iPhone. Even the smallest 50GB subscription for .99 per month is enough space for most folks to back up their most important data. Off-site, secure, dependable, and pain-free. I would suggest you test syncing and restoring from iCloud before diving into a 3rd party cloud destination. If you are fully happy with it, you can look at larger subscriptions for more space as needed. One less password, one less vendor, one less installer.

OneDrive for Mac is not great. The app often has syncing issues (I work in an environment with more than 3000 Macs, and 365 on all of them....and this is the #1 complaint). Just last week a tech had to inform a user that their data was not on the cloud server, even though the client reported no issues. Really bad. Tons of stuff on the web about folks pulling their hair out with this issue.

You will also find lots of folks that don't fully trust Time Machine. I think most of that is from years ago, when it was less than awesome. It seems like it has slowly but steadily improved to the point that the pain points and limitations are gone now. Still, you will find lots of Mac users that do use and prefer third-party back up tools. There are several great choices out there if you want to diversify your backup routine.

As for free and low-cost cloud options, I really like Mega. Not the biggest brand, but both the web interface and Mac sync client have been rock solid for many years for me. 20GB for free, and lower cost per TB than the big boys...coupled with better privacy.
 
Last edited:

PhunkyBuc

macrumors newbie
Jan 2, 2024
15
11
This is a timely thread as I will upgrading to a Studio soon, and will need to purchase some new storage / TM options.

I have toyed back and forth for years about whether to go with a NAS setup, versus using 2 separate external drives (yes I know RAID is not a backup in case of fire, theft, etc... that's what cloud backup is for). It would be nice to be able to access all my files from my other computer with ease... though I suppose there are also remote access externals. Is a NAS setup overkill?
 

Ben J.

macrumors 6502a
Aug 29, 2019
653
349
Oslo
Shall I get SSDs? Thunderbolt? HDDs? How many, like 2 in rotation?
For backup? No. Backup doesn't need speed on the storage. Timemachine checks and backs up modified files every hour by default, and updates the backup in the background. Most often small amounts of data, so speed is not important. Start with the HDs you have now, like Darryl says, and go from there. If, say, you have a 512GB internal drive in the new mac, one of those 1TB Hds will do fine as a Timemachine drive for a good while. It's adviced that you use it only for TM.

First time you set TM to use the HD as backup drive though, it'll be copying everything, so it might be a overnight thing.

If you think that the 1TB HD is too small, then sure get a larger SSD, but get a cheap one, and USB3 not thunderbolt.

I recommend macmost.com on youtube for further info on anything mac. Very clear, uncluttered videos. He has a couple on "Getting started" and "moving from windows to mac". And using Time Machine.
 

HobeSoundDarryl

macrumors G5
This is a timely thread as I will upgrading to a Studio soon, and will need to purchase some new storage / TM options.

I have toyed back and forth for years about whether to go with a NAS setup, versus using 2 separate external drives (yes I know RAID is not a backup in case of fire, theft, etc... that's what cloud backup is for). It would be nice to be able to access all my files from my other computer with ease... though I suppose there are also remote access externals. Is a NAS setup overkill?
NOT overkill. I think of my Synology NAS as an essential part of my setup. That it happens to also directly support a “whole home” TM storage benefit is just a huge bonus IMO.

It is basically my own “Dropbox”, my own cloud, a whole home DVR of ANY size, a security camera DVR of any size, potentially the next host of my business website & email server, and a few other services. There is a long list of optional services it offers. It’s hard to imagine my own setup without it.

Incidentally, I’m pretty anti-cloud. I believe control of data is essential and put only modest faith in for-profit strangers as data caretakers at a forever rental fee "in the cloud." So while I have that NAS and thus my own “cloud” and 100% control of that cloud storage, I also employ a couple of big HDDs in onsite-offsite rotation as TM backup too. Trusting the cloud could sub in for the onsite-offsite thing (and would certainly be better than no offsite backup at all), but that’s trusting total strangers to take care of the data, stay out of it and/or not exploit their direct access to it.

Sharing offsite backup storage with upwards of many millions of other people's backups is a much more tempting target for hackers than any one person's individual cloud. Ransom potential on millions of backups is much greater than ransom potential on one little family server. If the bad guys are chasing fame instead of money, hacking millions will get national press. Hacking one home server might not even be news that reaches the immediate neighbors.

I do use some free-only cloud space for some added convenience or when prompted by clients wanting to use it… but not for any essential files. It has a place and some will practically swear by it but I just don’t like the core idea of letting for-profit strangers wedge in between me and my data… in an age when gigantic storage we fully own & control can be had for so relatively little cost.

Challenge to all: take even ONE iPhone budget and go aggressively shop for storage you can completely control and own- not rent- for the next 5-10 or more years. How much can even that budget get you?
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Alameda

Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
28,356
12,465
OK, some backup thoughts.

I don't use and DO NOT recommend time machine.
Use either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.
Both CCC and SD "do the same things" -- they make exact copies of your "source" drive on the "target".

First, you need to get the new Mac.
In order to advise you, we need to know what size the internal SSD is (not "what it will be").

Once you have it, you might start moving some of the stuff from the external drives onto the internal. Thus, your "total storage requirements" for backup may change.

You might fit "everything" onto the internal drive.
Although, I would recommend against that.
REASON WHY:
Some of the stuff you have "stored externally" might just as well be LEFT AS "external storage", i.e., not clogging up your internal drive with files you seldom or never access.

With this done, you may find that the stuff you still "store externally" may shrink a little in size. Perhaps it will fit on just one external drive.

It's gotten to the point where I recommend SSDs for backups as well as for internal drives. It's possible to "build" your own backup SSD for not that much money.

I'd use a 2.5" SATA SSD (these are getting cheap), and a 2.5" USB3.1 gen2 enclosure.
Or... just pay a little more and buy a "pre-built, ready to use" SSD, such as the Samsung t7 "shield".

In the end, you'll need to back up BOTH the internal SSD AND the external drive(s).

I would use one drive for the internal backup, and another for the external backup.
It's possible to partition and use ONE drive for both, but that takes a little more care.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Clix Pix

ItWasNotMe

macrumors 6502
Dec 1, 2012
439
304
Time Machine is not an archive, It decides when to delete things not you. If you really need to keep something then use another method.

Once thinning starts, there is no guarantee you will have a copy of a file and it might not take long for that to happen.

For example, let's say Time Machine keeps weekly backups on a cycle that is Sundays. You create a file Tuesday and 'accidently' delete it the following day. Whilst you still have the daily backups you can still get to the Tuesday copy. Once the days are thinned into weekly backups then you'll have the files as at the Sunday preceding that Tuesday (before you created it) and the following Sunday (by which time you deleted it) and nothing in-between. The file you created on that Tuesday no longer exists.
 
  • Like
Reactions: hobowankenobi

MacBH928

macrumors G3
May 17, 2008
8,327
3,719
As you heard some people do not like Time Machine. I had it fail on me once and never set it up again.

Carbon Copy Cloner never failed me.

ideally, you can use 2 HDDs. One backup with Time Machine and another Backup with Carbon Copy Cloner.
 

MacBH928

macrumors G3
May 17, 2008
8,327
3,719
Thanks for the compliment. 2 backups (the two 1TB drives is good). You could suffer the loss of 1 and recover. Ideally, at least 1 is stored OFFSITE vs. both together in the same location... else the very real risk of fire/flood/theft could take out both of them and your new MB in one event.

I presume you've read my posts about TM backups. Remember there's 2 dimensions to TM:
  1. the easy, automatic file backups (which is on your mind right now) AND
  2. the ability to go "back in time" to recover an older version of a file... particularly useful if a file(s) becomes corrupt and you don't immediately notice. Key to this "time travel" is size of drive: the bigger the TM drive, the further back in time you can go to recover files. When a TM drive gets full, it starts deleting the oldest backup copies of files. In the time travel analogy, this is like having a Time Machine that can go back a fixed amount of time. If that's- say- 10 weeks and you wait 2 weeks before you use it, what was possible to reach 9 and 10 weeks ago is no longer accessible. The 10-week window is rolling forwards with you. The Point? Buy more space than some perceived or mathematical minimum so you have more time travel range. This is not a great target in which to try to save a measly $20 or $50.
I've written about the topic more than once and you've probably read the details posted by me so here's my recommendations in a nutshell (ask questions if you need more info):
  1. Get yourself at least TWO BIG HDDs for TM. By "big", I mean at least 3-4 times the total storage size you'll have in that new Mac... PLUS if there are any other Macs in the household that also need backed up (spouse? children? Etc?), add that storage too. For example, if your MB will come with 1TB and someone else has 1TB too, my HDD selections would be at least 2TB times 3+ or 6TB-8TB for each TM discs. 6TB vs. 8TB vs. 10TB HDDs are all CHEAP, so spend a few extra bucks to overdo this decision a little. Good HDDs will last 5-10 or more years (I have some still working that are 20+ years old). Too much TM size is much preferred to barely enough.
  2. When you have your new MB, set up each of them as TM backup drives. Then let it back up to Drive A (first backup will take a LONG time), then Drive B (again a long time).
  3. Store that fresh TM backup on B OFFSITE. A cheap & easy option is a bank safe deposit box but anywhere safe & secure and somewhat distant from Drive A and Mac is fine. Think about the worst-case scenarios. If- for example- your whole town could get flooded, don't choose your offsite location in your town. Some distance between A & B increases the odds of recovery in worst case scenarios.
  4. Enjoy your MB and let A auto backup as you develop new files for it.
  5. Think about how long would be too long to lose all newly created files on that MB. Is that a month? 2 months? 2 weeks? Whatever that is for you, make that your repeating date to "rotate" your TM drives.
  6. Regularly swap the one offsite with the one onsite and then it takes over as the current TM backup drive. If- like me- your timetable was- say- 30 days, worst case scenario would be fire/flood/theft on day 29... because you would be likely to lose any newly created files in that 29-day span of time. But offsite TM drive will recover almost everything, minus those 29 days.
  7. Repeat #6 on your rotation schedule.
If you wanted a bit more security, you could "offsite" backup very recently created files- those you create/add since you rotated your offsite & onsite drives- by using a little cloud space: iCloud, Dropbox, Microsoft, Google and others. Then you'd have a copy on your MB, a backup on your TM drive onsite and another backup on a cloud drive(s) somewhere else. This approach could avoid the "day 29" extreme example described in #6. If you suffered fire/flood/theft on day 29, you could recover almost everything from your offsite TM backup and then the last 29 days of newest files you've backed up to cloud storage. That would get you all the way back.

In my own case, I have "overdone" it with backups:
  • Desktop Mac is my primary Mac.
  • Two BIG HDDs for TM (one offsite, rotated monthly)
  • I have my own Synology NAS with Time Machine set up on it too. So this is a second "local" (or onsite) TM drive. Synology is very much a RAID-like setup, so a drive can fail, be replaced and not lose any data stored on it. So that's kind of like 2 onsite backups in one.
  • Recently created files are duplicated to a MB and some to iDevices, so my "29 day" worst case is not really that risky. As I'm "on the go" regularly, it's automatic to keep 2 Macs in sync. A good bit of software to make that easy is Chronosync.
  • I also use a little free cloud space for select, newly-created files, so some are there too.
  • Very precious files like photos & home movies are shared with other family members on their computers at various distant points, so that's towards an ultimate offsite backup for those kinds of files.
That's a LOT of opportunities to recover in about any scenario. But that IS wayyyyyyy overkill. Minimally, the TWO BIG HDDs approach shared above can go a very long way for most people. If you wanted a bit more confidence, make it THREE BIG HDDs with TWO offsite. Even more? Store the two offsite in two different locations.

One last tip: Buy yourself a battery backup in which you plug both that new MB and this TM backup drive. Being able to survive brief power outages by switching to battery means an in-progress TM backup doesn't have much risk of getting corrupted. On the other hand, just plugging into "the wall" and a power blink during a backup could corrupt the TM backup and you have to recreate the entire thing from scratch (cutting the time travel ability down to only the current version of your files).

Sorry you had to pay the hefty fee to recover whatever the drive recovery service could get. Execute the numbered checklist described above and you would be unlikely to have to ever do that again. Enjoy your new MB... and good backup strategy.

synology seems expensive. Cheap models are at $200 with no disks.
 

seggy

macrumors 6502
Feb 13, 2016
373
258
Dear peoples,

my first ever MacBook will be delivered next week.
I’m coming from a 10yr-old Windows laptop and I had a broken external HDD which failed in 2019 and had to professionally restored for a lot of money.

Right now I have 2 external WD passport HDDs (1TB) from 2019 which have been used to store photos, documents, music and family videos from the past and which were rescued from that company.

Please, advise me what to do in the future.


If you're not willing to pay for full cloud backup (I personally would) Time Machine is the most friendly local backup option for a born-again Mac user, especially someone who clearly didn't put any effort into making use of the superior (paid) backup tools under Windows. Time Machine works just fine for the most part, as long as you actually monitor it working. It can also use multiple disks which after setting up, you just plug in andcheck it's backing up.

I suspect if you had such poor discipline under Windows, then SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner may prove just as ineffective - but I would agree with the other posters that these tools provide more unambiguous feedback that a specific backup is actually taking place.

Time Machine on a Synology NAS is the potentially the best 'leave it mostly alone' whole-home option again if you want to keep it local, especially as if you don't cheap out on HDD's and spring for something like Red Pros it should just keep on trucking... though remember that RAID isn't a backup of a backup, it's just drive failure insurance. Why Synology? Once again, it's pretty Mac user friendly for starters. In light of all the other advice he's given, if you're going down this route you should probably ask @HobeSoundDarryl to handhold you on how to create your own sparsebundles on NAS's so that TM doesn't break as much.
 

HobeSoundDarryl

macrumors G5
synology seems expensive. Cheap models are at $200 with no disks.

IMO: Synology is best as personal/small business NAS. We're Apple people here. iPhone "seems expensive"... as do Macs, iPads, Watch, HPs, even AppleTV. How we rationalize paying much more than comparable offerings is that it is "best."

However, that shared: core recommendation to OP is NOT to buy a NAS, but as little as 2 BIG HDDs. These other options are available too but not necessary for at least a very basic level of reliable onsite & offsite backups.

If cost is a big concern, buy 2 BIG HDDs as bare drives. Example: I see 8TB new on Amazon right now for about $150 each, so $300 for two. If I was willing to take a little more risk on refurb "renewed", I see the same for about $75 each. I also pick up a simple HDD dock (about $40) to use with them and 2 plastic cases (about $18) for transport to/from offsite location and storing there. I do this very thing myself with my 2 drives... for MANY years now.

So for $300 + $40 + $18 or about $360, I could get twin 8TB HDDs new for TM... or for $150 + $40 + $18, or about $200 for twin "renewed" 8TBs.

Obviously, both prices drop if I go for less capacity and go up for more capacity... but not by huge amounts... because HDDs overall are very cheap storage. For example, 20TB drives new are about $275 and "renewed" down to about $180. So for a budget of maybe $600 for new or about $420 "renewed", I could have dual 20TB storage onsite & offsite.

The pain- if you ask me- on the cost-from-scratch front (meaning someone doesn't already have ANYTHING along these lines to use now) is the good tip to ALSO use a quality UPS "battery backup" for both (OPs) new Mac and this TM enclsoure or dock... so that a power blink has much less chance of corrupting a current TM write in progress. The big ones there can be towards $150-$200 by themselves... but money well spent vs. depending on power straight from the socket. Of course, one can always opt for lessor UPS options, though I find that substantially less battery doesn't seem to translate to substantially lower prices. OPs laptop battery will likely protect against power blinks but the dock or enclosure would be exposed to any blinks or outright power failures. If TM is backing up at such a time, the TM backup file could get corrupted... and then have to be recreated from scratch again.
 
Last edited:

AppleMango

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 2, 2019
202
103
Many thanks to all of you for your responses, especially @HobeSoundDarryl, you put so much effort and detail in your posts over and over again. Impressive and helpful!

I realise that not only me, but of the many people I spoke to from my personal environment, the majority has no strategy or approach to data backup and safety.
It’s like we all expect it to work flawlessly and negate the fact that things can go wrong or fail.

I try to see the upside now: it’s not too late YET and it’s the right time to think about it NOW.
Hence, given my even growing concerns, maybe I could take a step back and share more details to find my individual approach?

My setup looks like this:
1. Apple-ecosystem since 2018 (iPhone, iPad, Watch, tv)
-> I only started using Apple devices with the iPhone X and slowly adopted more devices. I’ve been using iCloud on all devices and have about 20.000 photos and 1000 videos in the library as well as 4GB in the files.
-> from next week I will have my first ever MacBook with 1TB storage.

2. Windows laptop from 2013
-> this machine will retire next week once the MacBook is turned on. However,


I had issues with the Windows laptop in the past and therefore never amassed lots of data on the laptop itself. I always manually backed it up to an external WD passport HDD. This HDD eventually failed and I paid a good amount of money to get it restored which worked for the most bits. I was especially worried about my photos. This was in 2019. The company gave me 2 Toshiba HDD-copies which I’ve been using as a manual backup. So once a month roughly I would transfer new data to TOSHIBA1 and then irregularly copy that to TOSHIBA2 which is stored at my parents.

I’ve been doing this for the last couple of years and I don’t want to have another scare.

I’m overwhelmed by the amount of photos and data on iCloud because I have no idea how to back this up, because I learned today that iCloud (of course!) is not a safe back up option as well. Or at least not when it’s the only one.

I want to get it right and have a strategy moving forward to secure the “old” data from pre-Apple times and secure the data from Apple-times.

Yesterday I went to a computer store in town and I was just intimidated by what the people were telling. Get SSD, don’t get SSD, get this brand, avoid that brand, use Dropbox, etc. etc….


Whoever made it through that drama, bear with me. Thank you for your help!
 

HobeSoundDarryl

macrumors G5
Yes, iCloud should only be thought of as a "sort-of backup" but NOT a complete one. Delete some photos on any one device and they will be deleted on all devices. iCloud is mostly about making it easy to have the same photos & videos available to all of your Mac devices, not "offsite" storage in the context of this discussion.

So again, I'll point back to my own post #2 for most of what you seek:
  1. Get at least TWO BIG HDDs to use a TM drives.
  2. With that PC, make one more solid effort to be sure everything is backed up to those 2 Toshiba drives before you retire it. That way, you'll know that all key data on that PC is securely on the 2 Toshibas.
  3. To address your new concern about photos on iCloud, check the "How to download all your iCloud photos to your Mac" section at the bottom of this article. That will get all of your Photos app photos & videos onto your new Mac (and may take many days to do so depending on how many photos you have- so you might have to wait for the full transfer over upwards of a week+). If you lack the new Mac storage space to "fit" all of them on it, you'll need to download them to another drive (like your Toshibas) and then perhaps pick & choose the favorites to take up space on the internal drive on your new Mac (a very common tactic by Mac users). This article talks to downloading all iCloud photos to an external drive... maybe they can all fit on your Toshibas?
  4. For your own peace of mind, you might at least spot check photos on Mac vs. photos in iCloud (using an iDevice) to be confident they are all downloaded to your Mac. AFTER you are SURE you have them on the new MB, you might turn off using iCloud for Photos to free up all that space it takes (after 30 days). This would make your Mac your official store of photos instead of iCloud, which would then mean you need to regularly connect your iDevices to Mac to sync new photos you take onto your Mac. This article shares how to do this easily. And this article covers how to sync the OTHER way, so you could- for example- create some favorite photos albums and only sync them (instead of "all photos") onto your iDevices to save huge storage space on them. As implied by that same article, you can do the same trick with music playlists vs. "all music", movies, TV shows, etc. By taking advantage of such approaches you can basically bail on using any more than the base & free iCloud storage while having favorite photos, music, videos, etc with you on your iDevices.
  5. Set up the two #1 drives as TM and what is now stored on your Mac will be backed up to TM. First backups to TM typically take a LONG time (an overnight, day and sometimes another overnight is not a unheard of amount of time for backup #1, and you'll go through that TWICE for 2 drives)
  6. Either while or after drive B completes a TM backup, take already-backed-up "A" to your safe, secure offsite location. This fire/flood/theft-proofs your backups and is THE CRUCIAL TASK.
  7. Perhaps put a recurring reminder in calendar or reminders to prompt you to swap the drives on the amount of days you want to wait... unless- like me- you perhaps choose monthly and then just let the change of month be your trigger to swap TM drives.
  8. If both Toshibas are basically PC file duplicates of each other, one of those should go to your offsite location too. Over time, I presume you'll import the various PC files you can use on your Mac until you reach a point where you probably don't need to access the Toshiba at all anymore. If that ends up being ALL of the files on the Toshiba, once you reach that point, you could basically repurpose the Toshiba for other uses... as then your rotating TM drives will be backing up all of the same files and safely storing a copy of them offsite too. BOTH Toshibas could be repurposed at that time if ALL files end up on the Mac and thus in TM backups. And note: if some of the Toshiba files are PC only (can't open/edit them on Mac), you could allocate a bit of space for them on Mac and store them there and TM would back them up. That way you don't end up preserving Toshibas as PC backups for only a few files that aren't compatible with Mac.
I've tried to be detailed and that may look like a lot but it's really just some step-by-step tasks to get to your destination. Once you have dual TMs with one offsite, you can basically declare "victory!" and not worry about the risk of expensive recovery again. Just be sure you regularly execute #7 so that you don't have a fire/flood/theft-type scenario and the offsite backup hasn't been swapped for a very long time. In this basic approach, that OFFSITE TM copy is the CRUCIAL "last resort" option, so its freshness is key to recovering just about everything.

If you wanted one more punch of easy backup security, add a third drive to this mix- the SAME size as your Mac's internal drive and use Fishrrman's advice back in #8 by (also) using the free SuperDuper or CCC to do a full clone of your Mac to the external drive... and then just regularly update or repeat that type of backup too and store that drive OFFSITE as well. If your Toshibas are the same size as the internal storage in your new MB, they could potentially become a drive or two to use in this way. Else, you could partition them so you have a partition the same size as the new MB internal storage and then SD or CCC to that partition.

And again: buy a UPS "Battery backup" to be sure your TM backups are not interrupted by power blinks. A corrupted TM file doesn't scratch this itch. If your HDD dock or enclosure is plugged directly into the wall and thus at the mercy of power outages, most of all of this is at great risk of failing you sooner or later.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: MacBH928

MacBH928

macrumors G3
May 17, 2008
8,327
3,719
Have you considered Backblaze or CrashPlan?

You pay like $10 and get unlimited backup but I do not go this path because of privacy reasons
 
  • Like
Reactions: HobeSoundDarryl

hobowankenobi

macrumors 68020
Aug 27, 2015
2,076
883
on the land line mr. smith.
As the grizzled old IT guys like to say...

There are 2 kinds of users: those who have lost data...and those who will.

Don't worry too much about the cable, brand, or type of backup drives. As has been mentioned, all modern data backups are essentially incremental, so beyond the first pass, speed is rarely an issue for normal users. All the noise about SSD, or Thunderbolt, or a specific brand is typically way overkill for backups.

Reliability is key. Speed is a distant second, especially when trying to stretch a limited budget. There was a time, back at USB 2 and older, that one could make a strong case. But with USB 3.1 or newer, I suggest it just isn't a thing anymore, outside of power users working in massive files (typically video or high res photo).

If you like the idea of the rotating drives (an oldie but a goodie), I like a drive dock and bare drives. You need to handle bare drives more carefully, but the flexibility is nice. You can re-use old drives, and snap them up when on sale. I typically rotate through several older HDs, knowing I have layers of protection. Some get rotated often, and some get a snapshot in time (every 6 months), for layers of defense. It also allows using HDs for a long time. If they fail, no worries. Take it out of the rotation, as there are several others.

Practice restoring data so you know how it works and can have confidence in the system. Would you rather learn how to change a tire for the first time in your driveway on a sunny day...or in the dark, stranded alone on the side of the road, while late to an important appointment?

Summary of general points:
  • Have several HDs that get rotated often.
  • Be sure BU HDs are several times larger than the drive being backed up. Generally more space = more history/more versions of files.
  • Store at least one drive away from the system and safer(r) from disaster, including fire, flood, theft, alien invasion, etc. A fireproof safe is a good start, off-site is better.
  • Maintain some cloud backup/sync that can restore the most recent things that have not made it onto local backups...as well as the most priceless data.
  • Schedule test restores from local and cloud sources...to verify backups are working as expected.
  • The most important stuff to back up is unique user data. OS and apps are secondary.
Backup tools I have used and trust, either at work or at home:

ChronoSync
CCC
SuperDuper
Get Backup Pro
SmartBackup
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: HobeSoundDarryl

HobeSoundDarryl

macrumors G5
A Sabrent dock is on my own shopping list for a TM set-up. I am a bit conflicted about whether to go with 3.5" or 2.5" HDs, though.

3.5" because you'll get much more storage for about the same money. I can't think of ANY good reason to choose 2.5" over 3.5" for backup purposes. Maybe your offsite storage space is too small for a relatively tiny 3.5" drive?

I believe 2.5" only exists for physical space wants. For example, there was a time where 2.5" was ideal for an ever-thinning laptop form factor... and the original AppleTV used a 2.5" for a smaller overall package. But where the difference in physical size almost certainly won't matter, 3.5" is simply going to get you more storage space for the same money... and up to much more storage space if you wish to have TM "back in time" reach well beyond the biggest capacity 2.5" drive.
 
  • Like
Reactions: hobowankenobi

MacBH928

macrumors G3
May 17, 2008
8,327
3,719
If you like the idea of the rotating drives (an oldie but a goodie), I like a drive dock and bare drives.

I didn't know spinning disks can be operated back side up. I thought they should always be flat otherwise they will malfunction if you move or shake them.


You need to handle bare drives more carefully, but the flexibility is nice. You can re-use old drives, and snap them up when on sale. I typically rotate through several older HDs, knowing I have layers of protection. Some get rotated often, and some get a snapshot in time (every 6 months), for layers of defense. It also allows using HDs for a long time. If they fail, no worries. Take it out of the rotation, as there are several others.

spinning disks scare me as you never know when will they fail and start clicking. I hardly heard of SSD fail. Electronics from ions ago with ssd storage still work correctly.

  • Backup tools I have used and trust, either at work or at home:

Do you know of an encrypted cloud storage that I can click a button and backup my computer to the cloud like on CCC? There are services like BackBlaze that say they encrypt but I do not trust them. I am paranoid when it comes to online storage.

ChronoSync
CCC
SuperDuper
Get Backup Pro
SmartBackup

any one you find better than the other? I dislike CCC gui but its service+functionality is great. very reliable.

3.5" because you'll get much more storage for about the same money. I can't think of ANY good reason to choose 2.5" over 3.5" for backup purposes. Maybe your offsite storage space is too small for a relatively tiny 3.5" drive?

I believe 2.5" only exists for physical space wants. For example, there was a time where 2.5" was ideal for an ever-thinning laptop form factor... and the original AppleTV used a 2.5" for a smaller overall package. But where the difference in physical size almost certainly won't matter, 3.5" is simply going to get you more storage space for the same money... and up to much more storage space if you wish to have TM "back in time" reach well beyond the biggest capacity 2.5" drive.

depending on the use case, if for laptop like OP, 2.5 can be powered via USB. 3.5 disks need external power source. I am almost never on a desk.
 

hobowankenobi

macrumors 68020
Aug 27, 2015
2,076
883
on the land line mr. smith.
Hard drives are non-directional. angle or direction makes no difference at all.

Yes, they are fairly sensitive to shock shock while in use. Same problem with all devices easily moved...laptops, externals, etc. I find that docks in this toaster configuration are less likely to be moved than externals with short cables that often get moved while in use. Not good.

Spinning disks are certainly less reliable than SSD. That is the main reason to have more than 1 for backup. 2 is good, 3 or more is better. Bare drives become much more cost-effective and flexible compared to externals.

The fiip side is...when HDs fail, they often give warning by acting or sounding funny. This sometimes gives users some time to retrieve data and swap out before failure, just like in the OP's experience. SSDs typically fail catastrophically with no chance of data recovery.
 
  • Like
Reactions: HobeSoundDarryl

hobowankenobi

macrumors 68020
Aug 27, 2015
2,076
883
on the land line mr. smith.
any one you find better than the other? I dislike CCC gui but its service+functionality is great. very reliable.
ChronoSync is the most feature-rich, but somewhat like CCC, the interface is not the easiest to wrap your brain around for a typical user. It takes more to set up, and with the complexity comes more control....average users would likely not use all of its functionality.

For the combo of both easy and feature-rich, Get Backup Pro is my favorite. Free demo, so no risk to give it a test drive.

The simplest one (and free) is SmartBackup. This tool is all about syncing data, either to local drives or mounted network file shares, and it has a simple interface with all the essentials, including warnings about errors. It seems fast to be compared to Time Machine (...never tested or timed, just observation). I used this one for many months to shovel hourly backups to a mounted Synology network volume, with never a bobble or error.

CCC and SuperDuper have been great for a couple of decades. I have only used the free/limited version of SuperDuper, so I can't speak to the value or performance of the full version.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MacBH928

hobowankenobi

macrumors 68020
Aug 27, 2015
2,076
883
on the land line mr. smith.
For any body following along, most Mac syncing and backup apps use the old Unix tool rsync as the actual engine, and the dev adds a user-friendly GUI so we don't all have to be CLI warriors. Last time I checked, CCC and SuperDuper, along with literally dozens of other tools were built on rsync.

In fact, rsync is built into Macs, so I would guess that Time Machine is built on rsync too. It lives in this directory:

/usr/bin/rsync

So hypothetically, most backup tools could have the same feature set. But it is up to developers to build the front end for the options they want to include...and there are a lot:

Copyright (C) 1996-2006 by Andrew Tridgell, Wayne Davison, and others.
<http://rsync.samba.org/>
Capabilities: 64-bit files, socketpairs, hard links, symlinks, batchfiles,
inplace, IPv6, 64-bit system inums, 64-bit internal inums

rsync comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software, and you
are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions. See the GNU
General Public Licence for details.

rsync is a file transfer program capable of efficient remote update
via a fast differencing algorithm.

Usage: rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... DEST
or rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST-EST
or rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOST:-EST
or rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[-ORT]/DEST
or rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST:SRC [DEST]
or rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST::SRC [DEST]
or rsync [OPTION]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[-ORT]/SRC [DEST]
The ':' usages connect via remote shell, while '::' & 'rsync://' usages connect
to an rsync daemon, and require SRC or DEST to start with a module name.

Options
-v, --verbose increase verbosity
-q, --quiet suppress non-error messages
--no-motd suppress daemon-mode MOTD (see manpage caveat)
-c, --checksum skip based on checksum, not mod-time & size
-a, --archive archive mode; same as -rlptgoD (no -H)
--no-OPTION turn off an implied OPTION (e.g. --no-D)
-r, --recursive recurse into directories
-R, --relative use relative path names
--no-implied-dirs don't send implied dirs with --relative
-b, --backup make backups (see --suffix & --backup-dir)
--backup-dir=DIR make backups into hierarchy based in DIR
--suffix=SUFFIX set backup suffix (default ~ w/o --backup-dir)
-u, --update skip files that are newer on the receiver
--inplace update destination files in-place (SEE MAN PAGE)
--append append data onto shorter files
-d, --dirs transfer directories without recursing
-l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
-L, --copy-links transform symlink into referent file/dir
--copy-unsafe-links only "unsafe" symlinks are transformed
--safe-links ignore symlinks that point outside the source tree
-k, --copy-dirlinks transform symlink to a dir into referent dir
-K, --keep-dirlinks treat symlinked dir on receiver as dir
-H, --hard-links preserve hard links
-p, --perms preserve permissions
--executability preserve the file's executability
--chmod=CHMOD affect file and/or directory permissions
-o, --owner preserve owner (super-user only)
-g, --group preserve group
--devices preserve device files (super-user only)
--specials preserve special files
-D same as --devices --specials
-t, --times preserve times
-O, --omit-dir-times omit directories when preserving times
--super receiver attempts super-user activities
-S, --sparse handle sparse files efficiently
-n, --dry-run show what would have been transferred
-W, --whole-file copy files whole (without rsync algorithm)
-x, --one-file-system don't cross filesystem boundaries
-B, --block-size=SIZE force a fixed checksum block-size
-e, --rsh=COMMAND specify the remote shell to use
--rsync-path=PROGRAM specify the rsync to run on the remote machine
--existing skip creating new files on receiver
--ignore-existing skip updating files that already exist on receiver
--remove-source-files sender removes synchronized files (non-dirs)
--del an alias for --delete-during
--delete delete extraneous files from destination dirs
--delete-before receiver deletes before transfer (default)
--delete-during receiver deletes during transfer, not before
--delete-after receiver deletes after transfer, not before
--delete-excluded also delete excluded files from destination dirs
--ignore-errors delete even if there are I/O errors
--force force deletion of directories even if not empty
--max-delete=NUM don't delete more than NUM files
--max-size=SIZE don't transfer any file larger than SIZE
--min-size=SIZE don't transfer any file smaller than SIZE
--partial keep partially transferred files
--partial-dir=DIR put a partially transferred file into DIR
--delay-updates put all updated files into place at transfer's end
-m, --prune-empty-dirs prune empty directory chains from the file-list
--numeric-ids don't map uid/gid values by user/group name
--timeout=TIME set I/O timeout in seconds
-I, --ignore-times don't skip files that match in size and mod-time
--size-only skip files that match in size
--modify-window=NUM compare mod-times with reduced accuracy
-T, --temp-dir=DIR create temporary files in directory DIR
-y, --fuzzy find similar file for basis if no dest file
--compare-dest=DIR also compare destination files relative to DIR
--copy-dest=DIR ... and include copies of unchanged files
--link-dest=DIR hardlink to files in DIR when unchanged
-z, --compress compress file data during the transfer
--compress-level=NUM explicitly set compression level
-C, --cvs-exclude auto-ignore files the same way CVS does
-f, --filter=RULE add a file-filtering RULE
-F same as --filter='dir-merge /.rsync-filter'
repeated: --filter='- .rsync-filter'
--exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
--exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE
--include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN
--include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE
--files-from=FILE read list of source-file names from FILE
-0, --from0 all *-from/filter files are delimited by 0s
--address=ADDRESS bind address for outgoing socket to daemon
--port=PORT specify double-colon alternate port number
--sockopts=OPTIONS specify custom TCP options
--blocking-io use blocking I/O for the remote shell
--stats give some file-transfer stats
-8, --8-bit-output leave high-bit chars unescaped in output
-h, --human-readable output numbers in a human-readable format
--progress show progress during transfer
-P same as --partial --progress
-i, --itemize-changes output a change-summary for all updates
--out-format=FORMAT output updates using the specified FORMAT
--log-file=FILE log what we're doing to the specified FILE
--log-file-format=FMT log updates using the specified FMT
--password-file=FILE read password from FILE
--list-only list the files instead of copying them
--bwlimit=KBPS limit I/O bandwidth; KBytes per second
--write-batch=FILE write a batched update to FILE
--only-write-batch=FILE like --write-batch but w/o updating destination
--read-batch=FILE read a batched update from FILE
--protocol=NUM force an older protocol version to be used
-E, --extended-attributes copy extended attributes
--cache disable fcntl(F_NOCACHE)
-4, --ipv4 prefer IPv4
-6, --ipv6 prefer IPv6
--version print version number
(-h) --help show this help (-h works with no other options)
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: MacBH928
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.