Time Machine on USB C flash drive

[ivanwi11iams]

With the 24" iMac, as you know, only USB C and Thunderbolt ports are available.
To help with cable management (besides using velcro or command strips), I was thinking to merely use a USB C flash drive (thumb drive) for Time Machine backups.

Curious, any downsides to using a flash drive/thumb drive?

 

[BigMcGuire]

Thumb drives don't usually do well with a lot of small file writes - a lot of them, the ones I've used anyway, overheat really quickly and start to slow down to a crawl.

 

[chscag]

Thumb/Flash drives are unreliable and should never be used for Time Machine backups. Besides, USB-A to USB-C converters are inexpensive and plentiful on sites such as Amazon and Monoprice.

 

[ivanwi11iams]

Thumb/Flash drives are unreliable and should never be used for Time Machine backups. Besides, USB-A to USB-C converters are inexpensive and plentiful on sites such as Amazon and Monoprice.

To confirm the cost of the converters is not the issue. Plus, I have a 500GB SSD drive. Alas, I understand your point.

The issue I was/am trying to solve is to not have ‘cables’ sticking out below the screen section. So, it will have to be a velcro attachment of the SSD to the back of the iMac.

 

[white7561]

To confirm the cost of the converters is not the issue. Plus, I have a 500GB SSD drive. Alas, I understand your point.

The issue I was/am trying to solve is to not have ‘cables’ sticking out below the screen section. So, it will have to be a velcro attachment of the SSD to the back of the iMac.

You actually can buy the those new USB SSDs that doesn't have cable to connect them.

You can either get an enclosure for it. Usually if you want a compact one it's usually for SATA 2242 SSD. But if you're okay with a long USB drive. There are enclosures that supports the NVMe 2280 SSDs. (Edit = these enclosures don't use cable.)

If you want a premade one you could get this one. From the specs it seems like it's probably an SSD with NVMe to USB bridge chip. Should be fast and good for things. But idk about the endurance compares to using an enclosure with a custom SSD that you can choose https://www.kingston.com/en/usb-flash-drives/datatraveler-max-usb-c-flash-drive

 

[400]

Think about the size you are backing up. I have around 900gb or so and that will fill up a 4tb hard drive over a period of time as it versions away. Took me a few years to get that full where it would supposedly start to delete the earlier backups but it is something I know very little about, apart form being told years ago to get the biggest drive I could.

That 900 didn't include anything I could re download, that would be apps, iTunes, and OS (past what time machine did as standard). Also careful to miss out other backups from TM. What is backed up are my documents and photos/vids.

Has anyone done a good explainer for this new TM version?

 

[ivanwi11iams]

Not ideal, but, looks like I will go with some Command strips, to stick my drive on the back of the iMac. Didn't really want to do this. But...

 

[ivanwi11iams]

Front and back. Nothing like not seeing cables...