MP 7,1 System for backups?

[machenryr]

Tell me if I’m being over protective. My 7,1 OS and app 4TB SSD is backed up with Time Machine. But I’m just doubling that cloning with CCC to a 4TB 3.5” hd. I think this is because I’m less experienced with TM. Is this redundancy overkill?

I’m a musician with a recording studio. So I have other SSDs for audio and sounds that are also backed up to TM and soon to be backed up to HDs with CCC. The stupid thing with all this is I’m not backing up to the cloud. That would handle my redundancy. I should do that and use these extra HD for other things.

 

[Nugget]

Personally, I don't see much utility to carbon copy cloner. It feels like a relic of a previous era. I do agree with you that the biggest failing of your current strategy is that you have no off-site backups.

I use Time Machine to a local NAS and then also Backblaze personal. This gives me good versioning on files. I have access to fast local restores when I accidentally damage or delete a file. Time Machine is supported by the OS as a source for a full re-install and recovery in the event of catastrophic hardware failure (you can use a Time Machine volume as the source when using Migration Assistant on a new machine). Backblaze gets me an off-site backup in case the building burns down.

The biggest feature of both is that they are completely automated. Absolutely zero thought or effort required after the initial setup.

 

[machenryr]

Personally, I don't see much utility to carbon copy cloner. It feels like a relic of a previous era. I do agree with you that the biggest failing of your current strategy is that you have no off-site backups.

I use Time Machine to a local NAS and then also Backblaze personal. This gives me good versioning on files. I have access to fast local restores when I accidentally damage or delete a file. Time Machine is supported by the OS as a source for a full re-install and recovery in the event of catastrophic hardware failure. Backblaze gets me an off-site backup in case the building burns down.

The biggest feature of both is that they are completely automated. Absolutely zero thought or effort required after the initial setup.

Yeah. Thanks. Well CCC is completely automated as well. I’m transitioning from using SuperDuper. But both I scheduled during bedtime. I’ll look at cloud back ups.

I have heard some people complaining about TM though.

 

[choreo]

Ha! You think you are paranoid!

I have my RAID 0 4.2 NVMe with my client files backed up to:
Time Machine on an internal 14TB hard drive
CCC set to daily backup to a 5TB partition on an 8TB internal hard drive.
Backblaze set to auto backup online
And weekly backup to external Firewire drives with CCC (just because I have them)

My Apple 1TB Boot SSD is backed up to:
Time Machine on an internal 14TB hard drive
Internal Samsung 1TB SSD on Sonnet Tempo PCI card with CCC daily
Backblaze set to auto backup online
External USB SSD with CCC

That said, the past 5 years Time Machine has always saved me by itself; however, my brother, my clients and I have had numerous TM hard drives fail completely. Whatever TM does, it seems to really eat hard drives. In fact the only hard drives I have ever had fail me so far have been TM containing drives.

 

[machenryr]

Interesting! I guess I can see that. How often does it back up? Once an hour?

Then I’m not sure when to overwrite my older drives. I have a TM for an older boot and I’ve just been a pack rat. So in reformatting that and using it a new.

 

[choreo]

Interesting! I guess I can see that. How often does it back up? Once an hour?

Then I’m not sure when to overwrite my older drives. I have a TM for an older boot and I’ve just been a pack rat. So in reformatting that and using it a new.

TM does hourly, daily and weekly backups. In my case the only time I have needed it so far is when I accidentally trash a file(s) - usually within a day or two, but sometimes a couple weeks back. I don't think I have ever needed to go back in time more than a couple weeks, but everyone is different.

 

[OkiRun]

TM does hourly, daily and weekly backups. In my case the only time I have needed it so far is when I accidentally trash a file(s) - usually within a day or two, but sometimes a couple weeks back. I don't think I have ever needed to go back in time more than a couple weeks, but everyone is different.

I use an external HDD for Time Machine and Backups for Final Cut Pro App for a secondary failsafe procedure.

About Backups for Final Cut Pro

Send an email message to a member of the Pisarro family

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[LeonPro]

Redundancy is good, regardless.

Off-site is great if you have the means.

I use Time Machine internal backup. And for important project folders, I use CCC for specific redundant backup to another portable drive.

Finally another Time Machine backup to a NAS.

 

[machenryr]

TM does hourly, daily and weekly backups. In my case the only time I have needed it so far is when I accidentally trash a file(s) - usually within a day or two, but sometimes a couple weeks back. I don't think I have ever needed to go back in time more than a couple weeks, but everyone is different.

Yeah. It saved my bacon with short backups. After doing something stupid.

 

[flowrider]

I don't use TM. But, I do believe in redundancy. I have ten SSDs in my NcMP. The oem SSD will never be used for anything other than as a safety net. I will not update it.

All of the other SSDs have a clone. I keep the latest two OSs on four SSDs. All my installers reside on another two SSDs, again clones of each other, along with my files. I keep an MT SSD as a scratch disk for PS. I have another SSD that I use to keep what I call crap, unimportant files, coupons, reminders, brochures that have a short life expectancy, that drive is not cloned.

I use SD to clone my boot drives. All the other ssds are updated in real time by dragging files.

This has worked for me since the dawn of OSX back in 2001. Before that programs like SD were not necessary, you could have a bootable clone simply by dragging files. Ah - the old days

Lou

 

[LeonPro]

Sidebar: what does NcMP stand for? New Classic Mac Pro?

 

[machenryr]

Sidebar: what does NcMP stand for? New Classic Mac Pro?

I was wondering the same thing.

 

[th0masp]

I trust in clones far more than in incremental backups stored as some application-specific format, so thumbs up for using CCC. Apart from that I agree that redundancy is an important one. I don't go for cloud solutions either but have several external backup disks (clones of one another) for system and work drives as well as internal mirrors.

It's important to regularly verify your backups though. With clones that's really simple, not sure what you'd have to do to test the integrity of something like Time Machine.

 

[machenryr]

Yes. I’ve never liked the concept of cloud based storage. I’m not sold in the security of storage OUTSIDE. It seems eminently hackable. But I suppose if it was eminently hackable those systems would suffer from terrible PR. So I’m giving in.

 

[Nugget]

I’ve never liked the concept of cloud based storage. I’m not sold in the security of storage OUTSIDE. It seems eminently hackable.

Backblaze allows you to optionally supply your own, locally-generated encryption key. This means that the data is encrypted before it ever leaves your system and they don't have the ability to decrypt or view the backed up data. Of course if you lose that key you're out of luck, but it does resolve any concerns about the remote servers being hacked and exposing your private data.

With the Backblaze Personal product this is done in the form of a user-selected passphrase. In the event that you need to do a restore, you will need to supply this passphrase on their website.

With the Backblaze B2 product you generate a key and a salt and use those in conjunction with your backup software (like rclone for instance) and they truly never have access to your unencrypted data.

Online Backup Security & Encryption | Backblaze

Remotely backup all your data to Backblaze datacenter. Online backup of everything on your computer.

www.backblaze.com

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It's important to regularly verify your backups though. With clones that's really simple, not sure what you'd have to do to test the integrity of something like Time Machine.

This is sort of handled inherently by the nature of differential backups. Any data corruption on the target side will just be treated as a changed file and backed up again. The nature of how Time Machine works guards against data corruption and bit rot since the files are constantly being hashed for comparison to the source data.

If you're doing Time Machine over the network to a NAS appliance you can also use a filesystem like btrfs or zfs that will itself protect and correct bit-rot and data corruption.

I see the major value of Time Machine over clones in that it protects you against a wider range of potential data loss situations. That document that you accidentally deleted but didn't notice until weeks later. With clones, unless you have a rigorous and complicated rotation schedule of destination drives, you're likely to have blissfully cloned your source drive with the missing files and lost any chance of recovery. With Time Machine you just go back 60 days and restore it.

I don't like relying only on Time Machine but I sure wouldn't want to live without it.

 

[flowrider]

Sidebar: what does NcMP stand for? New Classic Mac Pro?

Yes ?

Lou

 

[ZoomEnhance]

CCCloned disks might seem a relic, but they are still around because they're relatively reliable in their simplicity.

If your 4TB SSD is tied to the T2 and the SSD fails, you're going to have a bunch of downtime if you're only using incremental backups. Replacement + reinstall + restore could take several hours. With a cloned disk, just option-boot and you're off to the races.

Of course *also* have local incremental backups (like TM to a NAS) as well as off-site/cloud backups. Use all 3, especially if you're dealing with client files!

 

[machenryr]

Thanks folks. This is what I’m doing today. I CCC my boot drive. It and three other drives are TM to a 14TB spinner, and I’m uploading to backblaze. Thank goodness all I have to do is sit on my ass. Lol.

 

[mythos]

I have TimeMachine backing up to an external 6TB RAID, which is very useful for those time I realized I need to retrieve something or there's been an error on my main system. I regularly backup and archive my main projects onto a bare HD via a SATA HD dock and also make a clone of that drive (I have a dual dock so easy to do manually). These bare drives are stored in a fire-resistant safe. Yes, it's more $$$ but my projects are irreplaceable if lost and the work (and my time) is worth much more than the $ spent on the hardware.

So... TimeMachine for general "convenience" backup. Offline and secured HD's with clones for archiving things you just can't loose.