Time Machine to TrueNAS SMB to Cloud Sync?

[queensdee223]

Hi, all. I have a 2014 Mac Mini that is showing its age. I'm currently backing up with Time Machine to an external USB as well as most of my files with Carbonite. This is not ideal but it's been good enough for now.

I'm posting to this subforum because this is question/topic mostly about macOS, or at least the plurality of it is! But please let me know if it's in the wrong place.

So! I just set up a TrueNAS server on my home network, and I'd like to switch over my Time Machine backup to a network share on the NAS and then sync the NAS to the cloud as my backup solution. Once that is done, I'm going to try to rejuvenate the Mac Mini. I think the Mac Mini's hardware is fine, but years of updates and various bits of tinkering and mucking around lead me to believe I should reinstall macOS and maybe even start with a clean user account. I don't want to do that without a Time Machine backup, though.

Here's the approach I'm thinking of. I'm hoping folks here can help me identify any pitfalls, answer my direct questions, and maybe just give me general advice or perhaps encouragement!

• Set up an SMB share on the TrueNAS for backing up this Mac Mini.
  • TrueNAS guided be away from AFP toward SMB, so I set up an SMB share.
  • Should I use AFP anyway? It seems like maybe there are path length concerns using SMB?
    • See also https://apple.stackexchange.com/que...d-to-be-removed-from-future-versions-of-macos, https://www.macworld.com/article/234926/using-afp-to-share-a-mac-drive-its-time-to-change.html
• Use automount to connect the SMB share.
  • I know I can use Login Items, but it seems to me this should be done deeper than the user level, right?
• Point Time Machine to the SMB share.
  • So for some reason, it took a little while for Time Machine to be able to see the SMB share.
    • I only noticed it was there because I gave up on that approach, created an AFP share in TrueNAS, selected the Time Machine options, connected to the AFP share from my Mac, and then saw both in Time Machine.
  • This is where I have the most doubt. I can't just select the SMB share from Time Machine Preferences.
  • There's a writeup from 2020 that talks about creating a sparse bundle on an SMB share.
  • It sounds like whatever size I make the sparse bundle is how much space Time Machine will use.
  • What size should I make the sparse bundle?
    • Currently, on my 2TB USB drive used as the Time Machine destination, there's a Backups.backupdb that the finder reports is a folder that takes up 5.35 TB.
• Check to see if Time Machine is excluding things I would want to include.
• Set up cloud syncing on the NAS.

Once the Mac Mini is backed up to the NAS and the NAS is synced to the cloud, I'd "rejuvenate" the Mac Mini.

Here are my concerns:

• This is very far afield of things I know how to do and I'm worried the Time Machine backup won't work right over SMB.
• I am totally new to TrueNAS.
• In the unlikely scenario where my Mac Mini and my NAS both get fried (or I guess flooded or stolen), restoring the NAS from the cloud will somehow not create a valid Time Machine backup.

Just to share my motivation for wanting to go through all this trouble:

• I have non-Apple computers that I want to similarly back up to the NAS and then sync those backups to the cloud; I want a solution or at least a repeatable pattern that works across multiple devices.
• I also am generally not a fan of using one monolithic company to for everything.
• This seems fun.

So! Thank you for reading this plan! Please let me know your thoughts. Also, let me know if making a video of this process would be of interest to people.