How often do you backup your rMBP?

[SoundsEclectic]

I bought my first macbook pro last week and I'm an IT admin who has always worked with Windows based systems. So although I'm a Mac newbie, I'm very familiar with computer concepts. I bought a macbook for compatibility reasons (windows 10 doesn't support some DJ equipment I have) and also to familiarize myself for os x.

For all those who are backing up their systems daily, are you using the macbook for a business you own or project work?

I find that daily backups of a client system are overkill especially if it is used mainly for personal use. I don't know how Time Machine works or Carbon Copy Cloner work, but I'm assuming they work in the background and create some type of shadow copy. I don't know about you, but I prefer my systems lean and mean and that's one reason why I bought a mac. I don't want fluff running in the background, especially since I will be using this laptop for live performances. I'm good about manually backing up critical documents to externals along with multiple versions.

With that said, I don't have enough installed on my macbook to warrant backing up the OS. I do back up all my music and photos to multiple external drives. I run VMs for torrents so I'm not worried about malware. Should my macbook get bogged down due to age and fluff, I'll wipe it and reinstall via the Disk Utility. Should my drive physically fail, then I'm screwed anyways since I'd have to order a new one from OCW and at that point, I'd take it to the Apple store downstairs from my work place.

I do plan on playing with carbon copy cloner since I do have some mac users at work I need to support and maybe they can benefit from it.

 

[Hieveryone]

I changed my tune on that after a friend's Mac was destroyed by a water leak. Their backups were done hourly via Time Machine, but that did no good since the water got that external drive at the same time.

So now:

• Time Machine hourly
• Crashplan (cloud backup) catches up as my machine idles
• SuperDuper clones the drive every night

I see where that could be a problem.

Do you trust other backup companies, not in terms of them being reliable, but in terms of them stealing info? @bradl @JTToft

EDIT:

Just as a side note, I'm not very comfortable installing software outside the App Store.

I do have Firefox, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Google Earth, but those are all safe.

The ONLY other software I have which is the riskiest is the dimming app that automatically dims the screen at night (makes it kind of orange).

Hopefully that is not a threat.

 

[bradl]

I see where that could be a problem.

Do you trust other backup companies, not in terms of them being reliable, but in terms of them stealing info? @bradl @JTToft

Personally, no. But that isn't any fault of those backup companies. That fault lies with me and how possessive and protective I am of my data.

We've taken for granted how much information we have access to, and while that is a good thing, we aren't realize how much of ourselves and our data we are exposing to others. For example, the following was posted today at /. via WFLA, an ABC affiliate:

Facebook Could Be Eavesdropping On Your Phone Calls

Facebook is not just looking at user's personal information, interests, and online habits but also to your private conversations, revealed a new report. According to NBC report, this may be the case as Kelli Burns, a professor at University of South Florida states, "I don't think that people realize how much Facebook is tracking every move we're making online. Anything that you're doing on your phone, Facebook is watching." the professor said. Now how do you prove that? Professor Kelli tested out her theory by enabling the microphone feature, and talked about her desire to go on a safari, informing about the mode of transport she would take. "I'm really interested in going on an African safari. I think it'd be wonderful to ride in one of those jeeps," she said aloud, phone in hand. The results were shocking, as less than 60 seconds later, the first post on her Facebook feed was about a safari story out of nowhere, which was then revealed that the story had been posted three hours earlier. And, after mentioning a jeep, a car ad also appeared on her page.

On a support page, Facebook explains how this feature works: "No, we don't record your conversations. If you choose to turn on this feature, we'll only use your microphone to identify the things you're listening to or watching based on the music and TV matches we're able to identify. If this feature is turned on, it's only active when you're writing a status update." I wonder how many people are actually aware of this.

Now, playing the slippery slope game, if Facebook can do this with the data we are simply supplying to our phones for a simple search, what else is being supplied to other parties?

Additionally, in the PRSI section here, about a year ago I posted a thread about our data in regards to the 4th Amendment. If you were accused or a crime and the authorities needed to go through your data to find any information they believe is related to that crime, they would need a warrant, signed by a judge, to do that, correct?

Wrong. They don't.

If your data was held at a third party (like Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox, a backup company, etc.), all that would be needed is a subpoena, which doesn't need to be signed by a judge, to be presented to that company, and they would immediately have access to do your data, and without your knowledge. All that would be required is a signature by the Clerk of the Court, and by law, any attorney is a Clerk of the Court. They could write up own subpoena, sign it, and get to your data.

That is one of the prices we pay for having the convenience of having someone else take care of our data for us. Personally, I don't like nor want to pay that price. I'd rather back it up and manage it myself, if it meant being more secure in my person, my family, my property, and my possessions; I count my data as part of those possessions.

The choice is yours on what you'd like to do, but as with any choice comes the responsibilities and consequences of those choices.

BL.

 

[JTToft]

For all those who are backing up their systems daily, are you using the macbook for a business you own or project work?

I find that daily backups of a client system are overkill especially if it is used mainly for personal use. I don't know how Time Machine works or Carbon Copy Cloner work, but I'm assuming they work in the background and create some type of shadow copy. I don't know about you, but I prefer my systems lean and mean and that's one reason why I bought a mac. I don't want fluff running in the background

- My machine is primarily for personal and educational use. But I also freelance in translation and have a side job in higher education administration, so I use it for that. No self-owned business, and I don't depend on either my data or my machine for my primary income - at least not in the short term.
Regardless of the type of data, I would be sad to see up to a day of it disappear due to hardware failure when I can safeguard pretty well against it at no cost at all.

Time Machine is completely unnoticeable aside from the whirring of a hard drive if you're using one of those.
Carbon Copy Cloner is built differently and does consume some CPU ressources. It's many times quicker as a result.

Also, I love fluff.

Do you trust other backup companies, not in terms of them being reliable, but in terms of them stealing info? @bradl @JTToft

- Haven't given it too much thought, as I don't use any online backup services. I do use Dropbox to sync my Documents folder, but there's nothing in there I'd care about being posted publicly. bradl's post above is interesting, though the circumstances will of course vary by country and the relevant laws in force.

Just as a side note, I'm not very comfortable installing software outside the App Store.

I do have Firefox, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Google Earth, but those are all safe.

- Personally, I'm not worried about it. Avoid the most sketchy stuff and it should be fine.
But given the choice between third-party sourced and App Store sourced, all else being equal, App Store is of course preferable. If you find you don't need eccentric software from outside the App Store, by all means stick to it!

 

[Hieveryone]

Personally, no. But that isn't any fault of those backup companies. That fault lies with me and how possessive and protective I am of my data.

We've taken for granted how much information we have access to, and while that is a good thing, we aren't realize how much of ourselves and our data we are exposing to others. For example, the following was posted today at /. via WFLA, an ABC affiliate:



Now, playing the slippery slope game, if Facebook can do this with the data we are simply supplying to our phones for a simple search, what else is being supplied to other parties?

Additionally, in the PRSI section here, about a year ago I posted a thread about our data in regards to the 4th Amendment. If you were accused or a crime and the authorities needed to go through your data to find any information they believe is related to that crime, they would need a warrant, signed by a judge, to do that, correct?

Wrong. They don't.

If your data was held at a third party (like Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox, a backup company, etc.), all that would be needed is a subpoena, which doesn't need to be signed by a judge, to be presented to that company, and they would immediately have access to do your data, and without your knowledge. All that would be required is a signature by the Clerk of the Court, and by law, any attorney is a Clerk of the Court. They could write up own subpoena, sign it, and get to your data.

That is one of the prices we pay for having the convenience of having someone else take care of our data for us. Personally, I don't like nor want to pay that price. I'd rather back it up and manage it myself, if it meant being more secure in my person, my family, my property, and my possessions; I count my data as part of those possessions.

The choice is yours on what you'd like to do, but as with any choice comes the responsibilities and consequences of those choices.

BL.

Wow I didn't realize Facebook was doing that. That's really messed up. Actually, it's really X'd up, but if I said it on here I would get a warning from the mods.

Facebook is like big brother basically. SMH.

 

[jlc1978]

I have a three pronged approach:
1. Regular Time Machine backups and CCC to seperate external drives
2. Constant saving file changes in Documents to SD card via Sync
3. Save past versions of files with Forever Save

 

[Fancuku]

Time Machine once a month. When I import new music and pictures on the Mac, they go straight to my NAS after the import.

 

[997440]

Is it best practice to unmount external disks as much as possible? The KeRanger experience implies that it is.

.....
In addition to this behavior, it seems like KeRanger is still under development. There are some apparent functions named “_create_tcp_socket”, “_execute_cmd” and “_encrypt_timemachine”. Some of them have been finished but are not used in current samples. Our analysis suggests the attacker may be trying to develop backdoor functionality and encrypt Time Machine backup files as well. If these backup files are encrypted, victims would not be able to recover their damaged files using Time Machine.
.....

http://researchcenter.paloaltonetwo...ted-transmission-bittorrent-client-installer/

.....
This particular ransomware attack is fairly clever. It lies dormant for a few days, then starts to encrypt your documents. It targets documents on externally-attached hard drives as well, and (in future developments) may even target Time Machine backups. CCC backups on external disks are vulnerable, as well. We have some suggestions that can help protect your backups from this sort of threat.

Keep your backup disk unmounted as much as possible
KeRanger targets volumes that are currently attached to your Mac and mounted. Physically detaching your backup disk from your Mac is the most effective way to protect that disk from attack, but it makes your backups more laborious, and you're less likely to keep them up to date.
.....

https://bombich.com/blog/2016/03/08/protect-yourself-from-ransomware-carbon-copy-cloner-backup

 

[bradl]

Is it best practice to unmount external disks as much as possible? The KeRanger experience implies that it is.

http://researchcenter.paloaltonetwo...ted-transmission-bittorrent-client-installer/


https://bombich.com/blog/2016/03/08/protect-yourself-from-ransomware-carbon-copy-cloner-backup

This falls under best practices, but I would say yes. If those external drives are not being read and written to for normal everyday use (backups, while very important are not normal use), then yes, you should unmount them. Even though they are physically external from the internal chassis, any externally mounted drive is still considered part of the local filesystem, and can be written to as such.

Back in my college days, one of the first huge internet archives was available over FTP and NFS at wuarchive.wustl.edu (Washington University of St. Louis). As that archive could be NFS mounted, the admins at my university mounted it to our local Unix servers, and as such, to the normal user, it was a local directory. If that NFS mount was mounted as read/write (not read-only), Ransomware, like CryptoLocker, could encrypt it just as easily as it would any other server, leaving WuSTL screwed, as the attack could have occurred from another site that wasn't their own.

Same applies to external drives. Any ransomware could do the same, encrypt that external drive, and you're screwed. Now.. imagine if your backups were on that external drive that you kept mounted that fell victim to that ransomware...

That should give you the answer you're looking for.

BL.

 

[hiddenmarkov]

Network Attached Storage, I have the Synology DS215j. This drive is connected to my computer via wireless network, but I found that after some time the Time Machine would tell me my backup was corrupted and had to be redone. Maybe they fixed this issue, I'll try again soon. Used to work flawlessly to my Time Capsule.

I run a ds 1515+ and never had an issue. either under the older DSM or the new version they put out of late.

Not sure if some of the DSM variances for my model may have resolved this issue.

Shouldn't be a factor but I run wired.

 

[Howard2k]

Certainly, if you're not using your drives it's better to have them offline. I have multiple external drives and try to keep some vintage between them. I backup to the NAS every hour but there's one of the drives I only connect once a month or so.

 

[packeteer]

never #yolo
anything critical is in github or dropbox

 

[maflynn]

TimeMachine automatically, CCC to external drives weekly and I rely on the cloud for a lot of my document management, i.e., Dropbox and OneDrive.

 

[btbam91]

The only way I "backup" is working out of my onedrive folder 100% of the time. My files are always synching to the cloud as I am working on them. I personally don't have a need for anything else since I have 10 TB of cloud storage.

 

[maflynn]

I personally don't have a need for anything else since I have 10 TB of cloud storage.

Performance is what stops me from doing that completely. I have several hundred gigabytes of images and its just too slow to upload them to the cloud. I also did a proof in concept and worked on a small subset and it wasn't a setup I particularly cared for.

 

[997440]

Personally, no. But that isn't any fault of those backup companies. That fault lies with me and how possessive and protective I am of my data.

We've taken for granted how much information we have access to, and while that is a good thing, we aren't realize how much of ourselves and our data we are exposing to others. For example, the following was posted today at /. via WFLA, an ABC affiliate:



Now, playing the slippery slope game, if Facebook can do this with the data we are simply supplying to our phones for a simple search, what else is being supplied to other parties?

Additionally, in the PRSI section here, about a year ago I posted a thread about our data in regards to the 4th Amendment. If you were accused or a crime and the authorities needed to go through your data to find any information they believe is related to that crime, they would need a warrant, signed by a judge, to do that, correct?

Wrong. They don't.

If your data was held at a third party (like Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox, a backup company, etc.), all that would be needed is a subpoena, which doesn't need to be signed by a judge, to be presented to that company, and they would immediately have access to do your data, and without your knowledge. All that would be required is a signature by the Clerk of the Court, and by law, any attorney is a Clerk of the Court. They could write up own subpoena, sign it, and get to your data.

That is one of the prices we pay for having the convenience of having someone else take care of our data for us. Personally, I don't like nor want to pay that price. I'd rather back it up and manage it myself, if it meant being more secure in my person, my family, my property, and my possessions; I count my data as part of those possessions.

The choice is yours on what you'd like to do, but as with any choice comes the responsibilities and consequences of those choices.

BL.

As it happens, I came across this post by @Weaselboy (thank you) today. I haven't fully investigated the products yet, but they're potential solutions to cloud-averse users in need of additional options.

For online backup I use the app Arq to backup to Amazon's S3 servers. Arq encrypts the data before it leaves your machine and it is stored encrypted on Amazon's servers and only you can unencrypt and view the data.

If your concern is an online service seeing your data, this addresses it.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/an-extra-extra-backup-for-storage.1956722/#post-22942598

 

[jerryk]

I let Time Machine backup to my ReadyNAS. TM runs once a day. I also backup the files for the projects I am currently working on to a portable SSD every day. Email and all other messaging is cloud based (Office 365) so I don't worry about that.

 

[Tolien]

MBP backs up with Time Machine to a Linux server but most of what I'm working on has copies elsewhere anyway (version control for code, other backups for photos, no local music/email).
Unless you're changing big files frqeuently (things like virtual machine hard drives are an obvious example), don't worry too much about how often it runs. It's only copying the files that change, so after the first run you should find that the time to run the backup will be pretty short.

The only way I "backup" is working out of my onedrive folder 100% of the time. My files are always synching to the cloud as I am working on them. I personally don't have a need for anything else since I have 10 TB of cloud storage.

I know you put quotes around 'backup' but that's not a backup - it wouldn't be the first time a cloud provider's deleted someone's data (through closing their account, hardware failure, visit from the FBI, etc.). If you don't have another copy and that happens, you're every bit as out of luck as if your hard drive stopped working.

 

[AZhappyjack]

The only way I "backup" is working out of my onedrive folder 100% of the time. My files are always synching to the cloud as I am working on them. I personally don't have a need for anything else since I have 10 TB of cloud storage.

I know you put quotes around 'backup' but that's not a backup - it wouldn't be the first time a cloud provider's deleted someone's data (through closing their account, hardware failure, visit from the FBI, etc.). If you don't have another copy and that happens, you're every bit as out of luck as if your hard drive stopped working.

Exactly. The truth is, if you only have one copy of a file, regardless of where it lives, you have NO backup.

 

[macgeek18]

All important data is backed up at home and offsite. And have bits and pieces of all the important data spread around my PCs and Macs. In the event of a fire or hardware failure I can access any of my music, movies, documents, pictures on multiple machines and backups. I use Google drive and external flash storage for documents.

 

[btbam91]

MBP backs up with Time Machine to a Linux server but most of what I'm working on has copies elsewhere anyway (version control for code, other backups for photos, no local music/email).
Unless you're changing big files frqeuently (things like virtual machine hard drives are an obvious example), don't worry too much about how often it runs. It's only copying the files that change, so after the first run you should find that the time to run the backup will be pretty short.



I know you put quotes around 'backup' but that's not a backup - it wouldn't be the first time a cloud provider's deleted someone's data (through closing their account, hardware failure, visit from the FBI, etc.). If you don't have another copy and that happens, you're every bit as out of luck as if your hard drive stopped working.

Exactly. The truth is, if you only have one copy of a file, regardless of where it lives, you have NO backup.

Response to both Tolien and dwfaust:

These cloud storage systems have at least double to triple redundancy and the files are stored in different parts of the world.

So with the multiple backups provided by a cloud storage provider and the one local on my machine, my one file exists in 3 to 4 different physical locations i.e. different harddrives.

 

[Tolien]

These cloud storage systems have at least double to triple redundancy and the files are stored in different parts of the world.

Most don't, because doubling or tripling petabytes of storage and replicating it around the world would significantly increase their costs.

Assuming they do have replicas, though, what happens to those replicated copies if they delete your account or you accidentally delete the file from Onedrive? They're all equally gone - they're not backups.
The copy on your machine is separate (assuming Onedrive wouldn't immediately overwrite it with the version stored remotely) but that's not the same thing as dwfaust and I were commenting on.

 

[btbam91]

Most don't, because doubling or tripling petabytes of storage and replicating it around the world would significantly increase their costs.

Assuming they do have replicas, though, what happens to those replicated copies if they delete your account or you accidentally delete the file from Onedrive? They're all equally gone - they're not backups.
The copy on your machine is separate (assuming Onedrive wouldn't immediately overwrite it with the version stored remotely) but that's not the same thing as dwfaust and I were commenting on.

Cloud storage services are not free. They can absolutely afford to store double and triple the data of paying customers and they do. They store even more than that actually because files are versioned.

Accounts don't get deleted. They get deactivated. That is true even for your bank account. Just because you closed your account at a bank does not mean it is as if you never existed at that bank.

If I accidentally delete a file in one drive, then I just go into the recycle bin and undelete it. All major cloud storage providers offer this functionality as far as I know.

I have been a happy customer using skydrive/onedrive since 2010 because it's been 100% reliable and I love the iOS app. To me, you arguing the point that my data is potentially at risk would be like me saying you your data is at risk because somebody can break into your home and smash your hard drive. Technically possible? Yeah. Likely in any meaningful way? Nope.

 

[Tolien]

For the record, I use a bunch of cloud storage providers so I'm not some tinfoil hatted crank with an agenda against cloud storage here…

Cloud storage services are not free. They can absolutely afford to store double and triple the data of paying customers and they do. They store even more than that actually because files are versioned.

Sign up for free

OneDrive might version your files but most providers don't - try getting a previous version out of Dropbox or Amazon S3.

Accounts don't get deleted. They get deactivated. That is true even for your bank account. Just because you closed your account at a bank does not mean it is as if you never existed at that bank.

Try telling that to the folks in Greece whose payments stopped going through for extra iCloud storage and whose stuff got deleted.
You've also skipped over the other scenarios I mentioned in your rush to defend the cloud - the FBI close the storage service by seizing hardware (Mega), the storage service go bust, CryptoLocker overwrites all your files. No other copies, you're out of luck.

If I accidentally delete a file in one drive, then I just go into the recycle bin and undelete it. All major cloud storage providers offer this functionality as far as I know.

S3 don't, on any tier. If you want to store multiple copies, you pay for them.
They keep replicas to protect against hardware error but as I said before if you overwrite one, they're all overwritten.

I have been a happy customer using skydrive/onedrive since 2010 because it's been 100% reliable and I love the iOS app. To me, you arguing the point that my data is potentially at risk would be like me saying you your data is at risk because somebody can break into your home and smash your hard drive. Technically possible? Yeah. Likely in any meaningful way? Nope.

Sure. They could, or the hard drive could break. I've got a copy elsewhere though, so I'm fine. You've got a single copy, so my original point that what you have is not a backup stands. Just because it hasn't happened for you yet is irrelevant and it's no different to "my hard drive hasn't broken yet, so it never will".

 

[D.T.]

- Nightly via a cloud backup service
- TM once a week
- Occasionally image machines and store the resulting copy to redundant local storage (server, mirrored drives) and cloud storage

I also have a 3rd/4th set of redundancies, depending on the files, i.e., with code, it gets pushed into offsite repos, with images, they get synced to cloud based image stores, documents get synced to cloud sharing.

With things like code and documents, there's constant, incremental "backup" from the workflow.

So for example, at any given time, a branch of code/work will be: 1) local, 2) pushed to Github/BitBucket/Plastic, 3) backed up offsite from the night before, 4) in a weekly TM, 5) in an x recent disk image