Do You Use It? What’s Your Backup Strategy

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The ongoing fuss surrounding the bug in Apple’s asr tool that is breaking bootable backups made with Carbon Copy Cloner, ChronoSync, and SuperDuper caused me to revisit my backup recommendations (see “It’s Time to Move On from Bootable Backups,” 23 December 2024).

My preferred backup strategy includes versioned backups (such as with Arq, Carbon Copy Cloner, or Time Machine), Internet backups (using Backblaze, Carbonite, CrashPlan, or IDrive), a nightly duplicate (made with Carbon Copy Cloner, ChronoSync, or SuperDuper), cloud-based access to key data (via Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud Drive, or OneDrive), and a second Mac (such as an older Mac or a laptop that supplements your desktop Mac). With all of those, I believe I can recover from any disaster ranging from a corrupted file to a house fire. In the most likely scenarios, it would take less than a minute to get up and running on my MacBook Air with access to all the necessary data I need to complete a workday.

However, each aspect of that backup strategy has a cost, and many people can’t or don’t wish to pay all of them. My strategy would require a second Mac, two backup drives, and monthly fees for an Internet backup service and a cloud storage service. (Of course, the second Mac and the cloud storage service would likely provide other benefits as well.)

Some people back up solely by manually copying important files or folders to an external drive; others don’t make any backups at all. Are any of these people TidBITS readers?

So here’s my question. In the event of a disaster, which backup methods could you use to recover your data and get back to work? Needless to say, the parentheticals above merely give a few examples—there are many more, and feel free to tell us about your preferred options that aren’t mentioned. For color, I would also love to hear the story of the last (or most memorable) time you had to rely on your backups.

In the event of a disaster, which of the following backup methods could you use to recover your data and get back to work?
  • Versioned backups
  • Internet backups
  • Nightly duplicate
  • Cloud storage
  • Second Mac
  • Manual backups using the Finder
  • None—I don’t make any backups
0 voters
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I also gave up on bootable clones a few years ago. I don’t have a need to be up and running immediately after a failure. With CCC, TM, and BackBlaze backups I feel sufficiently protected.

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I use Time Machine as my primary backup. I also have a full backup on BackBlaze of absolutely everything except my TM volume (and the handful of directories that they categorically block from backups). I have my previous MBP available in case of need for an alternate machine. Finally, I have my important financial and medical documents on an encrypted disk image in my Dropbox (including my 1Password recovery key). It’s encrypted not so much for security on my own machine (I have it automount at login) but rather to keep its contents unviewable by anyone at Dropbox or any hacker that might get access to Dropbox-stored materials.

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One more option - disk-clones created manually (vs. scheduled).

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I have used Arq since 2017. I use it now to do backup to a NAS and Google Cloud. Before that I used rsync over internet to two disks at work and locally to a Mac mini with two USB-disks.

I have never used clone backup since I am comfortable reinstalling the OS if needed.

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The choices do not quite match my usage.

  • Once-daily TM backups–but only of user files, not the whole disk.
  • Weekly SuperDuper! full, bootable clone/backup.
  • On-demand versioned backups using CCC of selected directories.

I was testing remote login via SSH from work. It worked. When I got home, I checked the logs and found out that someone else had accessed the system and dropped a malware payload into the /Users/Shared directory. The files were not Mac-compatible. Nonetheless, I wiped the drive and restored from a SuperDuper! backup.

I also turned off remote login and Guest account.

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I bought a base model M4 Mac mini when they were $500 on Amazon, thinking I would pair it with a big external SSD and use it as a network Time Machine server for the Macs in the house. That way, I could just back up that Mac mini (and its external SSD with everyone’s Time Machine backups) to Backblaze rather than having each Mac need to do its own local Time Machine backup (to an attached SSD) and its own Backblaze backup. If I could cut the Backblaze bill in half, the Mac mini would pay for itself in no time! ;)

I ended up returning the Mac mini and SSD unused, once I remembered that networked Time Machine uses encrypted disk images. That feels too brittle, especially if that’s what I would then upload to Backblaze as the second backup for all the other Macs.

So I’m still doing a local Time Machine backup plus a Backblaze backup. I was hoping to move some of the “backup load” off the Macs that have hands on keyboards and onto a Mac mini in a closet, but my stomach couldn’t handle it.

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I clicked on the first five options, but “Nightly Duplicate” is actually a weekly duplicate in my case.

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A very long time ago…

I was leaving the office where I was working in order to have lunch. My computer bag had fabric handles in a clamshell configuration, one of which was badly frayed. “I need to replace this bag pretty soon!” said I to myself.

As I was walking quickly across the parking lot, the frayed handle broke. The shock of that handle breaking caused the second handle to fail (as I watched in slow motion). My laptop bag with its 16" MacBook fell half a meter to the pavement. The screen was cracked and it wouldn’t even light up.

There was an Apple store 2-3 miles away. I drove there and asked for a laptop. What they had in stock was one of the 13" black plastic MacBooks. They were out of stock otherwise as new models had just been announced that morning. They gave me a huge discount on the new (but now obsolete) MacBook. I returned to the office, plugged in my bootable backup (likely a SuperDuper clone), and was back to work. I even had time to wolf down a quick snack that a co-worker offered me.

Not one single appointment had to be canceled. Had I needed to restore from a backup with Migration Assistant (or the equivalent at that time) and/or install a new system, I would have had to cancel the entire afternoon’s roster of patients. Aside from being horrible for the patients, it would have cost the clinic thousands in revenue.

I stubbornly refuse to move on from bootable clone backups. |:

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Boot from weekly clone (SuperDuper!), then update it manually from versioned backup (Time Machine).

If the machine is not functional, then I would use my secondary computer until it is fixed.

If a disaster wipes out my home, and my offsite backups, but somehow spares me, then I’d restore from the cloud backup (Arq to Wasabi).

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Ah, good point. I can’t change the poll text without wiping out all the votes, so people should consider this a “Regularly updated duplicate” (though I still recommend nightly because you don’t want to have to think about or interact with it in any way, and weekly or monthly approaches are more likely to require manual intervention).

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Not to mention that network Time Machine backups are unreliable in my experience despite being a Mac guy since 1988 or so. Set them up identically on 2 laptops and sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. Switched to CCC using the Remote Mac destination option about 2 years back and those are absolutely bulletproof in addition to being Finder readable and the SafetyNet feature provides versioning if one wants it. Then the Remote Mac can get sent to BackBlaze although I don’t choose to do that since all the important stuff is in DropBox or the server volume that is mounted all the time on the laptops anyway and that volume does go to BB.

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When I migrated from my 27" Retina iMac to an M2 Mac mini a couple of years ago I chose to build the new machine manually. That is I copied data from an external backup drive (maintained with an Automator script running rsync on every directory I need), downloaded apps from vendors, the App Store, etc., and retrieved photos, music, mail, and messages from iCloud.

Nevertheless, I run two Time Machines (one directly attached, one on the home network), Backblaze, and two weekly copies on different external drives. In the event of a disaster today I would start with TM.

I don’t have a bootable recovery method and am not sure I need one.

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I use Time Machine backing up alternately to two different disks, Carbonite, Acrobat, Numbers and Pages documents backed up to ICloud. Images are backed up additionally to external discs. I am retired, so I nave no need for bootable images to get back up immediately.

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I have a M2 Mini with several external hard drives that functions purely as a backup server. From three user laptops (personal, work, wife’s), I back up hourly to the Mini with TimeMachine. Two of the machines (personal, wife’s) back up nightly to the Mini using CarbonCopy Cloner. One of the machines (personal) backs up to BackBlaze. It all runs invisibly in the background, so it doesn’t matter that the hard drives are slow compared to SSDs (some people make a big deal out of this, and I don’t understand why). I gave up on bootable backups years ago and don’t miss it. If worst came to worst, say a house fire, I would drive two miles to the Apple Store, buy a new machine, and get a drive overnighted from BackBlaze. Works for me.

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Well, I am currently in the midst of a fail and working from various backup tools. My new MacBook Air (end of November) had enough issues that I returned it two days ago and ordered another: it had all the earmarks of a lemon and because it was a “holiday purchase” I was within the full-return window. (Yes, a few tech support calls and a trip to the nearest Apple store, an hour away, preceded this.)

I have an 8-year-old Intel Mac. (I traded my M1 for credit on a new machine.) I have a 2.5-year-old iPad. These are the current hardware.

I am not fully functional for specific reasons that I’ll explain in a moment, but I can maintain the baseline until the replacement computer arrives. Necessary specs were/are not in stock at an Apple store (24 GB RAM, 2 TB storage).

I have:

  • 2 full, current-before-breakdown Time Machine backups, one (either) of which I will use to re-establish myself on the new computer—one of these updates hourly and one I update when I remember
  • Dropbox has most of my key files, with some on Google Drive
  • Backblaze

Why am I working at partial capacity while awaiting the replacement? It is a true hassle to get some of the programs authorized on a new computer and I just went through that on the dud. This includes Adobe Creative Suite (for which I am, of course, paying $ignificantly even though I can’t use it) and a knitting charting program for which reauthorization is easy to obtain but it’s just one more thing.

My current goal is to stay out of any work that will make my Time Machine backups less than perfect for restoration. Yay Dropbox and Google Drive.

Fortunately I’m between deadlines on the tasks that require the Adobe programs.

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I run Time Machine on two Macs and Retrospect to backup those two plus a Linux box. For Retrospect, I rotate three drives, one of which is always offsite. In the event of a complete loss of all the computers and backup drives in the house, I could lose a couple of weeks of data going back to the offsite drive for all three machines.

My most memorable use of a backup was when I tried to update Linux on that machine and accidentally erased the entire drive. Fortunately, it was pretty easy to get the machine back up and restoring from the Retrospect backup worked perfectly.

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Time Machine 2 drives rotated monthly with one off site at relatives house and we swap each others extra drive

Backblaze

iCloud Drive for critical files manually

If disaster buy a new Mac. Use Time Machine to get online and order disk from backblaze

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I was sad to hear that bootable clones didn’t work any more, but I still use Carbon Copy Cloner. And I also have Time Machine (which was convenient for migrating from my old MBP to my current MBP a few years ago). And I also have a BackBlaze backup. And an iCloud backup of everything.

I should be good, right?

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I use Time Machine (set to back up twice a day only), Carbon Copy Cloner nightly, and Backblaze overnight. Ran into issues a while ago, so I like my redundancy now…