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

How do you backup?

OliveroNYC

OliveroNYC

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 5, 2020
55
35
NYC
Interested to hear what everyone is doing backup-wise on their Mac.

I am currently using 3 external hard drives with Time Machine. One is kept off-site, the other two are used in rotation.
Documents and spreadsheets are in the cloud (where possible), personal documents, and photos on an SSD.
 
Carbon Copy Cloner for a bootable backup (on its own drive). External drives have my iTunes library, Archives and a backup of my photo files (professional and process photos of artwork; library on my iMac). These are backed up on dedicated backup drives using SuperDuper. My photo documentation is also backed up via Amazon storage service (syncs with my photo management software, Mylio). Teaching folders for online courses (current and archived) and other critical projects are also backed up via an enterprise OneDrive account.
 
Last edited:
All drives backed up via CCC. System drive and one more every night. The others every few weeks. Not much backed up in the cloud. No offsite backups. Need to get on that.
 
Time Machine, CCC for some data portions only, Arq to B2. Everything I do is in iCloud or OneDrive - adding yet another layer of protection.

My favorite backups? TM and Arq to B2. Love it. Everything is 100% encrypted (TM and Arq to B2).
 
  • Like
Reactions: poorcody and planteater
BigMcGuire said:
Time Machine, CCC for some data portions only, Arq to B2. Everything I do is in iCloud or OneDrive - adding yet another layer of protection.

My favorite backups? TM and Arq to B2. Love it. Everything is 100% encrypted (TM and Arq to B2).
Click to expand...
I used TM a few years ago, sending data to a RAID set attached to an Apple AirPort. I loved the functionality of it, but had some data corruption issues. It may have been something in my setup, but that is what got me looking at other solutions.

I do think I’ll revisit TM in the future. It’s definitely nice when working correctly. Since I have other backup solutions in place, that will give me the freedom of playing around to get it right.
 
  • Like
Reactions: hobowankenobi and BigMcGuire
planteater said:
I used TM a few years ago, sending data to a RAID set attached to an Apple AirPort. I loved the functionality of it, but had some data corruption issues. It may have been something in my setup, but that is what got me looking at other solutions.

I do think I’ll revisit TM in the future. It’s definitely nice when working correctly. Since I have other backup solutions in place, that will give me the freedom of playing around to get it right.
Click to expand...
Agreed - AFPS with TM is a beauty. I absolutely love it.

Check out: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...or-time-machine-backups.2243353/post-29624096
 
  • Like
Reactions: poorcody
Occasional clone via SuperDuper (free version), continuous data backup via Synology Drive to NAS. While there are limitations and few quirks, I prefer Drive over TM for lots of reasons, including encrypted backup from anywhere when traveling, better logging and error documentation/troubleshooting, versioning control, and live access at all times to backed up files.

I also use the very good and free SmartBackup for secondary local network user data backups.

Other good, mature, paid tools (besides CCC): GetBackup Pro, ChronoSync, SuperDuper.
 
CarbonCopyCloner.
I wouldn't do it any other way.

I've never touched time machine and would NOT recommend it to anybody.
 
I currently do CCC to a local backup drive, and another at a remote location.

I'm wondering what approach is best against ransomware.... I don't keep my backup drives connected except when doing a backup, but I feel it still leaves me somewhat vulnerable. I've heard it said one should do "pull" backups but not sure of an easy way to do that. Anyone have any thoughts on that? I feel like ransomware is the biggest threat second only to device failure.
 
poorcody said:
I currently do CCC to a local backup drive, and another at a remote location.

I'm wondering what approach is best against ransomware.... I don't keep my backup drives connected except when doing a backup, but I feel it still leaves me somewhat vulnerable. I've heard it said one should do "pull" backups but not sure of an easy way to do that. Anyone have any thoughts on that? I feel like ransomware is the biggest threat second only to device failure.
Click to expand...
If you are running Mac and don't do torrenting or installing pirated apps, your chances of bing crippled by ransomware is slim to none at this point. That can change in the near future.
 
poorcody said:
I currently do CCC to a local backup drive, and another at a remote location.

I'm wondering what approach is best against ransomware.... I don't keep my backup drives connected except when doing a backup, but I feel it still leaves me somewhat vulnerable. I've heard it said one should do "pull" backups but not sure of an easy way to do that. Anyone have any thoughts on that? I feel like ransomware is the biggest threat second only to device failure.
Click to expand...
The remote location is usually your best bet. Ransomware usually hits everything that you have connected to your computer at the point of infection. @Apple_Robert is correct - rare today but in the Windows world, can't begin to count how many companies/people who have come to me with this problem. Usually having to reset the computer from the grounds up is the way to go.

Anyway, my rule of thumb against ransomware - have a remote, frequent backup that never ever deletes old versions. I utilize this with Arq Backup and B2 Cloud. I have it backing up all my data daily and set to never ever delete an old version of a file regardless of how often it is changed.
 
  • Like
Reactions: beach bum
my only true backup is TM to an external hard drive, but I also have everything that I care about both in iCloud and on my phone. So even though I would lose some data if both my Mac and external HD failed at the same time, iCloud and three local devices would all have to permanently and simultaneously fail before I lost anything of real value to me.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BigMcGuire
Really interesting to see how much CarbonCopyCloner is being used, and how little online backup is being done.
AFPS on TM seems to be much faster initially, but then slow with small volume backups.
 
Oliver Christie said:
Really interesting to see how much CarbonCopyCloner is being used, and how little online backup is being done.
Click to expand...

I remember discussing this in a thread and one guy boasting that there was no need for offsite backups. I mentioned theft, fire, natural disasters, etc and the answer was those wouldn't happen to them. :rolleyes:
 
  • Haha
  • Like
Reactions: frou and BigMcGuire
MisterSavage said:
I remember discussing this in a thread and one guy boasting that there was no need for offsite backups. I mentioned theft, fire, natural disasters, etc and the answer was those wouldn't happen to them. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
I hope the guy you are referencing either doesn’t have important data or is lucky.

I couldn’t imagine not having my own offsite, plus online backups. I never go without having 3 copy’s of my data in 3 separate locations, and that is in addition to the original on my MBP.

My financial, legal, professional, and aspects of my personal life are digitized. A serious backup plan is essential.
 
  • Like
Reactions: beach bum, hobowankenobi, BigMcGuire and 1 other person
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back