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Help finding a backup solution app

C

cuestakid

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jun 14, 2006
1,789
49
San Fran
Short version of what happened
My OWC Thunderbay 6 had a failed drive. I did not have a local backup so I had to buy a separate 20TB thunderbolt drive to backup the almost 10TB of data. Got a replacement drive, certified it and rebuilt the raid. Both appear to be working normally.

What I need
All I want is to have the Thunderbay RAID automatically backup to that 20TB drive so that the data on the RAID is backed up somewhere else other than the cloud using crashplan which is what i was doing until now-ideally in an automated fashion. I have already done an initial copy so everything moving forward would be incremental.

What I have looked at
I have looked at several apps (chronosync express, Get backup, Goodsync) and none have been able to do this simple task. I even looked at CrashPlan and its local backup but I don’t like the retention policies for local devices. I am willing to pay for an app provided it is not a subscription based. I have also tried more basic apps that simply compare the two drives but what it was telling me was different I did not understand so that as well as manual options are out as well.

Thank you
 
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If I'm understanding your post correctly, you are wanting to automatically back up Thunderbay 6 to a single 20TB drive. Chronosync should be able to do that easily- use their scheduler tool to automate the backup. You could also just manually trigger the backup as perhaps a daily task if that much data changes to warrant that frequency of backups.


I'd also suggest having a spare drive at the ready to go into the RAID the next time you lose a drive.

And if your RAID size is > than the 20TB drive, you might want to split your data storage on the RAID into 20TB segments and then set each to backup to their own 20TB drives. For example, if you have 60TB in the RAID, have THREE 20TB drives for the backups and set up 3 automatic backups to those drives. However, as RAID size goes up, you may find it easier to simply add another Thunderbay 6 and make it a mirror of the first one.

In my own experience, I've owned OWC 4-bays which I then "mirrored" to a 12-bay Synology. But I'll assume the 20TB single is probably enough to cover the (up to 6) drives in that Thunderbay RAID... OR you don't have very much on the Thunderbay such that total storage there is < 20TB.
 
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The RAID array is around 11TB in a RAID 5 with a total capacity of 20TB.

The other device is a single drive with a capacity of 20TB.

I will try and look again at ChronoSync/ChronoSync Express. It felt cumbersome but I may take a look again. A spare drive is something to consider though now that i know the turnaround to replace is at least 3-4 days, and that the system is nearing 6 years old I may start looking for a replacement which may or may not be a NAS.
 
Chronosync scheduler will definitely do this job.

Yes on owning a spare drive for the RAID and having it at the ready.

And yes on using the 20TB as that RAIDs backup.

One MORE tip: you are doing a smart thing in proactively getting a backup system in place (many wait until they suffer big data loss before that fire is lit). However, even with this solution, you are still thoroughly exposed to very common data risk scenarios like fire-flood-theft. For example, suppose a thief takes your Mac and that RAID box. Will they not also take that 20TB drive too? Of course they will!

The easy (and cheap) remedy is buy yourself ONE MORE 20TB drive to store offsite, regularly rotating with the one onsite so that the offsite one is pretty up to date. I have a backup set up like this, storing the offsite drive(s) in a bank safe deposit box. Regular rotation for me is about monthly. Worst case for monthly rotation is fire-flood-theft on day 29.

Yes, technically, you could store that one 20TB drive offsite, then fetch it when you want to freshen up the protection and take it back to the offsite storage when it is updated. But the easier (and better) option is to have TWO such drives to regularly switch out. Odds in a data loss in about any scenario plunge with only 1 more drive.
 
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Like @ignatius345 I would choose CCC. Like TM, CCC can create snapshots with history of all changes. Chronosync (CS) may be faster, but does not create snapshots like CCC and TM. CS is best as a sync tool, not a backup in the style of TM/CCC.

Don't forget you may need offsite/cloud backup to meet your disaster recovery needs.

Regarding costs: CCC has an upgrade cost for major versions (now version 7), CS is buy once and use forever (~15 years in my case) with all updates included. I would not mess with Get Backup or Good Sync for local backup.
 
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Third vote for CCC.
I use it to make a daily backup of my Users' folder to another drive. Only the changed files are backed up.

Given that CCC uses rsync, you might be able to cobble together a script to do your daily backups. Once the first full backup is done, it then only writes the new or changed files. This article has a number of different ways to schedule that script.
 
DaveFromCampbelltown said:
Given that CCC uses rsync
Click to expand...
The CCC Support pages say that it uses rsync (and ssh) for network backups. Are you sure it uses rsync for local backups? I don't think rsync supports APFS snapshots - there is no mention of snapshots in man rsync. CCC has other functionality that is not in rsync.
 
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gilby101 said:
Don't forget you may need offsite/cloud backup to meet your disaster recovery needs.
Click to expand...
As somone who's lost my computer and its backup in the same burglary, I would second this advice.
Definitely worthwhile to rotate your backup drives to an offsite location at regular intervals.
 
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Thank you all for the feedback. I did forget about carbon copy cloaner-I may take a look at that. And yes I should do the full offsite backup(I was for a bit but I should get back on it).
 
cuestakid said:
Short version of what happened
My OWC Thunderbay 6 had a failed drive. I did not have a local backup so I had to buy a separate 20TB thunderbolt drive to backup the almost 10TB of data. Got a replacement drive, certified it and rebuilt the raid. Both appear to be working normally.

What I need
All I want is to have the Thunderbay RAID automatically backup to that 20TB drive so that the data on the RAID is backed up somewhere else other than the cloud using crashplan which is what i was doing until now-ideally in an automated fashion. I have already done an initial copy so everything moving forward would be incremental.

What I have looked at
I have looked at several apps (chronosync express, Get backup, Goodsync) and none have been able to do this simple task. I even looked at CrashPlan and its local backup but I don’t like the retention policies for local devices. I am willing to pay for an app provided it is not a subscription based. I have also tried more basic apps that simply compare the two drives but what it was telling me was different I did not understand so that as well as manual options are out as well.

Thank you
Click to expand...
Curious about your configuration...If it's RAID 5 it would survive a single drive failure with out loosing any data...simply replace the failed drive and the rebuild should have gotten you back up and running after the rebuild completed. Why was that not an option? And absolutely another vote for CCC
 
Merlin100 said:
Curious about your configuration...If it's RAID 5 it would survive a single drive failure with out loosing any data...simply replace the failed drive and the rebuild should have gotten you back up and running after the rebuild completed. Why was that not an option? And absolutely another vote for CCC
Click to expand...
You are correct in that RAID 5 doesn’t kill data BUT since I didn’t have it backed up locally and while the drive was certified and the rebuild went fine, I could have lost data and that was the problem. I have been using CCC and will probably be buying it soon. I am looking into how I would do the offsite storage of drive rotations.
 
Buy yourself one more 20TB for the offsite backup. Then just rotate between the two 20TB drives on a regular schedule that best fits your needs. For me, that's every 30 days, which- if you duplicated that- your highest risk is just before the rotation on day 29. So maybe your schedule is better at every 20 or 15 or maybe you don't need even 30 and it should be 40 or 60 days.

Basically, you backup to the 20TB at home/office, then eject and take it with you to swap with the offsite one. Bring the offsite one back home/office with you and now it becomes the day to day DAS drive for backups. When rotation day comes again, repeat.

For me, I go to the bank about monthly anyway, so I just rotate when I'm there.
 
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