I do something similar to Lee (RAID drive and TimeMachine), but I would like to also make a case for one more thing that I do that I forgot to mention the other day: nightly clone.
I have SuperDuper running at 2:00 in the morning (Carbon Copy Cloner--and perhaps other tools--can do this, too) to create an exact duplicate of my internal drive to an equally-sized external drive. That way if my internal drive--or even the whole machine¡ªgoes south I will lose at most one day of work.
This actually happened to me several years ago when my laptop that I was using as my desktop died completely. I took the machine to MacAuthority (I DID say ¡°several years ago¡±) for repair and rented another laptop, brought it home and booted from the nightly clone. I was right back to exactly where I was when I finished using the computer the night before.
That was enough to guarantee that I will include a nightly clone in my back-up plans for the rest of my life.
Jonathan
On Aug 30, 2022, at 2:57 PM, Lee Larson via groups.io <leelarson@...> wrote:
On Aug 26, 2022, at 10:28 AM, Jane Plunkett <JanePlunkett@...> wrote:
What do you all do? Is there one kind of drive you would recommend?
Your question came just as I finished changing the backup scheme at home.
For years I¡¯ve been using my Linux server as a network backup device. It has three drives connected in it: the main internal boot drive and two externals that are entwined via software RAID. The system has been running fine for years, but is getting to be too small. The externals are 2 TB Seagate red drives that were huge when I bought them, but now look kind of small to contain backups of three computers plus some Plex stuff.
After thinking about it for a while, I bought an empty Synology DS218 NAS box and stuck in two 6 TB WD Red Plus drives. They are RAIDed, so the box appears as a single 6 TB drive on the network. I got the Synology from Amazon during their Prime days in the summer for about $180 and the drives from Newegg at about the same time for something around $100 each.
There are plenty of less expensive NAS boxes out there. I bought the Synology because I¡¯d had some good experiences with Synology hardware and because they have so many interesting software add-ons.
Now, please indulge me while I write a few words about how I view backups.
A backup system should be reliable and as invisible as it can be. By invisible I mean that if I have to remember to do it, I¡¯ll always find an excuse to put it off. That¡¯s why I want to have a network backup system that magically runs in the background. If I have to remember to do something like plug in a drive, much of the time there will be no backup because I¡¯m too lazy. Right now, I¡¯m using Time Machine as my magical backup software, but I¡¯m thinking of moving back to Carbon Copy Cloner. Either one can be made to quietly back things up in the background as you work, and you don¡¯t have to think about it.
I want to make sure my NAS is reliable, and that¡¯s why I use RAID. (RAID = Redundant Array of Independent Disks) The Synology box contains two 6 TB disks, but they are automatically mirrored, so it looks like one 6 TB volume. This means that if one of the drives goes out, the full system is still recoverable.
The Synology unit sits in a corner of the basement, connected to my network, and quietly does its job with no muss or fuss. With any luck, I¡¯ll never need it.
Back around the turn of the century, my house got hit by lightning, and a whole bunch of computer stuff was zapped. I lost several hard drives. This is one of the reasons I pay Apple for 200 GB of space on iCloud. Much of the really important stuff, such as the projects I¡¯m working on right now, is stored out there. Of course, another advantage is that I can work on them with any of my Apple machines without carting them around on something like a thumb drive.
L^2
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Lee Larson
leelarson@...
??
?Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it¡¡ª?Jonathan Swift,
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¡ª
Jonathan Fletcher
Workplace Innovation Facilitator
Fletcher Data Consulting, LLC
A Claris Business Alliance Partner
jonathan@...
www.fletcherdata.com
502-509-7137
Kentuckiana¡¯s FileMaker Developers Group
Next meeting: Tuesday, September 27th, 12:30 to 3:00-ish
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