Whilst upgrading my late 15 iMac from Catalina to Big Sur, the upgrade failed half way through. Seems that there has been a disk failure after A LOT of work trying to get things working again. To get a working volume, I had to install MacOS onto an external HD from Recovery Mode. So at this stage I have basically lost access to all my files. BUT I have a Time Machine backup. I’m trying to use Migration Assistant on my MacBook Pro to isolate and transfer the files I need. It’s been going for 5 hours now and I have no idea if it is doing anything. I can’t help but feel that if I’d also had a synchronous backup drive, I wouldn’t be pulling my hair out! So at present, my message would be to not solely rely on a Time Machine backup.
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Time Machine-lesson learned
- Thread starter dazzer21-2
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You didn't mention how much data you're restoring. My Time Machine backup saved me when an OS upgrade got borked and the Apple Store genius ended up wiping my machine. It took a long time but I got my data back.
Restoring 1tb from a spinning drive via Time Machine can take a very long time. That’s why I use CCC in addition to TM and BackBlaze. CCC restores are much quicker.
I realize this post doesn't help the OP now, but...
In the future, don't use time machine.
Instead, use either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.
IF you had been using either of these for your backup, I feel confident in saying that you wouldn't be having the troubles you're having right now...
In the future, don't use time machine.
Instead, use either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.
IF you had been using either of these for your backup, I feel confident in saying that you wouldn't be having the troubles you're having right now...
Quite right. Time machine is a brilliant tool in what I do and is quite useful quite a bit of the time. But once this is sorted out, I will run a second backup in tandem with scheduled syncs.