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Ifti

macrumors 601
Original poster
Dec 14, 2010
4,023
2,596
UK
I have an external SSD that is currently used for Time Machine backups.
I have a separate external SSD, which is currently used to house a SuperDuper clone of my system.
My documents are also manually backed up to my NAS periodically.

I have only ever used Time Machine to restore my system (when upgrading to a new computer etc).
Do you think having the clone in addition is a little OTT?? I'm considering just having the Tm backups and can then sell the drive that used to be used for the clone?
 

glawrie

macrumors member
Oct 31, 2005
56
5
Maidenhead, UK
I have only ever used Time Machine to restore my system (when upgrading to a new computer etc).
Do you think having the clone in addition is a little OTT?? I'm considering just having the Tm backups and can then sell the drive that used to be used for the clone?

You probably do not need all of the backups you are taking, and backing up from an SSD to another SSD seems a luxurious route to be following... That said, I do something similar (daily whole disk clones with CCC, with a regular Time Machine instance running concurrently, and key documents stored in folders that sync to a cloud storage service). I have thought often about getting rid of one or more of these backups, and so far have kept them all - there are times when each are more useful than the other two:
  • one time an OS X update failed. It was quicker / easier to restore the cloned copy of disk from CCC than to rebuild system using Time Machine via Recovery etc.
  • I find being able to dive into Time Machine to get back single files / folders reassuring - the copies are more up-to-date than CCC, and the Finder linked UI easier to work with I think.
  • When working remotely being able to get key documents from cloud is very helpful.
But if you want to liberate some cash, selling the two SSDs and putting both the disk clones and Time Machine backups onto spinning disks - or two partitions of a single spinning disk - might be overall cheaper.

HTH
 

Ifti

macrumors 601
Original poster
Dec 14, 2010
4,023
2,596
UK
Thanks for your response.
Ive been working with external SSDs for so long now that spinning disks just seem way too slow!

I have a Samsung T5 as a clone drive and a 2TB external SSD as my Time Machine drive. I keep them on separate drives rather then partition one drive so that I do not have a single point of failure - ie, if one external drive should fail I have the other backup still available.

Which cloud storage service do you use?
 

fatespawn

macrumors regular
Feb 22, 2009
243
111
Chicagoish
I have an external SSD that is currently used for Time Machine backups.
I have a separate external SSD, which is currently used to house a SuperDuper clone of my system.
My documents are also manually backed up to my NAS periodically.

I have only ever used Time Machine to restore my system (when upgrading to a new computer etc).
Do you think having the clone in addition is a little OTT?? I'm considering just having the Tm backups and can then sell the drive that used to be used for the clone?

I have the same system you do. Time Machine plus a clone. Makes me happy knowing if my drive fails, I have have an instant backup - but then again, I have removable internal drives so it makes that easier. I can slide out the old drive, and pop in the Clone.

If you can't remove your internal drive, the clone might be redundant with Time Machine. The fact you have your documents backed up to a NAS is kind of a belt-plus-suspenders approach meaning you're well protected.
 
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BrianBaughn

macrumors G3
Feb 13, 2011
9,821
2,492
Baltimore, Maryland
If you've ever had to restore from TM multiple times because you didn't know when a particular database got corrupted you'd know the benefit of having the backup on an SSD.
 
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