Advice on dealing with storage problems

[Speed38]

I help seniors, twice a week, via Zoom class I hold.
One of them has a 7-year old MB Pro with a 500GB SSD and she is running out of room.
She does some light film editing for a non-profit where she volunteers.
On an external HDD she has over 2TBs of files.
We just looked up the cost of a new, 16", 1TB MB Pro and it's $3,500

It seems to me the most economical solution for her, when she moves to a new computer, is to place all her big files in iCloud Drive and pay for sufficient storage there.

If she wants to use Time Machine to back up everything on her internal SSD and what is in iCloud, then it is my understanding that she should choose to not Optimize her internal SSD.

Then, get a sufficiently large enough external SSD to use for TM backup and backup everything on her internal Hard Drive and what is in iCloud Drive.

I would welcome comments on this and/or suggestions on other ways for her to deal with her files and folders.'

 

[FNH15]

As a part-time video editor, my advice is to move all archived projects to a large storage repository (mirrored in RAID for backup / redundancy purposes). RAID arrays can easily be purchased on eBay, and filled with, say 6 TB spinning disks. As a scratch disk, consider a USB C / Thunderbolt 3 NVMe enclosure with an SSD of their choice.

Regarding backing up iCloud Drive: this is correct, and is a fairly transparent process. As a bonus, if your client has a router with a USB port, they should be able to backup wirelessly via TM on their local network.

 

[Speed38]

While I do thank you for taking the time to respond, this particular senior is an 80+ woman who is somewhat baffled by the organization of files on her drive. She has learned how to edit videos, etc., but where she puts those video files is anyone's guess. Metaphorically speaking, when you look at the distribution of folders and files on her HD, in iCloud, and on her 6TB, external HDD, it's like someone dropped a hand grenade in there.

She would never be able to handle anything as complicated as a RAID array with multiple drives.

 

[mblm85]

With my non-tech friends and older family members, the most successful solutions have seemed to be those that make as little change as possible to how they've been doing things up to now.

I think the best course of action is for you and her to go through what she already has saved and weed out projects she no longer needs. If she doesn't know where she's saving files to, she's probably got loads of duplicates, redundant projects and part-finished files.

Once you're down to what she wants to keep, you can plan what's next.

As you've said, new computers are expensive. iCloud storage is also expensive and not great as a backup solution.

If it were me, I'd be looking into keeping her existing machine and possibly getting a bigger external drive (an SSD if you can) if you haven't deleted much. And instead of iCloud, I'd be considering a backup service like Backblaze backup, which can backup external drives as well as the internal one.

 

[Speed38]

@mblm85 I think having her sort through all those files and do something (delete, archive, whatever) those files she no longer needs or those that are duplicates is a splendid idea!

Backblaze has come up several times in my searches. My wife uses it and her experience has been excellent.

Thanks for your input.

 

[Fishrrman]

I hear that she's 80 years old (I'm getting up there, as well)
Keep things SIMPLE.
NO RAID.

Get her a 4tb SSD. 2x the storage she has now.
I'd suggest a Crucial X9.

Use either SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner to clone the contents of her 2tb external to the replacement drive.

AND, also get her a cheaper platter-based 4tb HDD -- to BACK UP the contents of the HDD.
A cloned backup will work there, too.
SuperDuper is VERY easy to understand and use, moreso than CCC these days.

She's probably going to have to think about a replacement for the MBP before too long.
Apple refurbished could save some money.
And make sure the internal drive she gets is at least 1tb SSD...

 

[Speed38]

@Fishrrman. I'm 85 myself. I completely agree with you on SuperDuper vs CCC. I was a long term user of CCC but gave it up a few years back when it just became too complicated.

Since I had an extra SSD sitting used, I began using the free version of SD to clone my iMac to it once a week. Meanwhile, I have a dual OWC dock with a 1TB HDD in each slot set to sequentially back up my internal 500GB ssd.

Here is where I am now:
• Step one - she culls through her folders and files identifying dupes and data she genuinely no long needs to keep. I strongly suspect that will get her close to 1.5TB.
• Step two - have her get an OWC Dual Dock like the one I have (currently on sale for $100).
• Step three - get her a Cruxial SSD (size to be determined after she culls her data) on which she will store the data which will not fit on her internal SSD
• Step four - get her a multi-TB HDD (size to be determined after she culls her data) which will act as her Time Machine backup and set it to backup both her internal SSD and the data on the Cruxial SSD

I did not mention this before but she says that her cursor "jumps around" and she has trouble finding it. I speculated it could be a hardware problem with the Trackpad itself or the battery below it might be old, swollen, and pressing up against it causing this problem. She then explained the cursor had been jumping around since she bought the computer, but she had never taken it back to Apple. Sigh.

Comments/suggestions/etc. welcomed.

 

[Ben J.]

@Fishrrman. I did not mention this before but she says that her cursor "jumps around" and she has trouble finding it. I speculated it could be a hardware problem with the Trackpad itself or the battery below it might be old, swollen, and pressing up against it causing this problem. She then explained the cursor had been jumping around since she bought the computer, but she had never taken it back to Apple.

I'd suggest getting her a Apple Magic Mouse. Or any blutooth mouse.

And she might find it useful to increase the size of the pointer:

Make the pointer easier to see on Mac

On your Mac, change the size and color of the pointer so it’s easier to locate on the screen.

support.apple.com

If it's practical, as a part of the "pruning" of the disks, you could use a small app like DaisyDisk to easily get an overview over the data that is taking up much space on the disks. There's a 30-day fully functional demo. Often people find redundant folders, snapshots etc that can be quickly deleted.

 

[mblm85]

I did not mention this before but she says that her cursor "jumps around" and she has trouble finding it. I speculated it could be a hardware problem with the Trackpad itself or the battery below it might be old, swollen, and pressing up against it causing this problem.

If the system drive was almost full, the machine could have been struggling under the load of everything else it was having to do, making the interface a bit laggy.

It could also be a usability issue. Before spending any money, it's worth trying out a few of the Accessibility features within MacOS' System Settings. Specifically in:

Accessibility > Display > Pointer
and
Accessibility > Pointer Control

The pointer can be made more prominent in size and colour, and more responsive to how she moves her finger across the trackpad.

 

[ignatius345]

If she wants to use Time Machine to back up everything on her internal SSD and what is in iCloud, then it is my understanding that she should choose to not Optimize her internal SSD.

True, and definitely something to watch out for.

BUT: Carbon Copy Cloner now has a new feature that will back up files that are on cloud storage. I haven't tried it myself, but it could solve this problem.

 

[Ben J.]

@OP and Ignatius; what's this 'optimization' that she should choose not to do and "watch out for"? Please xplain.

 

[Speed38]

@Ben J. Noticed when we Zoomed that she had indeed increased her cursor size. If she stays with that Mac, an Apple Mouse is a great idea.

I have not seen DaisyDisk before but have used OmniDiskSweeper to which I sent her a link.


@mblm85. I had made a note to check out some of those Accessibility features; thanks for remind me.

@ ignatius345. I have a document which I constructed from notes obtained from several forums on that subject. Yep, do not choose optimize if you want to have everything from both your internal HD and your iCloud Drive backed up to TimeMachine.

 

[Speed38]

@ Ben J. re optimize. It's a bit jumbled, but here are the bits and pieces I assembled re do not optimize if you want TM to back up everything.

These settings are in System Settings > Your Name/Apple ID > iCloud Drive & be sure [Desktop & Documents Folders] is not turned on.

If you have disabled Optimize Mac Storage in iCloud Settings, then Sonoma ensures that local copies of all files in iCloud Drive are also stored locally, and they will all be backed up. If you have enabled Optimize Mac Storage, then it shouldn’t take too long to manually download all files and folders in iCloud that you want backed up, if they have been evicted, provided that you have sufficient free local storage. Once they have been backed up, you can then evict those that you don’t want to remain stored locally.

Note this - Because Pages, Keynote & Numbers are on icloud. Items on icloud don't backup only exception is your photo library because it saves the library file. It's the same as with iphone and icloud backups.

From a Level 10 on Apple Support

Time Machine will backup iCloud Drive, as long as you have not enabled "Optimise Mac Storage". If "Optimise ..." is enabled, it will be a game of chance, which documents have been downloaded from iCloud are locally available on your computer, when Time Machine is running.

From https://www.mac-forums.com/threads/does-time-machine-backup-icloud-drive.378663/#post-1944158

No. You have NOT evicted the folder with that action [i.e., dragging and dropping a folder, in the Finder, from Home folder to iCloud Drive.] . Eviction is a system function that only operates if Optimize is turned ON. When the system detects that the file/folder has not been accessed recently (whatever that means), it then moves the file to iCloud and replaces it on the local drive with a dataless file that only contains the information that the system needs to retrieve that file/folder from iCloud when you ask for it. The system shows what files/folders have been evicted that way with the little cloud icon. Basically, to get that file/folder back to the local drive, you need to download it by opening it, which forces it to be retrieved from iCloud.

From a Mac forum

If you do not select the Optimize storage parameter (which offloads local storage data to iCloud), then the full data content of everything is mirrored on your local drive and your regular Time Machine backup will pick that all up. Your contacts are in the Library directory, so is all your email, your photos are in the Pictures directory. Everything else is just files in your home directory

From eclecticlightcompany

WHAT DOES TIME MACHINE BACK UP?

By default, Time Machine backs up almost everything on volumes it's set to back up. It doesn't, of course, try to back anything up from the Signed System Volume (SSV) containing macOS itself, and there are a few folders it automatically excludes, such as the hidden folder at the root of each volume containing the versions database (as that can't be restored in any case). But unless you add iCloud Drive to its exclusion list from your Home Library folder, Time Machine will back up all the files and folders in iCloud Drive as long as they're stored locally at the time it makes that backup.

Unless you manually exclude iCloud Drive from Time Machine backups, the contents of iCloud Drive will be backed up provided that items haven’t been evicted from local storage.

If Optimise Mac Storage is turned off, the whole of iCloud Drive will be backed up by Time Machine, as eviction doesn’t occur.

If Optimise Mac Storage is turned on, only those files and folders that are stored locally will be backed up by Time Machine. To ensure an item is backed up, manually download it before the backup is made.

Restoring iCloud Drive items from a backup is simplest in the Time Machine app, but also available in the Finder, from a path equivalent to ~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/ in that backup.

DATALESS FILES

It's that last condition that's the most important consideration. If your Mac has Optimize Mac Storage turned off, then iCloud Drive is run as a Replicating FileProvider, where everything stored in iCloud Drive is also stored locally. In that case, all those items will be backed up by Time Machine just as they would be if kept in purely local storage.

If Optimize Mac Storage is turned on, iCloud Drive behaves as a Non-Replicating FileProvider, and some or many of the files you store in iCloud Drive may be evicted from local storage, and are then no longer available for backup. This is explained in the diagram.

 

[Ben J.]

@ Ben J. re optimize. It's a bit jumbled, but here are the bits and pieces I assembled re do not optimize if you want TM to back up everything.

These settings are in System Settings > Your Name/Apple ID > iCloud Drive & be sure [Desktop & Documents Folders] is not turned on.

Thanks for your effort, but I'm fully aware of all the points you make about iCloud, Timemachine, and the optimization setting. But it wasn't exactly obvious that this was what you were talking about; "Should not choose to optimize". I interpreted that as doing something to the disk to make it run better, like free up space, repair permissions, check integrity, etc - even defragmentation like in the old days with HDs. That's why I asked.

Btw; I think you'll find that the path to local copies of iCloud storage (and others, like dropbox, google etc.) is:
~/Library/Cloudstorage
(This is also a good place to look for redundant files with storage apps like Daisydisk, as it can grow large and is easly missed.)

 

[Speed38]

@Ben J. Thanks very much for that ~/Library/Cloudstorage tip.
Just checked mine and found only one item: OneDrive occupying 25MB of my SSD.

 

[ignatius345]

If you have enabled Optimize Mac Storage, then it shouldn’t take too long to manually download all files and folders in iCloud that you want backed up, if they have been evicted, provided that you have sufficient free local storage. Once they have been backed up, you can then evict those that you don’t want to remain stored locally.

As I mentioned above, Carbon Copy Cloner now claims to run this whole process download/backup/eviction automatically, so even if you DO use iCloud Drive with Optimized Storage enabled, you're still getting a full backup of your actual files onto a physical drive separate from your computer's internal. Again, haven't tested it myself but Bombich is a longstanding and reputable developer so I would have high confidence in them.

 

[Ben J.]

I don't understand why people want to have a backup of iCloud. To me it's a backup of a backup. I have excluded the ~/Library/CloudStorage folder from my CCC backups.

 

[ignatius345]

I don't understand why people want to have a backup of iCloud. To me it's a backup of a backup. I have excluded the ~/Library/CloudStorage folder from my CCC backups.

OK, fine.

Scenario 1

You have a collection of files in an iCloud Drive folder for some project, and you have Optimized Storage on. You (or maybe someone you're collaborating with, if it's a shared folder) edit a big Word file and a spreadsheet. Files get shuffled around and a few different versions are created and a couple are overwritten. You leave the project alone for a few months and come back to it and realize that, oops, you actually need one of those edited versions. No problem, just grab it from your CCC or Time Machine backup. Only you can't. You haven't backed up a thing. The file in question got evicted from your computer weeks ago and CCC was just "backing up" a placeholder file. iCloud Drive won't let you retrieve anything because it's been more than 30 days. You're ****ed.

Scenario 2

You get locked out of your iCloud account. Maybe a bug on their end, like this poor guy:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-id-accounts-logging-out-users-and-requiring-password-reset.2425001/post-33094274

Or maybe because of identity theft, like this poor guy:
https://www.reddit.com/r/iCloud/comments/xcg1h9
Or, maybe a sync just plain gets corrupted somewhere.

Again, you go to open up your Time Machine drive to restore from that. But, because you've been "backing up" tiny placeholder files, again, you're ****ed.

If you want to put all your eggs in one basket, by all means go for it and good luck to you, but don't say you weren't warned if it all goes south. ✌️

 

[HDFan]

1. iCloud is not a backup solution that would count in the recommended 3-2-1 backup plan. Backblaze, Crashplan are cost effective true cloud backup solutions. Once setup they don't need any maintenance, just a good internet connection.

2. TM should only be 1 of the 3 backups due to its tendency to fail.

 

[Speed38]

As I mentioned above, Carbon Copy Cloner now claims to run this whole process download/backup/eviction automatically, so even if you DO use iCloud Drive with Optimized Storage enabled, you're still getting a full backup of your actual files onto a physical drive separate from your computer's internal. Again, haven't tested it myself but Bombich is a longstanding and reputable developer so I would have high confidence in them.

Pleased to see you raise CCC. I have had CCC since version 5. It seems to me that as the macOS changed and CCC adapted to these changes, CCC became ever more complicated to use and I gave it up and did not update to V 7.
I downloaded and ran the free version of SuperDuper and all I had to do was pick a Source HD and Destination HD and click on [Backup all files].
Can you tell me, is CCC now that simple or not.

 

[ignatius345]

Pleased to see you raise CCC. I have had CCC since version 5. It seems to me that as the macOS changed and CCC adapted to these changes, CCC became ever more complicated to use and I gave it up and did not update to V 7.
I downloaded and ran the free version of SuperDuper and all I had to do was pick a Source HD and Destination HD and click on [Backup all files].
Can you tell me, is CCC now that simple or not.

CCC has some pretty straightforward preset backup setups you can apply and keep a simpler interface. They offer a 30-day trial you can use to see if it suits your needs.

 

[Speed38]

CC has some pretty straightforward preset backup setups you can apply and keep a simpler interface. They offer a 30-day trial you can use to see if it suits your needs.

Thanks. Just downloaded and ran the free trial. Backed up to an SSD, backed completed rather quickly for a first time run, and when I booted from that CCC clone all seemed just fine.
Looks like I will update CCC from v. 6 to v. 7.
And it was dead easy: just like SD in that you pick a source drive and a destination drive and hit copy.

 

[ignatius345]

Thanks. Just downloaded and ran the free trial. Backed up to an SSD, backed completed rather quickly for a first time run, and when I booted from that CCC clone all seemed just fine.
Looks like I will update CCC from v. 6 to v. 7.
And it was dead easy: just like SD in that you pick a source drive and a destination drive and hit copy.

Yeah, you can get WAY into the nitty gritty if you need to with CCC, but it's great they also have a streamlined UI option.

 

[dmccloud]

I don't understand why people want to have a backup of iCloud. To me it's a backup of a backup. I have excluded the ~/Library/CloudStorage folder from my CCC backups.

Offline access is the biggest reason. If you only use iCloud as your "backup", then you are completely cut off if either a) you forget your password/account is locked or b) do not have internet access. If you have an external drive or even another device (i.e., NAS, home server) you can back up the data to, you have the ability to recover/restore from those backups at any time.