Mac Mini and back up

[FaceForRadio]

Hi all,

New to this forum and new to Mac Mini (although not new to Apple I’ve had iPhone and Apple Watch for a number of years).

I have finally bit the bullet and purchased myself a new Mac mini. My windows laptop is on its last legs and have wanted to move over to Mac for a few years now.

I am not a “power” user and use my computer mainly to browse the internet, occasionally stream music and YouTube etc and to store and organise around 200gb of family photos and videos (which I intend to move and store on the Mac itself) and I occasionally want to do a bit of very light photo editing.

I intend to use iCloud to allow me and my partner to view our photos on our phones and have them downloaded/available on the Mac and then to back up the Mac in some way.

Is Time Machine the best way to do this along with an external harddrive or is there another better way?

I have read some older articles that Time Machine isn’t reliable.

Ultimately I want to ensure that I have a back up of my photos and videos in case the worst should happen.

At the moment i periodically go into my windows laptop and copy all my files manually onto an external hard drive and keep that hard drive at another location (with the files also being backed up to OneDrive) but for various reasons want to move away from OneDrive and also make the process as automated as possible.

Thoughts and ideas appreciated

Thank you

 

[russell_314]

I intend to use iCloud to allow me and my partner to view our photos on our phones and have them downloaded/available on the Mac and then to back up the Mac in some way.

Is Time Machine the best way to do this along with an external harddrive or is there another better way?

I have read some older articles that Time Machine isn’t reliable.

Ultimately I want to ensure that I have a back up of my photos and videos in case the worst should happen.

Time Machine will only back up what’s physically on the Mac’s SSD. By default the documents folder is on iCloud. This is great because you can work with a document on your Mac then go on your iPhone or iPad to update or view it. It’s also great because it’s not using space on your SSD. I believe if you turn off “optimize Mac storage” or something like that it will keep a copy of the iCloud documents folder on the SSD and Time Machine will back it up but I’m not 100% sure because I did not do this.

As to photos they will be on the Photos app. By default it stores them on the SSD unless you make a selection saying something like to save space only store a thumbnail and download to view the photo. I’m not at my Mac right now so I can’t remember the exact setting. I believe if you allow it to download the photos, Time Machine will back them up.

I’ve never had problems with Time Machine, not backing up. By default it backs up every hour and I’ve never had it say it failed back up.. I’ve also never tried to restore from Time Machine because I’ve never had the need to do so. That’s why I’m not 100% sure on Time Machine.


There’s nothing stopping you from manually copying files and transferring them to an external SSD on a Mac. The trick with that you have to remember to do it. Most manual back ups don’t work well because people forget right up to the point they need them.

 

[Ray2]

My experience. A fairly contentious issue.

1) Whole disc cloning software (including OS): Apple not supportive of cloning apps. Even the expensive (corporate level) apps have issues. After a few problems, credibility takes a hit and one tends to skip backing up/wasting more time getting it to reliably function. Lots of marketing here, proceed with caution.

2) User folder cloning software: Good reliability. Provides a point in time backup. Good if your disc fails and you have a recent backup. Not so good if you realize you’re missing a file or want to revert to a different version a few backups later.

3) The cloud: Don’t mistake convenience for a backup. I’ve lost 5 gb of cloud only files (as in not resident on any device) with a near and dear provider. The provider worked for 2 weeks trying to restore the files but came up with the same corruption issues I had. I was traveling so half was backed up to disk and half was lost. You need a good local backup strategy.

4) Time Machine: Just works. In the last few iterations has improved by quite a bit. Provides a series of point in time backups, well executed by people who understand MacOS. Re @russell_314 comment regarding Optimize. Easy way is just don’t. But also don’t lose site of the fact it’s also resident in the cloud and, should be, properly backed up there. It will simply reappear the moment you connect a fresh build to the net.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Why not both?

I use Time Machine on my Mac mini to backup my and my wife’s iCloud Drive and Photos (neither set to “Optimize” so the full data is there to back up).

I also have a 3rd party cloud-based backup nightly.

I’ve never needed anything other than Time Machine - on rare occasions when a file gets inadvertently deleted I’ve always gotten it back from there. Of course my house hasn’t ever burned down either - which is what the cloud backup would protect against.

 

[Fishrrman]

Get an external USB drive.
It can be a platter-based hard drive,
but
...An SSD is better. I'd suggest USB3.1 gen2.
Something like the Crucial X9.

Get either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.
CCC is a bit more expensive, but has more features (that I find I really don't need).
SD is free to use for a "full clone", is otherwise low-cost to register for additional features, and is one of the easiest-to-use apps out there.

Use either CCC or SD to create a "cloned backup" of your internal drive.
CCC can also save older versions of changed files, if you wish (I don't use this feature, called "the safety net").

With either of these you'll have a backup drive that won't keep "growing" (as does time machine), and is "mountable right in the finder" if you need it to be.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

"Cloned backup" works well, but the risk there of course is a file deleted or changed, and not noticed for a period of time. This is why iCloud is not a "Backup" for photos or iCloud Drive - it's a SYNC - if you delete something from the computer, it's deleted from iCloud too. Same would apply to any clone-based backup.

I like CCC/SD backups, they work well. But you need incremental too, if you want to protect against losses you don't notice immediately.