Time Machine wireless backup to a Time Capsule, SuperDuper clone to an SSD and BackBlaze for online backup. I’ve lost data in the past, not eager to see it happen again.
A lot of people here make this way harder than it needs to be. Wow! I've been a sysadmin on Linux, Mac, and Windows for over 2 decades.
I'm a lunatic about backup and as such have never suffered any loss on any server, cloud server, desktop or laptop. To answer your question YES you should use time machine. But depending on how much you value your data you can do a bit more. See below:
For my Mac Studio it's very simple:
USB-C connected Time Machine drive. This takes care of local backup and versioning. It is so easy to implement and to recover any file or entire mac from. Everyone should use it. IF you want to use a NAS go ahead but I wouldn't setup a nas just for time machine. Waste of time and money when cheap USB drives exist.
Online off-site backup. I use Backblaze. Why? It's cheap at $99/year. It is set it and forget it. It backs up all my data (i.e. the stuff I cannot recreate if I had a catastrophe such as the OS or applications). It has options for no versioning, one year versioning and unlimited versioning. I chose 1 year and it was included so no cost for me. I have no need for unlimited versioning but if you do the cost is nominal to do so.
Google Drive - I have google drive storage and throw files on google drive and also set it to backup my important folders on my Mac's hard drive. This is optional if you want a bit more overkill for peace of mind.
DO step #1 and #2 above and you are fine. Just make sure your Backblaze and Time machine are working by checking on them every so often. If you see your TM disk fail just replace it. I use a standard spinning drive on my Mac Studio but an SSD on my laptop for TM. Either one works. SSD has a longer MTBF. Just size it properly.
Other things like Photos are backed up in iCloud and I'd urge users to use iCloud for their photos for backup and sync between devices. If not make sure you have your TM and Backblaze (0r whatever offsite solution you use) backing those files up.
In the past I've also gone way overboard and backed up all photos and files to Amazon S3 but decided if my primary methods fail that is a 3 standard deviation event and not something to worry about.
I dropped Time Machine. I had an external hard drive fail, and TM wouldn’t restore properly. I was thankful for following the 3-2-1 backup concept, so I had alternative restore options.
I moved to using Arq as backup software that manages my local backup and my backup to Wasabi storage (similar to S3 but cheaper) and then Synology and use their backup service.
The cloud is not a backup but a synchronisation service. That's why I always keep a local copy of all my files on my Mac which goes into a Time Machine backup.
Too many people don't realize that. They think they have things backed up in the cloud then erase something on their computer only to have the cloud version erased too because of sync.
Time Machine wireless backup to a Time Capsule, SuperDuper clone to an SSD and BackBlaze for online backup. I’ve lost data in the past, not eager to see it happen again.
This is the way. There’s two types of people -
people who backup in multiple places and
people that haven’t lost everything yet
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I use a TimeMachine backup on a 2TB HDD and a clone copy on an SSD using CarbonCopyCloner.
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Backblaze, and a clone drive with Carbon Copy Cloner
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A lot of people here make this way harder than it needs to be. Wow! I've been a sysadmin on Linux, Mac, and Windows for over 2 decades.
I'm a lunatic about backup and as such have never suffered any loss on any server, cloud server, desktop or laptop. To answer your question YES you should use time machine. But depending on how much you value your data you can do a bit more. See below:
For my Mac Studio it's very simple:
USB-C connected Time Machine drive. This takes care of local backup and versioning. It is so easy to implement and to recover any file or entire mac from. Everyone should use it. IF you want to use a NAS go ahead but I wouldn't setup a nas just for time machine. Waste of time and money when cheap USB drives exist.
Online off-site backup. I use Backblaze. Why? It's cheap at $99/year. It is set it and forget it. It backs up all my data (i.e. the stuff I cannot recreate if I had a catastrophe such as the OS or applications). It has options for no versioning, one year versioning and unlimited versioning. I chose 1 year and it was included so no cost for me. I have no need for unlimited versioning but if you do the cost is nominal to do so.
Google Drive - I have google drive storage and throw files on google drive and also set it to backup my important folders on my Mac's hard drive. This is optional if you want a bit more overkill for peace of mind.
DO step #1 and #2 above and you are fine. Just make sure your Backblaze and Time machine are working by checking on them every so often. If you see your TM disk fail just replace it. I use a standard spinning drive on my Mac Studio but an SSD on my laptop for TM. Either one works. SSD has a longer MTBF. Just size it properly.
Other things like Photos are backed up in iCloud and I'd urge users to use iCloud for their photos for backup and sync between devices. If not make sure you have your TM and Backblaze (0r whatever offsite solution you use) backing those files up.
In the past I've also gone way overboard and backed up all photos and files to Amazon S3 but decided if my primary methods fail that is a 3 standard deviation event and not something to worry about.
More replies
I dropped Time Machine. I had an external hard drive fail, and TM wouldn’t restore properly. I was thankful for following the 3-2-1 backup concept, so I had alternative restore options.
I moved to using Arq as backup software that manages my local backup and my backup to Wasabi storage (similar to S3 but cheaper) and then Synology and use their backup service.
More replies
Cloud repositories are not a substitute for backups. Cloud repositories are not authoritative.
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The cloud is not a backup but a synchronisation service. That's why I always keep a local copy of all my files on my Mac which goes into a Time Machine backup.
Too many people don't realize that. They think they have things backed up in the cloud then erase something on their computer only to have the cloud version erased too because of sync.
More replies
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Time Machine backup to NAS. It's been set and forget for a few years now.
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