After some minor data loss from poor backups, what's worked well for me for years is a daily clone on one drive (an SSD so you can get back up and running quickly), a weekly clone on another, and a Time Machine on a third drive, plus an off-site backup (e.g. Backblaze). I haven't needed the off-site for anything yet, but the others have all been extremely useful. The clones are automatically managed by CCC. I generally save at least one clone from an old machine when I upgrade to a new machine as well, just in case I find a month or two later something didn't migrate correctly.
I typically have three clones at play for my production internal boot device. I use CCC to clone my production internal device on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday to physically separate devices, and then cycle through this each week. This allows me to recover back to a week ago if bad things have happened during the week.
I configure Time Machine to backup to a device that has 4x the space of my selected devices I configure Time Machine to backup.
I keep my most important data on a local RAID-5 setup and use CrashPlan/Code42 for keeping more backups offsite.
You're right, that's a great point. What I do to avoid automated backups overwriting my clones during major changes (e.g. the Catalina betas), is simply disconnect the two CCC clones (daily and weekly) and use another drive as a daily clone instead. It's a cheap portable spinning 2TB that's so slow I would never want to boot from it, but it's pretty far down the list of backups. After a week or two I'd usually put the original clones back in place, but in the case of the Catalina betas I waited until the release.
I also do an occasional manual clone of my 2TB internal to an inexpensive Macbook Air with an upgraded 2TB disk (Target Disk Mode), so I have a second, backup machine for portable use or if the Mac Pro fails in some way. For me, having my exact environment (apps, preferences, active projects) cloned to the laptop this way is the best way I've found to manage two Macs.
CCC's SafetyNet is "supposed to" solve this new "stuff" concern, or at least in theory. I personally do NOT use it on system drive clones at all and do not recommend it is used for them. I cycle clone drives every 5-21 days (depending on A/B/C/D/etc) and never update more than one at a time. Basically set reminders and manually launch (takes seconds at most). Do not like to schedule via software, unless you're attempting to replicate Time Machine style backup to a separate drive (and would not call that a clone).
In all honesty, the system drive of workstation use MacPro's do not change that much. All the important data is on "external" media drives that are on their own/separate CCC cycles. The system drive of my MBP is much more frequently updated/changed and that clone is vitally important to me. (Realize not everyone has two machines.)
You also want to think about your storage/vault situation. Keeping the drives in a fire/water safe when not in use and any off-site backups. There are fire/water rated backup drives, but expensive and bulky. Physically attaching and moving is usually more economical for those on a budget.
I'd offer just a little caution with the CCC backup practice:
I've always had the primary boot disk (in this case, the Apple-shipped 2TB) and another 'Alt Boot' disk (in this case, a 256GB NVMe). And so one can boot from either & of course from Alt Boot in case soemthing goes pear shaped and I need to restore a CCC image to the primary boot disk.
My caution is not to do regular 'automated' CCC backups, but rather, on-demand & manual once I am ceratin this in fact is a 'good' image /system. Otherwise I may be restoring something which could be glitchy. eg, I currently have images for Primary boot 10.15.2 & another for the recent 10.15.3 update. Once I am confident about the 10.15.3, will delete the 10.15.2.
CCC does not do obvious incremental backups (although, yes, there are APFS snapshots, I do not find this especially well organised or notated). By comparison, Macrium Reflect (Windows) allows me to make notes in every backup's metadata and so roll-backs to certain restore points make this crystal clear. In the case of MacOS /CCC, no sot obvious & so I make a new CCC image, name it and keep upadte notes for critical install points. But no, I would not make auto-backups at (say) weekly timings for the reasons mentioned above. Re. Docs (if they are located on the Boot disk) - these are indeed syncronised separately to a NAS via something like Good Sync or Chronosync.
Hope that helps.
Thank you all for the useful tips
I have now set it up to an every 5 Day clone using CCC from Internal to a PCI-E SSD in Mac Pro.
Tested to boot from the PCI-E SSD backup successfully.
Because I notice there are APFS snapshots and CCC snapshots. I still have some questions.
As to APFS snapshot, If I want to restore the Mac to a previews state, I went Command + R to Recovery mode, then select TimeMachine, then select restore from local Macintosh HD, then select one of the back up to restore, am I doing the right step?
I tried to do that today, but it shows:An error occurred while rolling back the local snapshot. the system may be in an inconsistent state.
But wired thing is that when I restart it does when back to that time state. Deleted files come back. Is this normal?
I have also enabled CCC snapshots and SaftyNet as well.
I have the first back up clone(10.15.2) to PCI-E SSD Backup Drive
Then OS update to 10.15.3 and tested and believed it is stable, Then I click clone to do the 2nd and 3rd backup to the same PCI-E SSD backup Drive.
Because I turn on CCC Snapshot and SafetyNet, I clicked the Manage Snapshot I can see there are snapshots on it.
Is that means I can restore from any of those CCC snapshots to the Internal drive when things happen?
If my PCI-E SSD is large enough to hold many CCC Snapshots, then I do not need to have 2 PCI-E SSDs to do one daily back up and the other for weekly back up, I can just use one PCI-E SSD for multiple backup then restore from the different snapshot, am I understand right?
There is one thing in Catalina very confusing
Because Macintosh HD is now separated into two Drive
Macintosh HD
Macintosh HD - Data
Every time I back up, “Macintosh HD - Data” will have a CCC snapshot, but on “Macintosh HD”, not every backup has a snapshot.
For example, If I have done the 1st backup at 1 am, the 2nd backup at 2 am, the 3rd back up at 3 am
On “Macintosh HD - Data” will have all 3 CCC snapshots backups, but on “Macintosh HD” only have 1st and 2nd backup but no 3 am backup. (maybe there is no change from 2-3 am?)
But If I want to restore from 3 am backup if I restore in 2 partitions Macintosh HD(2 am backup) and Macintosh HD(3 am backup) - Data separately, will it be a problem?
Thanks a lot
