Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

What do laptop people do for time machine?

M

mikepro

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 3, 2010
465
66
I used to always use a Time Capsule when I had laptops, but that's long since died. And, for past 4 years I've been on an iMac with a dedicated external attached for Time Machine.

Selling the iMac and moving back to a 16" Macbook Pro. Wondering what people do for a wireless Time Machine solution? I'd rather not have to connect external to the Macbook, just have it happen automatically like the Time Capsule used to. The router I have to use for my fiber optic internet doesn't support plugging in an external.

So, what's the best way to do wireless time machine backups these days? Are there good standalone wireless drives? Should I resurrect my 2009 mac mini as a time machine server? Maybe I don't even need time machine anymore, since I have 2TB iCloud space, so my important docs and photos already get backed up...
 
  • Like
Reactions: ElectronGuru
I don't use it. I just copy files that need a backup. I can't see backing up everything constantly when I only need 1% or less backed up at any given time. I back up photos and music immediately after acquiring them. Same with work files. I don't understand the need for time machine. I don't use it and have never wished I used it either.
 
  • Like
  • Wow
  • Angry
Reactions: Cheffy Dave, fc4090 and Larsvonhier
I still have the Time Capsule. I don’t know what I’ll do when it breaks or is not supported anymore. I once did backups in a Synology NAS, but once I almost lost all my data while restoring. Turns out the backup has been corrupted long time ago without me knowing.
 
I have a mini that I use as a server.
As well as being my central repository for all data and taking care of all backups, one of its disks is dedicated to Time Machine for the Laptops in my house. Mine and my wife’s.
 
  • Like
Reactions: WilliamG, PilotWoo and colinwil
I keep most things backed up on various cloud accounts, and critical work I also back up manually onto an external drive for redundancy. I used TM for a few years, but never saw the value in it for my use case.
 
A router without ethernet ports? I didn't know that is a thing. Must have been designed by Jony Ive. Get a different router.
I am planning to use a NAS, so interested how that works. I don't want to have anything attached to my Macs, and I don't want to remember to do anything. Needs to be 100% automatic, with 100% redundancy (like RAID 1).
 
Last edited:
  • Haha
Reactions: Cape Dave
I use a thunderbolt dock to charge and connect to an external monitor and drives, one of which is my Time Machine drive. I'm probably at the dock about 50% of the time when I'm using the laptop at home. Most of my critical data is on external drives that are backed up with ChronoSync.
 
I use two external drives alternating days and only connect them when I'm done for the day. Because TM keeps local hourly backups, I'm not concerned about hourly backups to the external drives. Anything critical also gets backed up to iCloud and a DVD.
 
In the same boat. Traded in an iMac for MBP M1 16" (which was the right call). I just plug it into the time machine whenever I'm at my home studio. However, it's definitely been a little touchy and not as smooth as when it was always connected. I'll be interested to see if there are other solutions that also allow me to restore years' worth of logic pro settings and audio libraries. One time many years ago I had to "start over" and it took months to get everything back to where it was. With Time Machine, Logic Pro et. al. restores right where it left off on the old machine, which is priceless.

I also keep critical files backed up to Google Drive, but that's gotten less useful after they force-migrated everyone away from Backup & Sync to its half-baked Google Drive for Desktop.
 
I have 4 drive RAID enclosure, for time machine, obviously in use only at home. I don't trust it completely so I use FreeFileSync to sync my stuff to a home server (oldish windows box with 8 drives), using vpn when travelling.
 
I still have a Time Capsule, but I've stopped using it for the most part. It's just TOO SLOW and it eats up too much processing power while it's running. Instead, I just have an external hard drive that I connect once every few days. That usually takes care of everything in a few minutes. It rarely lasts longer than 10 minutes whereas my wireless backups could take an hour or more sometimes.

I also use SuperDuper to produce mirrored backups, but rely on Time Machine for incremental ones. I don't know why people hate on Time Machine so much. It's easy to use, it's fast (when wired), and it just works.
 
  • Like
Reactions: gjr74
I plug in an external drive to run Time machine about twice a month.

At some point I’ll probably need a NAS or something but this works for now.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ron21
I have a Synology NAS that Time Machine on my MBP targets. The MBP also has Backblaze installed. And there's an SSD in an external case plugged into the dock on my desk and a copy of CCC that kicks off whenever the SSD is detected.
 
  • Like
Reactions: arfung
Don’t forget archival. I back up to a das and a nas hourly and archive every week to 3 different forms of storage plus a cloud and I’m testing a different form of storage for longevity.

After rereading that I think I may be a little paranoid.
 
  • Haha
  • Like
Reactions: KeesMacPro and arche3
I use a External drive (WD) attached to my Wifi (Apple Airport Extreme) and also an old NAS (Stora) that I use for timemachine on both Macs
 
Waiting for Synology 2022 products. I’ll send my TMs there. I always have iDrive and/or Backblaze as well as iCloud backups. Getting the NAS primarily to serve video and 3D files between PCs and Macs. Backups will be a bonus.
 
Everything important I have on my MacBook is in iCloud Drive. That gets synced to my iMac, which is connected full-time to a Time Machine drive and also gets a monthly clone via Carbon Copy Cloner, kept offsite.

I still do back up my MacBook periodically to a portable hard drive, just to make it easier to restore if the machine should get lost/broken/stolen. Once Time Machine is set up, it will remind you at regular intervals to back up, so I just do it when that reminder comes up. Again, everything super important is already synced and backed up, so it's not the end of the world if I don't keep up with it.

Now that we can back up iOS and iPadOS devices via iCloud, I wonder how long before Apple comes up with something for MacOS. Seems like a no-brainer.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: gjr74
Hmm... maybe the best/easiest way is just to periodically plug in an external (which has advantage of being faster than WiFi and you can clone/archive it offsite periodically). I forgot that it will store TM backups locally, and then dump them to the external when connected. Just need the discipline to plug in the external periodically. Beauty of having something always on the network is it just happens automagically. But I do remember the initial backups to the Time Capsule took forever (days). A NAS like the Synology is cool, but could practically get a new Mac mini for same price and use that as a server with my existing external attached.

Or maybe the thing to do is get a dock and then plug the mac into that periodically when it needs to charge, and back it up.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back