What is your backup plan

[Barney63]

I read quite often about how important it is to do backups.
When I was a Windows user my 'backup' was simply an external HDD with all my media on it, and then every couple of months I'd do a copy of my important documents. This served me well.

The normal recommendation for the Mac is to use TimeMachine to do regular backups (by default that is every hour or so, deleting old ones automatically) and also to have a second backup 'off site'.

I have a TimeCapsule doing the regular backups and also an HDD with a copy of my media on it.

What do you do?

Barney

 

[koerk]

I have a external USB HD which time machine backups on.

Then I have a clone of my ssd on an old 160GB drive from my 2009 MBP although I don't expect my airs ssd to fail in a way a traditional HD would do.

 

[ColdCase]

I have Time Machine alternate backups of my internal drive to a Time Capsule and local mirrored HD RAID. I have CCC backup my media/working drive(s) to another local drive. I save my most critical files and media to a web host service in encrypted format.

 

[mdhwoods]

Time capsule for all 3 computers at my house. My main Imac also backs up to crashplan.

 

[TWO2SEVEN]

I have a 500gb external HDD that I use for Time Machine. I have it set to once a day.

 

[dmccloud]

TM backup to 2TB external (goes with me when traveling), network backup to 3TB NAS and syncing the NAS with a cloud server for offsite backup.

 

[SquirrelGirl]

Time Machine backups to external HD.
Local backup of important files (music, photos, videos, docs).
Offsite backup of irreplaceable files (photos, videos, docs - my music files are floating around in many formats so no need to backup most offsite).

 

[itsOver9000]

I only really backup my iTunes media files to a local external hard drive. I might add another external soon to do TM backups of the media files continually. The very few documents that I actually save I keep stored in Google Drive.

 

[plusnq]

Offsite Storage
1. carbonite for frequent real time backup.
2. Daily backup to removable hdd caddy for additional offsite hdd storage. Offsite storage is based on rotating hdd media that stores two to three years of data and when full is permanently stored offsite.

On site
1. Raid 5 Drobo direct attached storage
2. Raid 5 Nas for daily backup
3. Time machine for frequent real time backup.
4. All documents are stored in Dropbox and Evernote for offsite backup and archiving.

Minimum of three copies of all data, two types of media and two offsite storage locations (online and physical).

Paranoid. Yes.

 

[ruvil]

I'm using crash plan to make 1 off-site backup and 1 on-site backup.

 

[KevinC867]

All my media is external to my 15" 256GB rMBP. My primary media drive is a small 2TB portable drive. I copy this regularly to a a backup media drive.

My internal drive gets backed up to another external drive with time machine. I also do a nightly SuperDuper clone of the SSD to a second petition of the media drive. If my laptop or SSD fails, I can probably borrow another Mac, boot off the clone partition and be back in business right away.

 

[glenthompson]

Since going paperless for all my records I ramped up my backups. I use time machine to two different destinations and make a CCC clone periodically for a bootable backup. For off site I use Crashplan.

 

[Crzyrio]

Time Machine back up to my Synology NAS with RaiD 1 configuration!

I also have important documents either on Cloud station or Dropbox.

And of course very important things on my USB drive.

 

[kreasonos]

iCloud

 

[DiCaprioAngel]

I use a WD for Mac external HD to back up my media files and other important documents. I find it very important to back up regularly. Must be because when I had my first desktop computer and it crashed, I lost all of my data because I didn't think to save anything. Happened to me three times before I got my dad to buy me an external hard drive (before, I used to either email myself documents and save media on blank CDs and download them onto the computer later; such a hassle!) So, ever since then, I made sure to backup at least once a month in case anything happened to the computer. That way I will know that I have everything saved on the external hard drive.

 

[pat77]

I have a 500gb external USB HDD which time machine backups on

 

[yjchua95]

I don't use a TM backup because it backs up system junk as well.

I use SuperDuper to backup only the files that I want. Since it uses incremental backups, subsequent backups after the first one is usually done within 1-3 minutes.

I run the same backup scripts in SuperDuper on two external drives, in which one of them is brought home from my workplace every 2 days for backups. The other one resides in my home's safe.

 

[maflynn]

Here's how I back up my data.

Time Machine to Drobo Mini
Carbon Copy Cloner to an external drive
Carbon Copy Cloner to a portable external drive that gets taken offsite

 

[Crazy Badger]

I have 2 MBA's and an iMac connected to my home office network. All are backed up using TM to a NAS unit.

The NAS runs a weekly backup of important files (documents, pictures, music, etc.) to an attached USB drive.

Every month I do a full backup of the NAS onto another one which is stored offsite.

I also take a weekly backup of my main MBA to a USB drive, which is stored elsewhere.

Probably somewhat over the top, but better to be safe than sorry!

 

[Felasco]

I use SuperDuper to create a bootable clone on an external Firewire drive.

I need to add a second backup drive and feed it with TimeMachine, and get an offsite solution.

 

[Marty62]

TM backups daily or so.
CCC clone whenever something gets installed / changes. ( monthly average )
Cloned Copies of work / data drives x 2 updated daily.

SOON to be an off site backup too of important / personal data, NOT everything.

M.

 

[Fishrrman]

I've never used -- nor will I EVER use -- Time Machine. It's "un-bootable" and I want bootability in every backup. I've seen too many stories posted here of "TM disasters", in which the user -thought- he had a good TM backup, then connected it and tried to recover, and.... nothing.

I create ALL my backups using CarbonCopyCloner.
I keep some locally.
I also keep an "offsite" backup (actually, kept in the car on an encrypted volume).

 

[joe-h2o]

I've never used -- nor will I EVER use -- Time Machine. It's "un-bootable" and I want bootability in every backup. I've seen too many stories posted here of "TM disasters", in which the user -thought- he had a good TM backup, then connected it and tried to recover, and.... nothing.

I create ALL my backups using CarbonCopyCloner.
I keep some locally.
I also keep an "offsite" backup (actually, kept in the car on an encrypted volume).

To counter this anecdote, I will continue to use Time Machine because it has been fantastic on more than one occasion. I have needed to use it once for a hard drive failure (2006 iMac) that I fixed and then restored flawlessly, and a couple of times for setting up a new machine.

I don't rely on it solely, of course. I have dropbox keeping copies of my most critical files (which is synced to two machines), with both of these machines also backed up to a hard drive.

Time Machine is just extremely convenient, and so far has not let me down.

 

[bushido]

one TM backup on a 1 TB external drive which I do every so often (usually when my mac reminds me that i havent done one in 20 days or so).


been restoring from those backups three times thus far and its just as easy as on an iPhone which is amazing when i think of the drama i had with backups and driver mess on windows back in the day.

also ...

University crap and documents: dropbox
Music backup: iTunes Match & Google Music
Picture Backup: Flickr (1TB free)
TV Shows / Movies are stored on 5 external drives anyway

 

[Trek2100]

I perform a TM backup to a USB 1TB portable. I backup manually when there are software updates, new software added or added or changed data. I also keep a record of what precipitated the backup so I can go right to the specific backup if needed for restore purposes.