I already spent 2 weeks into this thing, but I now learn the pretty freaking hard way how immobile Time Machine backup is compared to some other alternatives.
Time Machine backup uses a nested folder structure to store all of those files, and create symbolic links for incremental backups, at least that's what I know. What I don't know is how problematic this mechanism is when trying to move an old backup to a new hard drive.
Either it is the issue of Monterey, or there's something horribly wrong with my backup, copying those folders to a new hard drive first takes 4 hours to figure out which file to copy (nearly 4 million items), then another 18 to 24 hours trying to copy those files. My original backup was on High Sierra, which was arguably far simpler and easier to deal with. But Monterey does something different. Right after I make the backup of my MacBook Pro under Monterey, the preparation takes 8 hours or longer rather than 4 hours. What's worse, Monterey seems to think there's way more than what it should've had. If I leave it untouched for a day, the next time I check my backup somehow has 20 million items inside in 2.73TB despite only having 4 million files in 190GB when reading it off of Windows.
And that's not all. The copying portion takes equally a ridiculous amount of time assuming the counting part is done at all. My longest run of this backup copy takes 36 HOURS and still going! It has somehow copied 8TB of data despite my hard drive only has 2TB in capacity. The hard drive becomes so warm it's almost feeling hot at this point. 47C I think.
I also use Acronis for my Windows PC backup in the past 3 or so years, with no issue at all. The good part is it uses a proprietary image format that makes migrating backups super easy: only one large file to deal with, or several smaller ones depending on how the backup setting goes. This whole Time Machine disastrous experience makes me wonder why I am stuck to it at all. A backup solution that does not count for hard drive failure is a failed solution because hard drives will not last forever, be it spinning drives or SSD. Maybe a folder-based solution is the easiest one to implement, but now here shows one of its glaring weaknesses: no portability.
I am still keeping the content of said Time Machine backup somewhere, but I will not trust its ability to reliably backup my Mac anymore. Time for an alternative solution. It saved my life in the past and I thank for that. But it is no longer sufficient for my needs, even though I am forced to give up system integration (the animation looks pretty cool ngl).
Time Machine backup uses a nested folder structure to store all of those files, and create symbolic links for incremental backups, at least that's what I know. What I don't know is how problematic this mechanism is when trying to move an old backup to a new hard drive.
Either it is the issue of Monterey, or there's something horribly wrong with my backup, copying those folders to a new hard drive first takes 4 hours to figure out which file to copy (nearly 4 million items), then another 18 to 24 hours trying to copy those files. My original backup was on High Sierra, which was arguably far simpler and easier to deal with. But Monterey does something different. Right after I make the backup of my MacBook Pro under Monterey, the preparation takes 8 hours or longer rather than 4 hours. What's worse, Monterey seems to think there's way more than what it should've had. If I leave it untouched for a day, the next time I check my backup somehow has 20 million items inside in 2.73TB despite only having 4 million files in 190GB when reading it off of Windows.
And that's not all. The copying portion takes equally a ridiculous amount of time assuming the counting part is done at all. My longest run of this backup copy takes 36 HOURS and still going! It has somehow copied 8TB of data despite my hard drive only has 2TB in capacity. The hard drive becomes so warm it's almost feeling hot at this point. 47C I think.
I also use Acronis for my Windows PC backup in the past 3 or so years, with no issue at all. The good part is it uses a proprietary image format that makes migrating backups super easy: only one large file to deal with, or several smaller ones depending on how the backup setting goes. This whole Time Machine disastrous experience makes me wonder why I am stuck to it at all. A backup solution that does not count for hard drive failure is a failed solution because hard drives will not last forever, be it spinning drives or SSD. Maybe a folder-based solution is the easiest one to implement, but now here shows one of its glaring weaknesses: no portability.
I am still keeping the content of said Time Machine backup somewhere, but I will not trust its ability to reliably backup my Mac anymore. Time for an alternative solution. It saved my life in the past and I thank for that. But it is no longer sufficient for my needs, even though I am forced to give up system integration (the animation looks pretty cool ngl).
