Resolved Why just a single backup with OS X/ MacOS.

[Alpha Centauri]

Oh this is something I've been meaning to ask for a while, but keep forgetting to.

Back a long time ago, when tethered iP backups were made via iTunes, there were 6 (?) of the last backups kept in OS X. The obvious advantage being redundancy in case one version failed. Then along the way this appeared to be reduced just to one version, which I believe happened near Catalina? Multiple backups were possible in Snow Leopard to ElCapitan, then I skipped all the way to Catalina after this, so not sure at what stage the change occurred. Was it when iP access went from iTunes>Finder?

Just curious really.

 

[Analog Kid]

I haven't noticed that... It's always been hard to keep track of what all the different backups are-- Apple's tools for local device management are decidedly lacking. I see a few different backups in my list-- maybe 3 of my most recent device (and a few dating back the better part of a decade). I'm not sure if those are redundant or of they maybe started when I restored the phone or something.

I do much less frequent backups now that I don't normally charge from my computer and WiFi syncing has gone wonky (it seems to want me to enter the password every time I sync and I can't figure out why).

I do know that modern devices are huge and the default sync location is the Mac boot drive requiring some shenanigans to convince it to sync anywhere else. Maybe it's a free space constraint on the boot drive? I have my MobileSync backup directed to a NAS so there's less space constraint.

 

[chrfr]

Oh this is something I've been meaning to ask for a while, but keep forgetting to.

Back a long time ago, when tethered iP backups were made via iTunes, there were 6 (?) of the last backups kept in OS X. The obvious advantage being redundancy in case one version failed. Then along the way this appeared to be reduced just to one version, which I believe happened near Catalina? Multiple backups were possible in Snow Leopard to ElCapitan, then I skipped all the way to Catalina after this, so not sure at what stage the change occurred. Was it when iP access went from iTunes>Finder?

Just curious really.

I don’t recall there ever being multiple backups saved, but you can make your own by archiving backups.

 

[jz0309]

Oh this is something I've been meaning to ask for a while, but keep forgetting to.

Back a long time ago, when tethered iP backups were made via iTunes, there were 6 (?) of the last backups kept in OS X. The obvious advantage being redundancy in case one version failed. Then along the way this appeared to be reduced just to one version, which I believe happened near Catalina? Multiple backups were possible in Snow Leopard to ElCapitan, then I skipped all the way to Catalina after this, so not sure at what stage the change occurred. Was it when iP access went from iTunes>Finder?

Just curious really.

I do not recall this either, always have and will continue to do iPhone backups to my Mac, no iCloud.
And as far as redundancy goes - have multiple backups of your Mac ...

 

[Alpha Centauri]

>I do much less frequent backups now that I don't normally charge from my computer and WiFi syncing has gone wonky (it seems to want me to enter the password every time I sync and I can't figure out why).<

I tend to physically connect both to do a backup, in case an iOS update goes tragically wrong. And know finally on a new Mac (with supported HW and OS), it left me wondering again why the last backup gets replaced/ overwritten, instead of added.

I do know that modern devices are huge and the default sync location is the Mac boot drive requiring some shenanigans to convince it to sync anywhere else. Maybe it's a free space constraint on the boot drive? I have my MobileSync backup directed to a NAS so there's less space constraint.

I'm quite unsure now if (back then) I actually manually changed the backup location and this created those listed and dated versions. Each also had a time stamp beside them.

Ahh yes, a NAS. That's probably what I'll do IF I ever finally decide to go for either Synology or Qnap. Not an easy decision with all options around in 2023.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

I don’t recall there ever being multiple backups saved, but you can make your own by archiving backups.

You know, I mentioned Snow Leopard and ElCapitan. But thinking about all this multiple backup stuff now, I bought my first iPhone in 2016 (OG SE), so it must have been with El Capitan.

Well, the only other mobile device I had prior was an Ipad2, possibly hooked up to the last of the G5 iMacs. And off course now I'm trying to recall if I even saw this phenomena back then. The memory ain't what it used to be and I was hoping those replying to this OP might have a better memory still

 

[Alpha Centauri]

I do not recall this either, always have and will continue to do iPhone backups to my Mac, no iCloud.
And as far as redundancy goes - have multiple backups of your Mac ...

Yes, I've been consumed lately (many threads started and read) on the topic of DAS vs NAS. I recently retired (or in the process of) my 13 yr old MBP. It was always a non event pulling internal HDDs or SSDs out of that thing. Now with an M2 I'm thinking about backups on a totally different level.

I agree, iCloud is just a convenience but not a backup per se. And the bulk of my photos I certainly want to always keep local.

 

[jz0309]

Yes, I've been consumed lately (many threads started and read) on the topic of DAS vs NAS. I recently retired (or in the process of) my 13 yr old MBP. It was always a non event pulling internal HDDs or SSDs out of that thing. Now with an M2 I'm thinking about backups on a totally different level.

I agree, iCloud is just a convenience but not a backup per se. And the bulk of my photos I certainly want to always keep local.

yea, I'm now at ~ 1TB of photos, ~100k, now way am I going to put those into any cloud service ...

my main computer is a Mac Studio, I have a 4TB SSD in an old(er) USB 3.2 housing that I use for daily backup, and then 2 external HDDs for weekly plus a portable HDD for offsite. and I use CCC.
I had a NAS very early on, like 20 years ago, can't bother with it anymore ...

 

[Alpha Centauri]

This is just an example (pulled from the web) of what it used to look like. One could then choose which version to use to restore the iOS device to.

 

[Analog Kid]

[nevermind, newer information makes it clear]

 

[jz0309]

This is just an example (pulled from the web) of what it used to look like. One could then choose which version to use to restore the iOS device to.

View attachment 2257027

hmm, that does bring back memories
but, my current iOS backup takes up 140GB, so kinda glad not to have 5 versions to choose rom

 

[Alpha Centauri]

my main computer is a Mac Studio, I have a 4TB SSD in an old(er) USB 3.2 housing that I use for daily backup, and then 2 external HDDs for weekly plus a portable HDD for offsite. and I use CCC.
I had a NAS very early on, like 20 years ago, can't bother with it anymore ...

that's the thing, my MBP is not desk bound (have no desk even), so constantly hanging DAS in a routine schedule with TM and SD would have been less than perfect. Hence the WiFi NAS idea but that brings other issues of relocation for noise, reliability of mesh router signal, blah blah. Will hopefully commit to a workable solution before I actually need the backup.
Just curious, what 4TB internal SSD are you using? During my DAS research I did come across many Samsung 4 TB EVO controller issues. Is that the SSD you are using?

 

[jz0309]

that's the thing, my MBP is not desk bound (have no desk even), so constantly hanging DAS in a routine schedule with TM and SD would have been less than perfect. Hence the WiFi NAS idea but that brings other issues of relocation for noise, reliability of mesh router signal, blah blah. Will hopefully commit to a workable solution before I actually need the backup.
Just curious, what 4TB internal SSD are you using? During my DAS research I did come across many Samsung 4 TB EVO controller issues. Is that the SSD you are using?

you could put an external HDD (or 2) in a fixed place and then bring your MBP there for the 15 or so minutes backup will take, but, I can also appreciate the convenience of wifi ...

I actually have an older SATA III WD 4TB SSD that I used for storage on my old iMac, my Studio has 4TB internal, so that's why I use the WD for backup. it's limited in speed but doesn't matter for backup.

I also have a 2TB Sandisk Pro Extreme (USB-C 3.2 I believe) that has served me quite well on my iMac, had all my photos on it. I now use that for my iTunes move and music library (~ 1.7TB). I rarely write to it and for playing back media its plenty fast enough.

 

[NoBoMac]

TLDR, so apologies if repeat (did a quick scan).

Yeah, there were multiples in the past, but think they stopped happening around the time of apps no longer being backed up, as well as other things that are downloadable, synced from other source, etc. Add in move to SSD and base configurations being on the small side, guess Apple wanted to minimize "wasting" disk space (aka what @jz0309 is mentioning). Add in app developers can say yes/no to backing up their data, "backups" might not be much of a backup in this day/age.

iMazing will do versioned backups as they only do deltas after the initial backup.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

>TLDR, so apologies if repeat (did a quick scan).<

no problem. I found a pic (finally) in post#9 of what it actually looked like.

Yeah, there were multiples in the past, but think they stopped happening around the time of apps no longer being backed up, as well as other things that are downloadable, synced from other source, etc. Add in move to SSD and base configurations being on the small side, guess Apple wanted to minimize "wasting" disk space (aka what @jz0309 is mentioning). Add in app developers can say yes/no to backing up their data, "backups" might not be much of a backup in this day/age.

iMazing will do versioned backups as they only do deltas after the initial backup.

Makes sense, that must have been the reason. I've come into a habit of making tethered local backups of my iP since 2016 (first iP), usually just before installing any iOS update. The jury's still out if this was also available in 2011 when I used to backup my iPad2, but I seem to recall having that option then also.

In any case, this is something I would usually notice but I jumped straight from 10.11>10.15 with a patch and changes weren't quite as linear to follow after this.

Thanks for the pointer to iMazing but I was just curious with what OS/ iOS exactly the muliples were actually canned. Well, that, and to confirm I hadn't dreamt it all.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

you could put an external HDD (or 2) in a fixed place and then bring your MBP there for the 15 or so minutes backup will take, but, I can also appreciate the convenience of wifi ...

I actually have an older SATA III WD 4TB SSD that I used for storage on my old iMac, my Studio has 4TB internal, so that's why I use the WD for backup. it's limited in speed but doesn't matter for backup.

I also have a 2TB Sandisk Pro Extreme (USB-C 3.2 I believe) that has served me quite well on my iMac, had all my photos on it. I now use that for my iTunes move and music library (~ 1.7TB). I rarely write to it and for playing back media its plenty fast enough.

Thanks for the suggestions. Whilst am looking for a solution I've got a 2.5" HDD in an enclosure for at least "something". On the DAS idea it was going to be 2 NVMe's with SD for onsite and offsite, then the 4TB 870 Evo for TM in it's case. Then I read of the failures. It wasn't all anecdotal. Couple yrs ago I did get a 2TB of this drive to supplement the 5,3 MBP after removal of the CD drive. It wasn't workable as there was already higher memory pressure whilst idling vs the for many yrs installed 850 Evo internal. Thought it might have been the patched OS at play but was sure the controller wan't playing nice in that scenario either.

I'll figure something out. Thanks for your additional input on all this btw.

 

[gilby101]

Back a long time ago, when tethered iP backups were made via iTunes, there were 6 (?) of the last backups kept in OS X. The obvious advantage being redundancy in case one version failed.

I use iMazing. Keep as many backups as you want. Automatic backup over wifi. Easy to point to external disk for backup storage. Only negative is that Apple (with Ventura) has blocked iMazing backup unless you enter your iPhone password each time - but at least it confirms that iMazing is really doing its automatic backup.

 

[GMShadow]

Previously I'd just move the backup off to an external disk if I felt I needed it - this was more common when I was managing 70+ phones. Then you didn't have to worry about over-writing.

If you needed to restore, just move the file back to the directory iTunes/Finder looks at for backups.

 

[ignatius345]

Will hopefully commit to a workable solution before I actually need the backup.
Just curious, what 4TB internal SSD are you using? During my DAS research I did come across many Samsung 4 TB EVO controller issues. Is that the SSD you are using?

LOL, if I had a bunch of un-backed up stuff sitting on my laptop I'd immediately connect literally any hard drive and let Time Machine do its thing. Back it up while you're asleep. Presumably you have a table or something to set it on? Even a couch would do.

 

[An-apple-a-day]

To save space and, potentially, time, the device backups on Mac use rsync. If you want more backups to choose from for any future restore, just archive the existing one and a new one will be created upon the next backup. But you’d have to do that manually each time to avoid updating/reusing the last one created/updated. I usually archive device backups only just before an anticipated major version update of the device’s OS.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

I use iMazing. Keep as many backups as you want. Automatic backup over wifi. Easy to point to external disk for backup storage. Only negative is that Apple (with Ventura) has blocked iMazing backup unless you enter your iPhone password each time - but at least it confirms that iMazing is really doing its automatic backup.

Thank you. I might look at iMazing if I go the NAS route for backups.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

To save space and, potentially, time, the device backups on Mac use rsync. If you want more backups to choose from for any future restore, just archive the existing one and a new one will be created upon the next backup. But you’d have to do that manually each time to avoid updating/reusing the last one created/updated. I usually archive device backups only just before an anticipated major version update of the device’s OS.

I might just start adding archiving for exactly this scenario too, upcoming iOS17 for example. For 16.X.X I usually still do a backup first.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

LOL, if I had a bunch of un-backed up stuff sitting on my laptop I'd immediately connect literally any hard drive and let Time Machine do its thing. Back it up while you're asleep. Presumably you have a table or something to set it on? Even a couch would do.

I have backups! Just not practical, automated solutions that I'd rather have. Those are in the works.

 

[NoBoMac]

Only negative is that Apple (with Ventura) has blocked iMazing backup unless you enter your iPhone password each time

To be fair, Apple blocks Apple as well with this. When doing a Finder backup, will be prompted for device passcode, and get attached if cancel on the phone.

Quote:

Since iOS and iPadOS versions 16.1 and 15.7.1, released 24 October 2022, Apple introduced a new security measure to mitigate the security issue raised by CVE-2022-32929, requiring users to enter their device passcode every time a local backup is about to start.

Thread covering this.

 

[jz0309]

To be fair, Apple blocks Apple as well with this. When doing a Finder backup, will be prompted for device passcode, and get attached if cancel on the phone.

Quote:



Thread covering this.

Yup, having to enter the passcode actually twice is I think a bit too much, but, still better than iCloud, for me at least