Theoretical Question: No need for Time Machine?

[Trhodezy]

Hi ladles and gentlespoons,

Here is a general wonderment-kinda-question...

Today I was sorting through a couple of old hard drives I found in my cupboard and came across some old back-ups of my 2009 MacBook. No longer needing or owning an '09 I promptly removed the backups.

This then got me thinking, I should probably backup my rMB. Then it annoyed me as I haven't got the USB port to do so AND THEN it struck me.. perhaps there's no need to back-up anymore and perhaps thats where Apple is trying to push into with the lack of ports (that and making dollar dollar bills from all the dongles and adapter y'all be buying).

Long story short; I own an iMac 5K max-spec, that I use as my daily driver. It does all my work and I have it continually backing up to my Time Machine hard drive as I'd hate to lose everything in one fell swoop.

I own the rMB too, which I use on-the-go for browsing, typing up articles and doing some research. Literally, that's it.

All files on my iMac and rMB are triple-synced to Dropbox, personal server & Apples iCloud Drive.

Every Application I own has the original DMG saved onto my server should I ever need to reinstall it. My photo library is backed up to my server, and I use iPhoto Cloud Library.

In theory, I should never have to backup my MacBook as everything I do that would need saving, is already on the various cloud services, so should I drop it in a pond or run it over or just destroy it for whatever reason, my files will be on the cloud and on my iMac via iCloud Drive?

Back to the beginning; theoretically I should not need to backup to my Time Machine on the rMB as all my files are already "backed up" - if you disagree, what am I missing that TM backs up, that I/the cloud is not? (Save for the Mac preferences).

 

[fisherking]

no harm in backing up in more than one place, but... the bottom line is to have files in at least 2 places. if you've got that, you're golden.

i never used time machine; i use carbon copy cloner, but... on my 12" mb, am (mostly) using crashplan. so online backup, nothing to plug in (bear in mind you can get a simple usbA>usbC adapter for your drives).

apps you can reinstalll; you want your home folder backed up. that's where everything of yours should be (altho i've seen people with files scattered about their hard drive...)

whatever works. 2 places (at least) is all that matters; where those places are is up to you.

 

[Trhodezy]

no harm in backing up in more than one place, but... the bottom line is to have files in at least 2 places. if you've got that, you're golden.

i never used time machine; i use carbon copy cloner, but... on my 12" mb, am (mostly) using crashplan. so online backup, nothing to plug in (bear in mind you can get a simple usbA>usbC adapter for your drives).

apps you can reinstalll; you want your home folder backed up. that's where everything of yours should be (altho i've seen people with files scattered about their hard drive...)

whatever works. 2 places (at least) is all that matters; where those places are is up to you.

Perfect. Thanks for that, it's eased my mind. I am considering using Crashplan to back-up for something like £3.99 a month I'd be stupid not to! What's your thoughts on Crashplan, any good?

 

[fisherking]

i've been using crashplan for years; only needed to retrieve files a few times (once while travelling) and that worked fine. i back up every 2 weeks or so to an external drive as well tho (with carbon copy cloner).

 

[Trhodezy]

i've been using crashplan for years; only needed to retrieve files a few times (once while travelling) and that worked fine. i back up every 2 weeks or so to an external drive as well tho (with carbon copy cloner).

Thanks very much!

 

[Howard2k]

Perfect. Thanks for that, it's eased my mind. I am considering using Crashplan to back-up for something like £3.99 a month I'd be stupid not to! What's your thoughts on Crashplan, any good?

How much would it cost you to get the appropriate USB adapter? 3.99 over 36 months is 143.64. I bet the adaptor is far cheaper . But I'd consider. That's if you're ok with the 159 total (or whatever it would be).

I like TM because the last time I had a HDD failure I was back up an running with about 4 mouse clicks. It's far from perfect, it has issues, but it can work really well too. If 5 pounds gets me another backup source that seems like good sense to me.

 

[fisherking]

How much would it cost you to get the appropriate USB adapter? 3.99 over 36 months is 143.64. I bet the adaptor is far cheaper . But I'd consider. That's if you're ok with the 159 total (or whatever it would be).

I like TM because the last time I had a HDD failure I was back up an running with about 4 mouse clicks. It's far from perfect, it has issues, but it can work really well too. If 5 pounds gets me another backup source that seems like good sense to me.

or $47.88 a year. and no reason one couldn't use a TM drive and an online service.

here's a story: my friend kevin had a macbook air, and a time machine drive, and his apartment was robbed. and they took both things...

the point is (really), crashplan is $50 a year. that's not bad for what it is.

or, $5000 over 100 years, to expand on your example...

 

[Howard2k]

or $47.88 a year. and no reason one couldn't use a TM drive and an online service.

here's a story: my friend kevin had a macbook air, and a time machine drive, and his apartment was robbed. and they took both things...

the point is (really), crashplan is $50 a year. that's not bad for what it is.

or, $5000 over 100 years, to expand on your example...

Hey that's awesome, I'm glad you were able to calculate the 12 month rate. Nicely done.

I think you missed the point that I was suggesting he do BOTH a TM backup and an alternative backup, for exactly that reason.

* 3 years is Apple's intended life cycle - that's why I picked three years.
* It's not $47.88, it's £47.88.
* I suggested that if 3 years is £143.64, then for a token extra amount (perhaps a total of £159 or whatever) you could use both the cloud service AND the USB drive for TM.

 

[fisherking]

Hey that's awesome, I'm glad you were able to calculate the 12 month rate. Nicely done.

I think you missed the point that I was suggesting he do BOTH a TM backup and an alternative backup, for exactly that reason.

* 3 years is Apple's intended life cycle - that's why I picked three years.
* It's not $47.88, it's £47.88.
* I suggested that if 3 years is £143.64, then for a token extra amount (perhaps a total of £159 or whatever) you could use both the cloud service AND the USB drive for TM.

sorry, you didn't use the £ sign in your earlier post. so we're talking $50 vs £47.88. thanks for pointing out the enormous difference in cost (to be fair, you did mention 'pounds' at the end of the post.

and you picked 3 years, lots of people keep their macs longer (or shorter, for that matter). but otherwise, all good.

 

[neoelectronaut]

It's 2016 and I'm still not quite on board with cloud services. I'd rather pay one price for a hard drive and backup data to it via Time Machine instead of paying monthly or yearly to upload my data online.

 

[fisherking]

It's 2016 and I'm still not quite on board with cloud services. I'd rather pay one price for a hard drive and backup data to it via Time Machine instead of paying monthly or yearly to upload my data online.

and you're sharing this because? it IS 2016. it's also reasonable to do both things (an external drive and an online backup). the point is, we have choices...

 

[bcave098]

perhaps there's no need to back-up anymore and perhaps thats where Apple is trying to push into with the lack of ports (that and making dollar dollar bills from all the dongles and adapter y'all be buying).

Or they're trying to push their (wireless) Time Capsule?

 

[zhenya]

I kind of had the same realization with my rMB - and as a result never backed it up for more than the first year I owned it. This is a big deal because I'm serious about my backups - but like you - there is no longer anything stored completely uniquely on the MacBook. I restored a couple of times to fresh for various reasons and never restored from a backup.

I did finally add it to my Crashplan vault, but really only because I wanted to move some stuff onto it from my Crashplan backups, and the web interface was too limiting. It started backing up a bunch of video files to Crashplan and I had to actually go and make a bunch of directory exceptions.

Nice times we live in.

 

[neoelectronaut]

I wish I could be comfortable with backing up my photos offsite, but I've got an iPhoto library (now in the "Photos" application) that stretches back over a decade, same with my iTunes content.

I dunno if I could ever be comfortable with either not being on my computer--which stinks because both take up significant amounts of storage space.

 

[DNichter]

I haven't made a time machine backup or any backup really for years, besides the iCloud backup that iOS does for me automatically. Never any issues with cloud services. I think people that are scared of this need to get with the times.

 

[neoelectronaut]

I haven't made a time machine backup or any backup really for years, besides the iCloud backup that iOS does for me automatically. Never any issues with cloud services. I think people that are scared of this need to get with the times.

It's fine that you don't mind losing your data, but a lot of folks out there appreciate having a solid record of their digital photographs.

 

[DNichter]

It's fine that you don't mind losing your data, but a lot of folks out there appreciate having a solid record of their digital photographs.

You can lose your "solid" record just as easy as any other backup solution. My only point is cloud services are just as reliable today. Maybe more so.

 

[hiddenmarkov]

Depending on stuff in place and how in depth you get with your file structure TM cannot be needed. In case of rebuilds I have TM backups but have never used them. I see it as fresh start. applications I use are new dl's and installs. Any backup for them is really me knowing their application support folder layout and backing up files from there to the cloud.

Files I create, go to NAS in the house and/or cloud. Application files I can DL again, its the data files I care about.


A say 20 mb application I need maybe 500kb of config files I can copy/paste just as easy and custom appearance template files.

Tbh with my NAS getting kind of full, the just in case TM's I have sent to NAS may go at some point. Gave it 1tb share...its about 750gb. I may need that room next year lol.

 

[fisherking]

It's fine that you don't mind losing your data, but a lot of folks out there appreciate having a solid record of their digital photographs.

simple enough to have an external drive backup and an online backup. meanwhile, i've used crashplan for years without issue, and if i need a file (ie when i travel), it's really easy to retrieve. don't be afraid of new options...

 

[Trhodezy]

I kind of had the same realization with my rMB - and as a result never backed it up for more than the first year I owned it. This is a big deal because I'm serious about my backups - but like you - there is no longer anything stored completely uniquely on the MacBook. I restored a couple of times to fresh for various reasons and never restored from a backup.

I did finally add it to my Crashplan vault, but really only because I wanted to move some stuff onto it from my Crashplan backups, and the web interface was too limiting. It started backing up a bunch of video files to Crashplan and I had to actually go and make a bunch of directory exceptions.

Nice times we live in.

Thanks for that, you basically described my tech life for the rMB haha.
[doublepost=1479035458][/doublepost]Thanks to everyone who took the time to reply. Very insightful.

 

[Phil A.]

I love crashplan and use it extensively, but don't have it on my rMB as it's pretty resource heavy.

I backup my rMB to a NAS and that NAS is backed up using Crashplan PROe (including the time machine storage)

I do use Crashplan PROe on my iMac because it's got 32GB ram so the overhead of crashplan isn't an issue

Personally, I wouldn't trust backups to local storage only as a disaster such as theft, fire or flood could wipe out your data and backups, which is why I'm happy to pay for cloud based backups

 

[fisherking]

you can control crashplan's cpu usage (mine is set at 10% when i'm working), and, since most of my work on the rMB is text, and some image work, there's not a lot to back up in the incremental backups (the very first backup took days).

it's great really, and again, i'll (weekly) backup with carbon copy cloner to an external drive.

but twice, when i was traveling (or just out), i retrieved a file thru crashplan... nice.