Offsite backup question

[Thor774]

I am polishing my backup routine.

Some years ago when my main PC was a Windows machine I had this setup:
- 512GB internal SSD with OS and program installations.
- 2 TB internal disk for storage
- 3 TB internal disk for storing local encrypted daily images of my 2 other disks going back incrementally 1 month.
- 2 TB external USB/eSATA disk for keeping offsite backup of the last images copied from the internal imaging disk. I kept this disk secured at the office and only brought it home one night the last day of the month to copy the latest image files. The image files were already encrypted by the imaging program.
At that time I used Storagecraft Shadow Protect as my backup solution. It worked great and in case of a disaster all my data and OS installation was covered.

I have been using the following setup with my Macbook Pro:
- 512GB internal SSD with macOS and program installations encrypted with FileVault.
- 4 TB USB3 disk for storage.
- 5 TB USB3 disk for Time Machine backups of my 2 other disks, encrypted.

What I have been missing is offsite backup. My upstream internet connection is not good enough so cloud backup is out of the picture. I want to start an offsite backup routine that can give me comparable coverage with what I had before when I was using Windows. I have already bought an 8TB disk and an external USB3 enclosure for this.

- At the beginning I was thinking that I could clone the Time Machine disk into an image file on the external disk once a month and keep it offsite, but I am not sure if it is possible to clone a Time Machine encrypted disk with something like Disk Utility, and if this method would be reliable.

- Later I started to think that it is maybe better to image directly the 2 disks (OS SSD and storage disk) using another program for the offsite backup once a month, so I don't have all the eggs in only one basket (Time Machine). The thing is that I don't know what program to use. It is important that it doesn't have problems imaging my encrypted SSD, my unencrypted storage disk and that it uses encryption to store the image files. An alternative could be to encrypt the whole offsite disk, but encrypting the image files seems like a simple method thinking on a restore.

I do not need a live clone of my OS disk. An image file suffices.

What imaging / cloning application can you recommend me for this scenario?

Thank you.

 

[Weaselboy]

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-use-multiple-disks-with-time-machine-in-mountain-lion/

Time Machine will already handle this for you. You can use it to back up to multiple disks then you can just swap the two disks back and forth between you home and office or a friend's house.

When you bring the second drive back home and attach it, anything new or changed since the last TM backup to that specific disk will be added.

 

[Thor774]

Excellent!
I have been reading about CCC and I am thinking that the possibilities it offers are very interesting. I like the idea of using an additional solution for my offsite backup to achieve more redundancy and not only depend on Time Machine for both onsite and offsite backup routines.
Full CCC encrypted clones of both the OS SSD and my storage disk updated once or twice a month on my offsite disk sounds like a solid solution in my ears.
Thanks a lot for your input.

 

[Ebenezum]

OP:

Since you don't wish to put all the eggs in one basket I would recommend using some other backup software in addition to Time Machine. The benefit is that any potential bug in Time Machine will not have any effect to backups made with another software.

As for what software to use that is up to you. Personally I prefer SuperDuper! but Carbon Copy Cloner is another option. If Time Machine doesn't give you enough options you could try QRecall which in my opinion has much more robust feature set.

 

[Thor774]

I have decided to go with a combination of TM for onsite backups and CCC for offsite ones.
Thank you!