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Backup

W

Wirenut

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 6, 2016
198
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CrashPlan is no longer doing consumer backups so I have to find a new offsite backup provider.

Right now I use the CrashPlan app to backup both to my local external hard drive and to their offsite storage.

I would like something similar that I don't have to worry about, something that just works seamlessly in the background.

The only thing I backup is about 15 gigs of stuff in the Documents folder. That's all of my business and personal stuff and the only thing I take with me when changing computers.

Can I use Time Machine to backup to my local external hard drive and then use iCloud Drive as an offsite backup? Would that be a reasonable plan?
 
Do you have a Google account? You get 15 GB free Drive storage, now accessible using Google's "Backup and Sync" app on Macs. For $2.00/month, you can upgrade to 100 GB.

For Apple you have the option for a 50 GB plan, for $1.00/month. If you plan to keep your data strictly under 15 GB, Google is the better deal as you won't have to pay anything.
 
I will probably pass 15Gigs at some point.

I currently pay the $1 for 50 gigs on iCloud since I keep my pictures there. I have 35 gigs available.

Is iCloud Drive OK for backing up data? I wasn't sure if it's more for access to your stuff than actual backup.
 
OP wrote:
"The only thing I backup is about 15 gigs of stuff in the Documents folder. That's all of my business and personal stuff and the only thing I take with me when changing computers."

All you have to backup is 15gb of data?

Gee, man, why PAY someone to do this "online"?
That's a serious question.

If all you have to backup is 15gb, and it exists in ONE folder (the Documents folder), just do this:

- Buy 3 USB3 flash drives. 32gb size is good enough. Or 64gb.
- Initialize all 3 of them.
- Set all 3 up with filevault (same password for all of them is good enough)
- Use the finder to copy your Documents folder to each one. 15gb ain't that much to copy.
- You now have THREE backups of your critical data

Keep one close-at-hand (for if internal drive fails)
Keep one in your car (chances are if your house burns down, the car will survive)
Keep the last one at work (in a drawer, in a locker, in a safe).
You could "rotate" them once a week if necessary (do a fresh backup copy once or twice a week)

I can't believe ANYONE would pay to backup 15gb of data. Makes no sense.

A local time machine backup of the entire internal drive wouldn't hurt either.
BETTER YET - use either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper to create a bootable cloned backup of your internal drive.
This will SAVE YOUR REAR END if you ever have an "I can't boot!!!!!!!" moment.
 
Fishrrman said:
All you have to backup is 15gb of data?

Gee, man, why PAY someone to do this "online"?
That's a serious question.
Click to expand...
I understand where you are going, but $5 is worth the peace of mind and not having to do anything.

I can't believe ANYONE would pay to backup 15gb of data. Makes no sense.
Click to expand...
It makes perfect sense.

The method that you spelled out only makes backups once a week, and I have to do that manually. A week's worth of data is a LOT of QuickBooks entries and could be disastrous if lost. Sure, I could do it more often, but that is now becoming a pain to have to always do it. CrashPlan backs up for me every hour. I could set it to every 15 minutes or even every minute if necessary.

MUCH better option than backing up manually.
 
Hell, 13.5 gigs of that 15 gigs was the Photos library. So when I turned iCloud Drive on it didn't have to transfer those pictures since all of my Photos were already in the iCloud.
 
Your Photos Library should be in the Pictures folder, I'm pretty sure, but it seems that functionally you have found that it doesn't matter when it comes to iCloud and Photos.
 
BrianBaughn said:
Your Photos Library should be in the Pictures folder, I'm pretty sure, but it seems that functionally you have found that it doesn't matter when it comes to iCloud and Photos.
Click to expand...
I moved it out of the Pictures folder into the Documents folder since that is the folder I was backing up with CrashPlan.

If I am going to use iCloud Drive to backup, then I guess it doesn't matter where it is as you mentioned.
 
@Wirenut Hey, since I was called out in this thread, I can definitely welcome you over to the Arq thread that Weaselboy linked to. I am very happy with Arq + Backblaze B2.

All data is perfectly safe there (I trust Arq + B2's storage systems completely since they are both super well-designed). And my storage bills each month are around $0.5, since it's pay-per-gigabyte at a very, very competitive price. Hehe.

Any questions, please write them only in the Arq thread. I will not reply here anymore, to avoid splitting the good info across threads.
 
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