External hard drive advice for your grandmother

[ksalito56]

For a little background I started working with Apple products on a Macintosh, which means I’m old. I’m not a novice to computers and was pretty efficient when I worked. when I left the workforce the internet was the new thing. That said I have searched this forum and can find answers, I just don’t understand them. I just purchased a new MacBook Pro 14” and decided I should probably start using the Time Machine. I didn’t on my 2013 machine, because I just kept forgetting to do it. I have read that I can either do this through my Wi-Fi by adding an external hard drive to my router or getting a wireless external hard drive.

i Would appreciate some advice in terms your grandparents would understand. I am using an ATT Uverse router, which I am sure is outdated, but that’s what AT&T provided with my fixed wireless service.

I don’t want to worry about backups, I want them to work automatically. i already have all my documents and pictures stored in the cloud. Which route should I take.

Thank you in advance for your patience and help.

 

[monokakata]

If you only want backups for safety reasons (or to restore your machine if it's damaged) then it's hard to beat Backblaze, which is totally hands-off once you set it up. It will take a long time for the first backup to complete, but once it does, there's an image of your machine up there in the cloud, as current as the last time Backblaze did a backup, which is usually every hour.

It's not cheap. But in terms of set-and-forget I think it's unbeatable.

However -- obviously -- it's not the only solution. But it does keep you from having to tinker with hardware.

 

[Boyd01]

It will take a long time for the first backup to complete, but once it does, there's an image of your machine up there in the cloud

I like BackBlaze and have it for three different computers. However, that statement might be a little misleading for some people. BackBlaze does not create an "image of your machine". It only backs up your user data - documents, photos, e-mail, etc. This is all good, but it's far from a complete backup. None of your software is backed up (there's no way to backup your Applications folder) and that could be a problem if you have old apps that are no longer available. There are many file types that are automatically excluded, although you can improve that by customizing the settings.

If you have a failure, it's not so easy to restore from BackBlaze. You can selectively download files, which I have done and it saved me a lot of trouble when an external drive failed. But that is a slow process. The main way for restoring is to send them some money and they send you back a disk with your files. I believe they will refund some or all of this if you return the disk. Again, this is all good, but not so quick or easy. To restore a whole computer, you would need to download all your apps and install them, manually restore all your preferences and then replace your user files with Backblaze. So I see BackBlaze as sort of a "last resort" for backup if my other methods fail.

So I like the idea of getting BackBlaze, but would not want it as my only form of backup. I'll leave it to others to address the OP's questions about disks and wifi. But I think Time Machine is a good solution and it's even better if you supplement it by cloning your internal SSD to another external disk periodically using Carbon Copy or SuperDuper.

 

[ksalito56]

Thanks for your advice, I think I didn’t phrase my question right. I am looking for a way to use Time Machine without a wired external hard drive. I purchased a G-drive which failed me after a couple uses. I also didn’t use it correctly because it had to be wired in. I have all my important documents in the ICloud with Apple.

 

[monokakata]

I like BackBlaze and have it for three different computers. However, that statement might be a little misleading for some people. BackBlaze does not create an "image of your machine". It only backs up your user data - documents, photos, e-mail, etc. This is all good, but it's far from a complete backup. None of your software is backed up (there's no way to backup your Applications folder) and that could be a problem if you have old apps that are no longer available. There are many file types that are automatically excluded, although you can improve that by customizing the settings.

If you have a failure, it's not so easy to restore from BackBlaze. You can selectively download files, which I have done and it saved me a lot of trouble when an external drive failed. But that is a slow process. The main way for restoring is to send them some money and they send you back a disk with your files. I believe they will refund some or all of this if you return the disk. Again, this is all good, but not so quick or easy. To restore a whole computer, you would need to download all your apps and install them, manually restore all your preferences and then replace your user files with Backblaze. So I see BackBlaze as sort of a "last resort" for backup if my other methods fail.

So I like the idea of getting BackBlaze, but would not want it as my only form of backup. I'll leave it to others to address the OP's questions about disks and wifi. But I think Time Machine is a good solution and it's even better if you supplement it by cloning your internal SSD to another external disk periodically using Carbon Copy or SuperDuper.

You're right. I forgot about how it doesn't back up apps -- I should have gone and looked it up before posting.

I had to restore several TB of external-disk data once, and although it took more than a day, it did all come back down perfectly.

I use TM and also most of my working directories are permanently in the Dropbox folder. CCC makes a backup of my system drive every day, and Chronosynch backs some things up to my NAS.

Anyway, now we know what the OP wants. There was a time in this household when the laptops were backing up with TM that went to a Time Capsule. TCs in good condition might be available still. I have to say that one laptop's TM backups always worked properly, and the other one's backups would get corrupted every few months.

 

[Boyd01]

I still have an 802.11ac 2tb Time Capsule but only use it for wifi now. That certainly was the easy answer a few years ago, but Apple dropped them. I have seen so many bad reviews of "personal cloud" wifi disks that I couldn't recommend any of them. The WD MyCloud had some kind of serious vulnerability that was in the news for awhile IIRC.

All I can say is what I use, which is my 2012 quad Mini with 20tb of USB external disks. That might be worth considering... it's a Mac, so you should already understand how it works. You just turn on File Sharing and make one other (confusing) setting and it will then be a Time Machine destination on your network.

This could be done with any Mac, but the Mini is well-suited since it's small and it can be run with a "dummy plug" and no monitor or keyboard using screen sharing. If you don't need a lot of disk space, the Mini internal drive may be big enough. OWC (MacSales) sells used 2012 Mini's for under $100 or a top-spec 2014 Mini for about $270. I won't get any more technical unless you want to go this route.

Regarding a disk connected to your existing router, not sure if Time Machine will be compatible with that.

 

[kschendel]

Does your wifi router have a USB port on the rear? If so, what is the exact model of the router?

To be honest, I'd stick to a small USB drive rather than trying to make something work wirelessly. If you really don't want the USB connection, then I would agree with Boyd01 and buy a cheap used mac to host your backup drives. The used mac doesn't even need to be wifi capable if you can locate it close to your router.

 

[HDFan]

I have all my important documents in the ICloud with Apple.

Note that iCloud is not a backup service as deleted files go away after 30 days. For cloud backups something like Backblaze (with restrictions as noted above) or Crashplan Business are relatively inexpensive.

I am looking for a way to use Time Machine without a wired external hard drive.

As above not a great idea. TM tends to fail and adding WiFi to the equation is just asking for trouble. For periodic backups an attached drive populated wih Carbon Copy Cloner might be used to backup on a weekly or monthly basis, with a TM drive connected the rest of the time.

 

[ksalito56]

Thanks, I guess my best option is to get in a habit of attaching an external drive periodically to get a decent backup. I have my 13” MacBook Pro, but it’s almost 10 yrs old. I can’t update operating software, so not sure how long it will last, so all my data is on it now.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"I guess my best option is to get in a habit of attaching an external drive periodically to get a decent backup."

That's how I've always done it, since the 1980's.

Sunday morning is "backup day". I attach/power up my backup drives, run the backups, then eject and power down the backup drives.

I've never used time machine, not ever.
I use either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.

I've seen too many stories posted right here through the years by folks who had used time machine (so they never had to "think about" backing up), and then -- in a moment of extreme need -- tried to get data from their tm backups and.... couldn't.

I've NEVER had such a problem with a cloned backup.

 

[monokakata]

OP, if you haven't been looking for external drives, you may not know that the modern ones are small and light and don't require wall power. The USB port on your Macbook will power one of them just fine.

Here's an example:

Seagate Portable 2TB External Hard Drive HDD — USB 3.0 for PC, Mac, PlayStation, & Xbox -1-Year Rescue Service (STGX2000400)

Easily store and access 2TB of content on the go with the Seagate Portable Drive, a great laptop hard drive. Designed to work with Windows or Mac computers, this compact external hard drive makes backup a snap. Just drag and drop To get set up, connect the portable hard drive to a computer for au...

www.amazon.com

There are many others like it. You could use it with Time Machine, no problem. As others have suggested, you'd just plug it in at whatever interval suited you, and let it do the backup. Using one of these little drives is very easy.

 

[Boyd01]

Sunday morning is "backup day".

I've never used time machine, not ever.

TM tends to fail and adding WiFi to the equation is just asking for trouble.

I would not want to have Time Machine as the ONLY backup, but it serves a useful purpose. I consider my Carbon Copy clones to be the primary backup, then Time Machine and finally BackBlaze. I certainly wouldn't want to restore a complete disk with Time Machine.

But - sorry guys - I don't agree with not using Time Machine because it *might* not work. With @Fishrrman 's approach, what happens if you have a disk problem on Saturday night? Sure, you still have last Sunday's backup and that's great, but you've also lost a whole week's work.

If you had a Time Machine backup, you could restore your disk first with Carbon Copy, then use Time Machine to get the newer files. Of course that could also be done with Backblaze, but that is a much slower process digging through and downloading files over the internet (I've done it) or paying and waiting for them to send a disk.

And Time Machine is also great when you delete something and wish you hadn't the next day. It has saved me a few times there. Anyway, the whole point is you need multiple types of backup IMO and not a single solution.

 

[HDFan]

I don't agree with not using Time Machine because it *might* not work.

My point is not to rely on it for your only backup if you can. If that's all you can do it is better than nothing but there is some risk. I actually use TM as my primary backups, but I run 3 of them currently and 2 weekly.