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- Thread starter Jonr515
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I use Carbon Copy Cloner and Arq Backup. Both offer a 30 day trial.
I stopped using TimeMachine as I found it to be unreliable.
Carbon Copy Cloner is easy to use, fast, and has great support and documentation.
Arq is also fast, easy to use, and does an excellent job of providing you means to back up your data to the cloud or attached drives or network devices.
I stopped using TimeMachine as I found it to be unreliable.
Carbon Copy Cloner is easy to use, fast, and has great support and documentation.
Arq is also fast, easy to use, and does an excellent job of providing you means to back up your data to the cloud or attached drives or network devices.
Time machine and backblaze. The ideal is to keep three backups, one on a disk attached the the machine, one on a disk connected to a remote machine and then one in the cloud. Dropping the local or remote is fine but having an offsite backup is good just in case something happens to where you live.
I have never used
FreeFileSync
Download FreeFileSync 13.7. FreeFileSync is a free open source data backup software that helps you synchronize files and folders on Windows, Linux and macOS.
I believe in going with software that is proven, has a history, gives excellent support, and focuses on the Mac environment, instead of trying to be one app for all platforms. In my opinion, that can leave the developer to neglect or miss some important aspects of the software.
Time Machine may work just fine for you, as one of your backup plans. I have had too many instances of it not backing up when it was supposed to and failing to inform of such, as well as creating unstable backups that it doesn't tell you about until you need the backup, and then it is too late.
How important are your files to you? How important is it for you to be able to speak directly to the developer?
You have plenty of time to try CCC. It verifies each backup made and alerts if there is a problem. I suggest you have another off-site backup plan. Always make backups of your backups. Hard drives fail without warning, get damaged, lost or stolen. You can't and shouldn't rely on just CCC, File Sync, or any other singular program.
There is a reason that TimeMachine, CCC, Arq, and SuperDuper are the most talked about programs on this forum. File Sync is not talked about and hasn't been at any length in the time I have been here, which is almost 10 years.
Forty or Fifty dollars for a backup app may seem like a lot at once. However, the benefits provided far outweigh the consequences of not having reliable backup software.
Free File Sync makes a copy of your document files.
CCC creates an exact clone of your drive/SSD. This includes documents, system files and boot partition.
CCC doesn't work "completely" with m-series Macs.
Mike Bombich explains this on his tech/blog pages.
Apple will not permit "full cloning" of the "secure system partition".
As such, a CCC "clone" of an m1 series drive isn't bootable.
(even though it's still pretty much a clone in all other regards)
There are supposed to be "workarounds" that can make such a backup bootable (such as doing a reinstall of the OS onto the cloned volume).
I'm thinking that Apple DOESN'T WANT users to have the capability to create a bootable clone of an m-series Mac (and the OS on it).
We'll have to wait and see if that's the case.
If CCC still won't work a year from now... I reckon that bootable Mac clones are going to become a thing of the past...
Mike Bombich explains this on his tech/blog pages.
Apple will not permit "full cloning" of the "secure system partition".
As such, a CCC "clone" of an m1 series drive isn't bootable.
(even though it's still pretty much a clone in all other regards)
There are supposed to be "workarounds" that can make such a backup bootable (such as doing a reinstall of the OS onto the cloned volume).
I'm thinking that Apple DOESN'T WANT users to have the capability to create a bootable clone of an m-series Mac (and the OS on it).
We'll have to wait and see if that's the case.
If CCC still won't work a year from now... I reckon that bootable Mac clones are going to become a thing of the past...
I suspect your grave prophesy is correct, but there is nothing more useful than starting up on a back-up and checking the hardware out!
At least we still have target disk mode for now!
i did some research on the types of files i use. Just having cronoSync copy files directly individually gave the best results.
keep it simple.
Chronosync works really well. It's a really useful program, when your other various backups are in a mess, the comparison and copy function is so controllable. But a big disk takes a long time to do that compared to a back-up system like CCC.
I love mine, but it is only part of the solution. Since the NAS it is in my home office if the home was destroyed my data would be toast (pun intended). So I also backup the NAS to the cloud.Synology NAS
I like that Synology has a number of cloud backup options for 3rd parties (AWS, Backblaze, etc.) as well as their own cloud option (C2).
Comcast and their bastard data cap put a giant crimp in my off-site backup strategy. Moving anything of any size off site is slow and expensive. I usually upload one complete backup and iterate the heck out of it. Makes me nervous because it causes so many possible fail points. But what are you going to do? ?♂️