Time Machine Question

[Odysee]

I am just about to purchase a new external SSD - I am wanting to use it to back up my entire digital assets, from backing up data from my iPhone, Macbook Pro and iMac as well as photos, coding and videos.

I've never used Time Machine before, and I am wondering if it could be possible to store all of the above all in one external hard drive? Will the Time Machine get confused with two lots of backups from two computers? One being from an MBP and another from an iMac. Will Time Machine know which device I am running to correctly back up in the correct place etc?

Also, as well as having these multiple backups, would I also be able to use my external SSD to store photos/videos etc.

Thanks in advance!

 

[bernuli]

Yes Time Machine will do all that. But I think you are asking a lot of one single drive. You may run out of space quickly.

I would put a dedicated drive on each computer.

Also you will need to make local backups of your iPhone to your iMac or MacBook Pro with either iTunes (up until Catalina) or Finder (Catalina)

I have been using these 4TB drives from Western Digital lately, much slower than SSD, but once Time Machine is fairly current the incremental backups go quick.

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I am just about to purchase a new external SSD - I am wanting to use it to back up my entire digital assets, from backing up data from my iPhone, Macbook Pro and iMac as well as photos, coding and videos.

I've never used Time Machine before, and I am wondering if it could be possible to store all of the above all in one external hard drive? Will the Time Machine get confused with two lots of backups from two computers? One being from an MBP and another from an iMac. Will Time Machine know which device I am running to correctly back up in the correct place etc?

Also, as well as having these multiple backups, would I also be able to use my external SSD to store photos/videos etc.

Thanks in advance!

 

[ItWasNotMe]

I'd second bernuli's comment, rather than buy an SSD you would be better to spend the same amount of money on a larger hard drive, you don't need speed for Time Machine backups, you need space, lots of it if you want to keep any history

 

[Erehy Dobon]

Apple wrote the Time Machine utility to recognize multiple computers and create backups for each one. After all, that's what the discontinued Time Capsule router/backup device did.

The most glaring vulnerability is that you are entrusting all of your backups to a single point of failure: one external drive.

A slightly better solution would be one external backup drive per Mac.

And even saner solution would be two external backup drives. Each would hold backups of both Macs; you would alternate between those two so if one of the external drives died, you'd still have recent backups on the other drive.

If you do it this way, this is one of the rare instances where you might consider creating multiple partitions on each external drive, each partition dedicated to one Mac's TM backups. Time Machine will see them as separate disk volumes.

Using an external SSD for Time Machine backups is quite extravagant, I wish I had that kind of coin to throw around. I get better value using external 3.5" spinners.

 

[Odysee]

Thank you for your replies - definitely something to think about moving forward.

 

[HDFan]

am just about to purchase a new external SSD - I am wanting to use it to back up my entire digital assets, from backing up data from my iPhone, Macbook Pro and iMac as well as photos, coding and videos.

'd second bernuli's comment, rather than buy an SSD you would be better to spend the same amount of money on a larger hard drive, you don't need speed for Time Machine backups, you need space, lots of it if you want to keep any history

The most glaring vulnerability is that you are entrusting all of your backups to a single point of failure: one external drive.

An SSD is a waste of money for backups. You should have a 3-3-3 or 3-2-3 backup strategy. 3 backups on 3 different media types in 3 locations. One of the locations should be offsite, such as in a bank deposit box. Do not rely on Time Machine as your only backup. TM backups tend to fail due to their complex structure.

 

[Odysee]

Question - is an external SSD more reliable than a regular external HD?

 

[Erehy Dobon]

MTBF for SSDs is much higher than mechanical drives.

That doesn't guarantee longer life. It just shifts the bell curve. You can still have an SSD that fails a month after you buy it. The probability of that happening will be lower than a spinner but one never knows where they will land on the curve.

That's why HDFan quotes the 3-3-3 approach.

Note that the drive itself isn't the only point of failure. One can buy an OEM drive (SSD, spinner) and shove it into an external enclosure. There's still the disk controller chip that can fail, the power supply or cable. You are still better off having two spinner backup drives than one SSD backup drive.

Using an SSD for your backups does not make it bulletproof.

Automobiles are generally more reliable today than they were several decades ago. That doesn't mean your brand new BMW with less than 1000 miles can't have an issue that puts it on the highway shoulder.

If you are hemorrhaging cash, go ahead and buy the SSD. In fact, buy several. That's probably what Bank of America/Chase/Fidelity/etc. does. Just know that they are not immune to failure.

 

[HDFan]

MTBF for SSDs is much higher than mechanical drives.

Possibly. If you have an abusive environment (vibration, dust, etc.), if the SSD is going to be a boot drive, or you need really fast speeds (video editing 4K or 8K) it might make sense. In a controlled environment it's not so simple. In many cases a hard disk will be better, as SSD's have a limited lifetime (TBW) and high cost:

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Comparing hard disk and SSD TBW's, a hard disk can have an order of magnitude greater TBWs, depending upon the disk and SSD. The Samsung 750 120 GB has a 3 year or 35 TBW warranty. A Seagate Ironwolf 3840 GB has a 5 year warranty and 7000 TBW - that is 200 times more!

https://branding.seagate.com/content/0da428c3-db1c-40b3-971e-8270243d1361

It isn't a practical comparison of course but an illustration. Just because SSDs are the future doesn't mean that now they are right for you. You need to carefully analyze your needs.