Just wanted to know what everyone's using for back up solutions on their iMacs. I've got a 3tb fusion drive iMac that I need to start backing up. After having a little scare trying to install the Yosemite beta its time to stop rolling the dice and get this backed up. Appreciate any insights or advice.
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Back up solutions for iMac?
- Thread starter Motoxmann
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I've been using a 2TB Time Capsule (current gen as of 2013), for both my 2013 iMac and my wife's 2012 Mac Mini, since January.
Our machines both have smaller capacity flash/SSD storage (512GB for me and 256GB for her), making the 2TB a solid fit for us.
Haven't had any issues with the Time Capsule both as a Time Machine disk and as a wireless router for all of our devices. The 3TB model might be a nice match for you - unsure what your storage use is like though and whether or not you want a larger "archival backup" or something that just mirrors your system in case something hits the fan.
Hope this helps!
Our machines both have smaller capacity flash/SSD storage (512GB for me and 256GB for her), making the 2TB a solid fit for us.
Haven't had any issues with the Time Capsule both as a Time Machine disk and as a wireless router for all of our devices. The 3TB model might be a nice match for you - unsure what your storage use is like though and whether or not you want a larger "archival backup" or something that just mirrors your system in case something hits the fan.
Hope this helps!
Just grab yourself a USB3 external drive and plug it in and use your Mac's built in Time Machine software to backup. It is part of the OS and works well. You can do a full restore from something like a Yosemite install with it if you need to.
Get a drive 1.5 to 2X the size of the amount of data you expect to have on the Mac and that will allow plenty of room for Time Machine to save versions of files.
Here is some info on it.
Get a drive 1.5 to 2X the size of the amount of data you expect to have on the Mac and that will allow plenty of room for Time Machine to save versions of files.
Here is some info on it.
I use a couple of different drives and software for my backups.
I have a 4TB USB 3 external hard drive, which I use for taking Time Machine backups.
I also have a 1TB external hard drive that I use for taking a clone of my system. I use Carbon Copy Cloner to do this.
Now good as Time Machine is (and it can be used to restore fully your system from a backup if your system has got messed up due to a software issue and it won't boot up) it can take a while to restore your system. But Time Machine is excellent for locating and replacing missing files that you have lost/deleted and the like.
Whereas with Carbon Copy Cloner. If my system won't boot (due to the OS or other software been messed up) I can immediately boot off of my 1TB drive and have a working system again. Once I have booted up off of the clone, I can also restore from my 1TB clone drive to my iMac's drive. I haven't needed to do this yet, but from what I have been told, it is much faster than restoring fully from a Time Machine backup.
I have a 4TB USB 3 external hard drive, which I use for taking Time Machine backups.
I also have a 1TB external hard drive that I use for taking a clone of my system. I use Carbon Copy Cloner to do this.
Now good as Time Machine is (and it can be used to restore fully your system from a backup if your system has got messed up due to a software issue and it won't boot up) it can take a while to restore your system. But Time Machine is excellent for locating and replacing missing files that you have lost/deleted and the like.
Whereas with Carbon Copy Cloner. If my system won't boot (due to the OS or other software been messed up) I can immediately boot off of my 1TB drive and have a working system again. Once I have booted up off of the clone, I can also restore from my 1TB clone drive to my iMac's drive. I haven't needed to do this yet, but from what I have been told, it is much faster than restoring fully from a Time Machine backup.
I use 3 external drives and a cloud solution. First 2 externals are used with Carbon Copy Cloner and are an exact clones of my iMac drive. One is stored in a fire proof safe and is backed up periodically, other stays at iMac. Third external is used with Time Machine. My last solution is Google Drive which I use for my cloud solution. So far it has proved itself to work.
If you want a system backup, go with Carbon Copy. If you just want to restore files/directories or go back and get older versions, get Time Machine running.
Personally, I do both. I have an external HD I plug in once a month to sync my CCC. TM runs all the time to my synology NAS.
Personally, I do both. I have an external HD I plug in once a month to sync my CCC. TM runs all the time to my synology NAS.
I would be more concerned about all the belongings I'd lost in the fire, rather than losing all my data, applications I could source again as all are available online to download. Photos I have on my iMac are stored on a photo hosting site and have been for the last 10 years.
Other data, well I wouldn't be that bothered about losing it, I would have a lot more to be bothered about in the event of a fire.
Mixture for me as well. TM for half daily backups and SuperDuper! for once a month and pre-OS-upgrade backups. Always good to have a second backup strategy... for backup.
Awesome thanks for the replies! I think I'm going to go ahead and pick up a couple of external usb 3.0's and use time machine on one and then a clone on the other. I'll look into something cloud based as well. Never really thought much about it before, but after fearing that I might of lost the last 7 months of photos (raws, edits, etc) since our daughter was born, I figured its time to have some sort of backup safety net.
External drives are great, but if you want to really be safe, use more then one, rotate them and take one and store it offsite at a friends house or somewhere safe. In a worst case scenario, and I know you'll have more important things to worry about then your computer back up, your external drive would likely be damaged or destroyed too, this is why cloud backups are great, they are offsite and safe.
great point on rotating them. I can keep one at the inlaws house for safe keeping. I'll look into some of the cloud solutions mentioned above.
I think Time Capsules are fantastic, but just know that it does take a while to restore from if you need to restore everything or anything large. I agree with others in that you should definitely use multiple solutions and rotate them.
I use a plan like yours with an added cloud backup using BackBlaze in case of physical loss from fire or theft.
