What's Your Backup System?

[mivara]

I recently read thread and it got me thinking: How do you structure your backups?

I'm rather afraid of losing my thousands upon thousands of photos – and I've been close a few times – so now I have copies of them, and other files too of course, a variety of places.

I use Crashplan as my backup service and it automatically backs up my entire harddrive every Sunday at 4PM. So I've got my stuff locally on my rMBP, on an external harddrive and in the cloud on Crashplan's servers. Furthermore, I use Dropbox for random file storage.

So now I'm curious: How do you make sure that you don't lose anything?

 

[mrsir2009]

I use dropbox for important files and my whole computer backs up to Time Machine as well.

 

[chscag]

I recently read thread and it got me thinking: How do you structure your backups?

I'm rather afraid of losing my thousands upon thousands of photos – and I've been close a few times – so now I have copies of them, and other files too of course, a variety of places.

I use Crashplan as my backup service and it automatically backs up my entire harddrive every Sunday at 4PM. So I've got my stuff locally on my rMBP, on an external harddrive and in the cloud on Crashplan's servers. Furthermore, I use Dropbox for random file storage.

So now I'm curious: How do you make sure that you don't lose anything?

Many folks do not know that if your Mac has a SSD or PCIE Flash Storage and TRIM is enabled, there is no way to recover data that has been accidentally deleted. Therefore a good backup strategy is important. In my opinion: 1. Cloning software (CCC or SuperDuper) 2. Time Machine 3. Off site backup subscription (Use all three methods for redundancy.)

 

[glenthompson]

I use a multi-pronged approach that is continually changing as I add devices and drives. My situation is complicated as we travel for extended periods in our motorhome so I need portable solutions as well.

Main system at home consists of a Mac Mini server with multiple drives that holds time machine backups as well as shared files. In addition I use a Synology NAS that has the media files mirrored to it and also acts as a time machine destination. The NAS goes on the road with us so we have access to our media files as well as a backup destination. I also use a portable drive for occasional time machine backups and it goes with me as another back destination when traveling. That covers all the time machine backups.

Next is CCC. I have bootable clones of all machines on portable drives. They also travel with us. In addition I have bare drives used with a dock to make CCC clones that are stored in a fire safe at home. These are only updated occasionally. I routinely test the clones to make sure I can boot from them and perform normal tasks.

Finally I use CrashPlan for off-site backup for all out Macs as well as the media files on the Mac Mini Server. Love that unlimited plan since the media files are over 1.5tb. It took over a month to make the initial backup. As a test I access the CrashPlan files from my iPad so I know they are good.

The two times I consider the most important are my electronic filing cabinet - I scanned all my files and keep everything as PDFs. Those files are in DropBox and OneDrive (free with my Office subscription). My photos are in Aperture and it is backed up regularly and I periodically export all the files to a folder structure on the server so I have a copy that is not software dependent.

Only significant problem I run into is using CrashPlan while traveling. Many campgrounds have lousy internet connections so it's hard to get a CrashPlan backup done overnight. At home CrashPlan runs continuously but I only let it run at night when traveling. Sometimes I have to turn it off just because the connection is so bad.

All this costs me less than most people would pay to get their data back because they don't have a backup.