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Backup solution for iMac

M

Motoxmann

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 17, 2010
72
2
Just wanted to get an idea of what everyone's using for backups on their iMacs.

Im replacing an iMac that was stolen and the new one has an internal 256gb ssd and I'll be using a 3TB external usb3 HDD for storage. I'm looking for a reliable way to back the system up. On my last one I had an external usb drive that I used with Time Machine to do daily backups, but it sat right next to the iMac and was taken as well. I was thinking about possibly a NAS of some sort that I can hide in the house somewhere.

Anyone have any thoughts or ideas on the matter?
 
That really sucks.

I have two 1TB drives and a WD 3TB "MyCloud" that's attached by ethernet to my Airport Extreme. The WD functions as a NAS and I put my TimeMachine backup on it.

A few years ago my unbackedup laptop was stolen. For me, today, more backup is always better. Carbon Copy Cloner images my SSD every night to one of the 1TB drives. I use Backblaze as an offsite backup of my SSD and all my photos. One offsite service isn't enough, so I backup my most precious docs at CrashPlan too. The NAS is two rooms away from the computer, which I think is important from a security standpoint.

I'm comfortable with my current backup regimen. YMMV.
 
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cincygolfgrrl said:
I have two 1TB drives and a WD 3TB "MyCloud" that's attached by ethernet to my Airport Extreme. The WD functions as a NAS and I put my TimeMachine backup on it.

A few years ago my unbackedup laptop was stolen. For me, today, more backup is always better. Carbon Copy Cloner images my SSD every night to one of the 1TB drives. I use Backblaze as an offsite backup of my SSD and all my photos. One offsite service isn't enough, so I backup my most precious docs at CrashPlan too. The NAS is two rooms away from the computer, which I think is important from a security standpoint.

I'm comfortable with my current backup regimen. YMMV.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tips. I was looking at the "MyCloud" drives and thought one of those might work pretty well for my application. How do you like it? Does it play nice with Time Machine? I like the idea of being able to put it in another room for security purposes.

I'll look into the online services as well. All I really care about data wise is all of our pictures. I do a lot of photography stuff, and when everything was taken in the break-in we lost the first 11 months of photos of my daughter. With Backblaze/Crashplan can you select only certain folders/drives to back up or does it back up everything. I don't care to waste bandwith on games and such, just the pictures.
 
If you have the budget go for a Qnap or Synology, there's nothing better in the market for a Home NAS,they have time machine server and shared folders, plus all the other services.
Now I can't live without !
 
Motoxmann said:
Just wanted to get an idea of what everyone's using for backups on their iMacs.

Im replacing an iMac that was stolen and the new one has an internal 256gb ssd and I'll be using a 3TB external usb3 HDD for storage. I'm looking for a reliable way to back the system up. On my last one I had an external usb drive that I used with Time Machine to do daily backups, but it sat right next to the iMac and was taken as well. I was thinking about possibly a NAS of some sort that I can hide in the house somewhere.

Anyone have any thoughts or ideas on the matter?
Click to expand...

You'd still be backing up locally which is good against accidental loss of data, but it might still get stolen or lost in a fire.
Personally I keep my most important files in the cloud and a copy of my photo library (a bit too big/costly for cloud) on a big USB stick in my car because I would especially hate to lose pictures of my kids when they were small.
 
I use Time Machine but for important stuff like pictures, videos and important documents, I have a 4TB hard drive in a safe deposit box at the bank and about once every 6 months or so, I pull the hard drive from the bank and back everything up. Sure, the backups are not current, but it's the safest place I know to keep backups. Cloud backups hold security risks which I'm not comfortable with.
 
Bacci said:
You'd still be backing up locally which is good against accidental loss of data, but it might still get stolen or lost in a fire.
Personally I keep my most important files in the cloud and a copy of my photo library (a bit too big/costly for cloud) on a big USB stick in my car because I would especially hate to lose pictures of my kids when they were small.
Click to expand...

Backblaze has unlimited storage, so there's no reason not to backup everything to the cloud. Sure, it will take quite a while for it all to be seeded initially, but then you will have the peace of mind that you have everything backup up off site.
 
Motoxmann said:
I was looking at the "MyCloud" drives and thought one of those might work pretty well for my application. How do you like it? Does it play nice with Time Machine? I like the idea of being able to put it in another room for security purposes.
Click to expand...

"MyCloud" is set up to work with TimeMachine. It does a good job.

Both Backblaze and CrashPlan are $60/year each and either will store whatever you want to upload — you choose using a dashboard with checkboxes for each drive.

I have at least two copies of everything locally which provide the quick and easy restore solution in the event of drive failure, plus I have the offsite cloud backups in the event of catastrophe. Someone has a better solution.
 
cincygolfgrrl said:
"MyCloud" is set up to work with TimeMachine. It does a good job.

Both Backblaze and CrashPlan are $60/year each and either will store whatever you want to upload — you choose using a dashboard with checkboxes for each drive.

I have at least two copies of everything locally which provide the quick and easy restore solution in the event of drive failure, plus I have the offsite cloud backups in the event of catastrophe. Someone has a better solution.
Click to expand...

That sounds like a plan. Ill pick one of the mycloud drives and give it a shot. Ill definitely check out back blaze or crash plan as well. Thanks!
 
I use two different applications and two separate HD’s for my backing up.

I have a 4TB external hard drive, which I solely use for Time Machine backups.

I have another external hard drive that I use solely for taking clones of my iMac with Carbon Copy Cloner.

With Carbon Copy Cloner, I can have a bootable drive of my iMac. So if I have issues and my iMac won’t boot up, I can boot off of the clone, and then once I’ve done this, I can put the clone back over from the external hard drive and on to my iMac. This means I have a working system again in a very short space of time.

Time Machine backups are useful, for restoring individual files etc, but Carbon Copy Cloner has saved me a lot of time and hassle a couple of times. Having a bootable drive of your computer is a must have, whichever option you choose.
 
Fatboy71 said:
I use two different applications and two separate HD’s for my backing up.

I have a 4TB external hard drive, which I solely use for Time Machine backups.

I have another external hard drive that I use solely for taking clones of my iMac with Carbon Copy Cloner.

With Carbon Copy Cloner, I can have a bootable drive of my iMac. So if I have issues and my iMac won’t boot up, I can boot off of the clone, and then once I’ve done this, I can put the clone back over from the external hard drive and on to my iMac. This means I have a working system again in a very short space of time.

Time Machine backups are useful, for restoring individual files etc, but Carbon Copy Cloner has saved me a lot of time and hassle a couple of times. Having a bootable drive of your computer is a must have, whichever option you choose.
Click to expand...

I was going to do this as well and then store the drive offsite at a relatives house. I actually did it with my last iMac but never got around to taking the cloned drive offsite. Live and learn I guess
 
i have 1 backup on my time capsule, which serves as my internet base :D. and i have one physical one
 
Natzoo said:
i have 1 backup on my time capsule, which serves as my internet base :D. and i have one physical one
Click to expand...

What do you mean by that, it is still a physical copy?

Between fires, floods, robberies, etc., not having an offsite service like Backblaze is foolhardy. Saying that you will take drives off site does not strike me as honest. Will you do that every day? Every week or so? Having a continual backup with a service like Backblaze or Crashplan for $5/mo with unlimited storage seem like a no brainier to me. What does not make sense in these oft repeating back-up threads is the unnecessarily redundant, expensive and overly complicated back-up schemes using drives in the same site.
 
Fatboy71 said:
I use two different applications and two separate HD’s for my backing up.

I have a 4TB external hard drive, which I solely use for Time Machine backups.

I have another external hard drive that I use solely for taking clones of my iMac with Carbon Copy Cloner.

With Carbon Copy Cloner, I can have a bootable drive of my iMac. So if I have issues and my iMac won’t boot up, I can boot off of the clone, and then once I’ve done this, I can put the clone back over from the external hard drive and on to my iMac. This means I have a working system again in a very short space of time.

Time Machine backups are useful, for restoring individual files etc, but Carbon Copy Cloner has saved me a lot of time and hassle a couple of times. Having a bootable drive of your computer is a must have, whichever option you choose.
Click to expand...
Same here! An external 4TB USB3 drive for Time Machine, and a 3TB external drive for an encrypted bootable clone with CCC. I keep the 2nd drive in my office at work, to prevent home robbery.
 
Interesting about Carbone Copy Clone.
I'm using my 3TB Time Capsule for both my iMac and Air on Time Machine, but I may invest in a second large drive for bootable and cloning option.
 
mjohansen said:
Is Backblaze safe to use? Im a bit sceptical in regards to could services.
Click to expand...

Relying only on a cloud service is a bad idea. You need an copy of local disk (2nd backup) and a remote copy (cloud). Potentially, both could fail at the same time but the risk of one method failing is covered by the other one.
 
Wirbowsky said:
Relying only on a cloud service is a bad idea. You need an copy of local disk (2nd backup) and a remote copy (cloud). Potentially, both could fail at the same time but the risk of one method failing is covered by the other one.
Click to expand...

I have a local backup also. The thing Im mostly worried about is hackers. Not that I have anything particular to hide/protect. I just like my privacy.
 
Fatboy71 said:
I use two different applications and two separate HD’s for my backing up.

I have a 4TB external hard drive, which I solely use for Time Machine backups.

I have another external hard drive that I use solely for taking clones of my iMac with Carbon Copy Cloner.

With Carbon Copy Cloner, I can have a bootable drive of my iMac. So if I have issues and my iMac won’t boot up, I can boot off of the clone, and then once I’ve done this, I can put the clone back over from the external hard drive and on to my iMac. This means I have a working system again in a very short space of time.

Time Machine backups are useful, for restoring individual files etc, but Carbon Copy Cloner has saved me a lot of time and hassle a couple of times. Having a bootable drive of your computer is a must have, whichever option you choose.
Click to expand...

CCC sounds like a savior if the internal drive crashes. Can you boot from a cloned USB 3 drive or does it have to be connected to the Thunderbolt port or with a firewire drive with a Thunderbolt adaptor? (I have a new rImac)
 
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I have simplified my workflow and reduced the number of drives. I have a 1TB iMac and a 1TB LaCie external SSD. (It helps to have a minisucle iTunes library, we primarily stream). I also have 250GB LaCie SSD. These are backed up by Time Machine/Time Capsule. I have a larger Raid 1 spinning disk external which holds archival materials; this is not backed up by TM/TC. APC UPS. Everything is also backed up by Backblaze. This system is primarily for work, Adobe CC, Aperture, FCPX, etc. With the peripherals on a bookcase next to my desk, this system allows for very clean desk.

Post-Script: I forgot about iCloud storage, I am not sure what I think of it yet.
 
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cincygolfgrrl said:
Both Backblaze and CrashPlan are $60/year each and either will store whatever you want to upload — you choose using a dashboard with checkboxes for each drive.
Click to expand...

That's not a bad price. But in real world situation, if you have a good upload, how long would it take to do the initial upload of say 500GB?

I've read that it could take months or years for large backups to complete because they throttle each user at a very low rate.
 
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