I keep my iMac backed up pretty well, using Time Machine & Backblaze. But I have a very old habit of manually backing up several important files/documents to a USB flash drive every time I make a change to one of them. Years ago I know that was an important thing to do, even though it required a couple extra steps each time I closed a document. Started to think about it recently: is this still necessary to do or am I being overly-redundant using the flash drive? Maybe it’s time to break that habit?
These are all personal files, nothing work-related.
Thanks for any thoughts on this.
I’d say there is nothing wrong with keeping multiple backups of files you want to preserve, especially if a subset of your full backup is easier to access and maintain.
3 Likes
I use a USB drive for some files that are password protected and some that are not. Backups can fail so you want to have multiple sources just in case.
1 Like
I have been burned SO MANY times over the years that I now consider three backups, on different platforms/media, to be the minimum.
4 Likes
While I was hoping to find out I was going overboard w/backups, looks as if I’ll continue w/the flash drive backups.
Thx very much.
3 Likes
It depends entirely on your backup strategy. If you follow my recommended approach, linked below, it’s completely unnecessary because Time Machine and Backblaze would both back up changed files within an hour or so. Flash drives are also terrible backup media—they’re easily lost and damaged, and I wouldn’t trust their general reliability. Putting important files on cloud storage would also provide another copy for no extra effort.
However, if you just make a duplicate once a week and don’t use cloud storage, yes, a second copy on a flash drive is better than nothing.
It’s actually very difficult to go overboard on backups, because you never know when a particular one will fail. I suppose if your backups were so extensive that they were killing your productivity and/or your budget, that would be overboard. It doesn’t sound like this is the case here.
3 Likes
My backup routine is so automatic & I was so focused on possibly dropping the flash drive backups, I completely “forgot” that everything I back up to the flash drive I also back up to Dropbox. So everything is automatically backed up to Time Machine & Backblaze and important personal files are manually backed up to the flash drive AND Dropbox. So for the so-called important files, I actually have 4 backups.
Maybe it is time to dump the flash drive backups.
Thx for helping me to sort this out. Guess it was one of those can’t-see-the-forest-for-the-trees situations.
1 Like
If you use them for occasional backups for selected files, they work fine and portability is a plus. I find that even my older ones still work but as I said, these are not used on a daily basis.
Right—they’re fine for another copy of some files, but I’m distinguishing between a copy and a backup. A backup shouldn’t be modifiable, for instance.
Sorry; in my initial question, I failed to distinguish between copy and backup. My flash drive usage is really just an extra copy of important files to have along w/the full backups done using Time Machine & Backblaze.
Technically I have 2 backups - Time Machine & Backblaze - and 2 copies - flash drive & Dropbox. Will probably drop the flash drive copies; seems it’s time to give up that extra step. When I started the flash drive copies - a hundred years ago - my only backup was Time Machine. Don’t remember what else, if anything, was available “in the olden days”; definitely pre-cloud.
Good question, Sheri. While I have multiple Time Machine and multiple cloud backups, and I appreciate Adam’s thoughts, I still like to keep selected copies on a flash drive, as well. My reasons:
- In the event of the accidental loss of a large folder, for instance, re-downloading from the cloud could be very slow and inconvenient;
- I have known Time Machine backups to be buggy at times. (For instance, I recently used a TM backup to migrate from an M1 Mini to a new M3 Mini, and had to deal with several things—one of which was that the Date Added of most files was changed to Aug. 16, 1970.
). - I don’t mind doing it from time to time, and just like having that extra protection on a different type of media. (Or maybe I’m just a control freak?
) Anyway, I think it’s a good added tool in my backup arsenal.
1 Like
A couple months ago I used a Time Machine backup to migrate from my MacBook Pro to a new iMac; thankfully, all went well. I was hesitant about it, the last time I moved to a new Mac (several years ago), Apple still offered that as an in-store service when buying a new Mac. If you brought in the old one & left it for a couple days, they moved everything from the old one to the new one.
I was worried about doing this on my own but thankfully it worked. Didn’t check details, such as your mentioned change of Date Added, but overall everything migrated as expected.
Think I’m also a control freak, probably why I’m obsessing so much about the flash drive backup for important files. I’d like to give it up to cut out the extra step but not 100% sure I can give up the extra “control.” 
1 Like
The Apple Migration Assistant has come a long way and is now pretty much dead-on reliable. I notice Microsoft has started to emulate it with the OneDrive backup & restore capability, so that’s high praise.
1 Like
By the way, another thing I remembered: the TM migration also corrupted some important password protected dmg’s. And the cloud service I use doesn’t back up dmg’s. Luckily, I had another copy right at hand—on my flash drive. 
So you never know!
The next time I set up a new Mac, I’m definitely going to use the Migration Assistant.