Reliable, Compliant NAS Storage For MacOS

[BeatCrazy]

Cool, glad you got it working! FWIW, this would be a little easier to understand if you used the terms "server" and "client". In your example, I think you are calling the server the "destination" and the client the "remote"?

Yes, I'm familiar with the terms, and should have used server and client BTW I miss my old Server app. Best $20 I ever spent, but the damn thing is deprecated

 

[Omega Mac]

No reason to keep drives mounted that aren't in use. And if you are subject to a ransomware attack, any mounted disks are at risk. The two drives that are unmounted are only clones of the two active disks on the server. They only need to be mounted during the cloning process that occurs once every night.

I did not notice or think about the unmounting option, that is truly really great to know.

I've gone and found it in CCC settings so thank you for much for this little but huge detail, adding an extra layer of protection! Really appreciate this simple insight.👍

Very recently I had such an ordeal with a Catalina OS upgrade, rendering some backups useless but thankfully no data loss.

I now have to redo and rethink my backup regime.

I run a production machine off an external SSD, via USB3 into a 2012 MM server. I was too lazy to replace internal (done it before on older models, careful not to break anything!) but also the advantages for quick offsite removal of the primary drive, which in theory you can boot to another mack if needed, also has extra advantages.

I usually clone to the internal drives, SSD > HD1 then HD1 > HD2 - also using an external HD for the time machine.

I'm reviewing my backup regime after this Mojave > Catalina upgrade rollercoaster, which it turns out was an almost exact mirror of the High Sierra > Mojave upgrade rollercoaster - both times I experienced after shutting the machine down, after what seemed like a perfectly successful update with working mac using the latest OS, was, on next power up, a total disaster - a stalled boot screen!

As I mentioned this time round, the backups I had were not reliable, Doh!

My TM last backup point ended at the last pre-catalina version (guess there was no room) and the clone to the internal HD seemed to be a botched Mojave. Here I tried to boot (the primary internal Mac Mini HD) and it would not log in, after attempting the machine would reset and restart - Wtf - here maybe a reinstall would have fixed this, but that was not important, the data did appear to be ok on all drives, but everything went screwy in unanticipated ways making it harder to restore from any of these position easily. I have recovered form complete drive failure on at leat two occasion using CCC, so it's saved me a lot of hassle.

I start to wonder about the APFS being a sinner here too, not such a worry in the days of zippy Snow Leopard.

One other weird things was the password to unlock the drive for re-install would not work when in recovery, what I had to do was use disk first aid/repair while in remote recovery on the SSD, so it would prompt to unlock the encrypted drive.

Then when I ran the re-install OS option, the drive was already unlocked and would run as expected, but it was not possible to unlock the drive if I ran only the re-install option. Weird and counter intuitive but for a while I was thinking I'd hit another intractable wall or something had changed my password somehow, like a hack, no idea but it was very disconcerting, you being to feel maybe you have forgotten it, on an encrypted drive you don't want that problem!

If there was data loss would have been minimal in historical terms, maybe a few days, but the disruption and sudden lack of simple reliable restore-from-backup path was really really not good. Man, I got to be more careful with Apple updates in future, even when you have backups, but you know you run the update and it works, then you reboot and you getz ambushed.

I'm thinking of running the twin drives as a mirror raid, so only needing to clone once and stick with a larger external TM.

I also have some spare MM servers, so I like the idea of running over the network backups. This would be sweet, cloned data in cloned machines!