I would definitely recommend ChronoSync (also part of Setapp) or Arq.
You could even use Carbon Copy Cloner with the “Safety Net” feature enabled.
Yes, rsync is free. So is vi. But no one should have to be subjected to either of them in 2020.¹
If you’re absolutely broke and cannot afford any of the apps that I’ve mentioned, then, yes, rsync is probably the tool to try. Just be aware that rsync makes it remarkably easy to delete files, and there’s no ‘undo’ … so there are only two kinds of people in the world:
People who have accidentally deleted files with rsync
People who have never used rsync
¹ if you already know vi and rsync that’s great. But encouraging people to learn them in 2020 is like teaching people how to maintain a Model A – it’s of very limited usefulness and there are better options out there. Don’t be that guy.
Is Time Machine a hassle with Catalina or something? I find it great for several Macs on Mojave. I particularly like the ability to have several backups running on different hard/SSD drives. Time Machine automatically alternates between them.
I do a Carbon Copy backup from time to time - particularly before an OS “upgrade”.
And following Tidbits advice I do try a restore of files from once in a while and so far have not encountered problems.
I have been using a dual-drive Time Machine configuration on Catalina since Catalina left beta. I have restored from Time Machine many times to repair user errors. I recommend use of Time Machine as the minimum backup configuration for all my clients.
A dual-drive configuration has been used through several OS X and macOS versions. The major Catalina change is difficulty in gathering SMART data from USB-connected drives because of Apple’s changes in kext loading.
I have little clear memory or hard data, but I’ve used TM since it was first introduced 13 years ago, with backups going to a 2TB Time Capsule since they came out, which backs up 2 Macs. I don’t need it often, but it sometimes came in handy. (My weekly SuperDuper clones are my most reliable backups, and they’re never failed, so I’m protected against major catastrophe.) While never 100% reliable, it was reasonably so until about 2 years ago. Then, two or three times since (the last time was 2 months ago), it decided to rewrite its contents and begin anew (data corruption, probably. Before allowing it to go on and do it, I tried to repair it with TechTool Pro to no avail), so I lost 2 years’ of backups the first time, less afterwards. I was unhappy, but tolerated it until I recently found that under Catalina (or maybe just coincidentally since Catalina) it no longer backs up mail, apparently because that’s backed up in iCloud - something I don’t understand the reason for and don’t like; I want it backed up locally, plus apparently getting it back from the cloud server isn’t too straightforward. So now I’ve decided to ditch it and switch.
I think the Time Capsule, and the fact that you’re backing up over the network, is a weak link for Time Machine. If network backup is key, I’d look at something like Retrospect that provides true client/server architecture (which Time Machine doesn’t).
Or just use Time Machine with an external hard drive that’s connected directly to the Mac in question.
The other question, if you’re really replacing Time Machine, is if the alternative in question provides versioning. I’m not sure if everything that’s been mentioned here does.
I am also someone who uses Arq for this. For backing up hourly to a local drive, I connect to an external drive on an always-running Mac Mini in my basement using SFTP from a MacBook Air and an iMac (as well as backing up files to the cloud.) It works great for me.
I have simple needs. All I want from TM is a copy of a file I think I need today but may have thrown away some time in the past; plus my emails, present and past. I’ve never needed all the versions of a document, but I wouldn’t object. The TM doesn’t need to be bootable, nor do I need to be able to restore my Mac from it, because I believe I can do that from my clones. And TM via WiFi is pretty important, because I work in various rooms here, as does my wife, and we don’t want to think about plugging a drive in which resides somewhere.
I love CCC for cloning, especially the recovery partition and apfs snapshot handling, but it’s not all that flexible for versioned backups compared to Chronosync. CS has many ways of selecting what gets backed up, how many old versions are kept for how long, etc.
But neither can do what time machine can do: hard linked directories, which can be a big space saver on the backup drive, letting you keep more past history. TM also makes it fairly easy to restore from a past date, and some things from within apps. (Assuming that the TM backup doesn’t eat itself, which is why you also need a second kind of backup.)
I use:
Time Machine for versioned backups
Chronosync for a daily clone to drives that rotate off site every few months; some are versioned
CCC for one off clones, archival clones, and insurance clones before restoring a computer (redundancy in software is as important as redundancy in hardware)
CCC to create backups to encrypted disk images that I uploaded to sync.com at a friend’s house (usefully fast connection). Then CS lets me make old style incremental backups from there, ala everything that changed after a certain date. For the online out of region backup, I don’t care that it will be a mess to restore–that restoration scenario is a regional disaster such as a major earthquake, and I’m not going be bothering about computers for months.
Not needing versioned backups I don’t use TM, but I can’t speak too highly of ChronoSync, used with rotating externals.
I’d gone with Synch Pro for years after that bad period with Retrospect — played with CCC but it lacked features I needed. Didn’t keep much of an eye on other backup software.
Then Synch Pro was ‘retired’ with other 32Bit applications, and Adam recommended ChronoSync. A great, extensive, solid program; with one nice adjunct no one’s mentioned yet: upgrades free for ever!
Honestly, in the MANY years I’ve been using TM, once I did a full restore and maybe 3 or 4 times per year I need an “older” version of some file or folder. CCC I have set up in 100% automated fashion, it boots my computer in the middle of the night, does it’s thing then shuts down. 2 years now, 100% utterly reliable (well, it did fail once but did it when I booted the machine, I wrote them and Mike himself replied with a suggestion that fixed the issue… SMC was the failure point).
Yes I use their SafetyNet. The only possible issue is one relating to storage space. My main boot is a 1T drive close to 700G used. My “clone” drive then had under 300G for SafetyNet. Practically, it shows using 200G with 100G free. Looks like the oldest set of files is 9/2. Point being it can only “go back” so far. HOWEVER, my bet is if I replace the 1T “clone” with a 2T one, SafetyNet may hold files going back MANY more months.
Now as it is, I DO use a 2T drive for TM… looks like it can go back to Oct. 2019, so about 11 months worth (it’s already deleting older backups due to space, so that is most likely a rough rolling number). It COULD be that with another 1T of disk space on my “clone,” it may hold as much “older” files as TM does.
So, when I can out a few bucks together, looks like a 2T drove for my “clone” may be in order. THEN I can say I have everything TM has doubled! AND 100% TOTALLY unlike TM which essentially has zero support, Mike Bombich is always there, always quick to respond, always MOST helpful.
Haven’t tried CS…but CCC versions just fine. Takes more destination space of course but any versioning does. It doesn’t prune the versions unless it runs out of space… it that’s easy with either a volume size limit or go in every couple months and clear some of the old ones out. I’ve found that I very rarely need to recover something more than a couple of weeks old. I might grab CS and see how it’s versioning works…but probably isn’t worth buying another solution unless there’s something I decide I really need.
For those “upgrading” to Catalina from Mojave, do remember that the first TimeMachine backup in Catalina will render all previous (Mojave) TM backups worthless for recovery should you change your mind and decide to go back to Mojave. The proper method is to retire your TM backup disk prior to the Catalina upgrade and then start using a new backup drive; keep Catalina from even seeing your Mojave TM disk.
I think this is also especially true for Big Sir. IIRC, Time Machine format has changed entirely, and I believe it is recommended to start a fresh Time Machine backup.
As to “Time Machine has become such a bummer” and “Time Machine format has changed entirely [in Big Sur]”, see this Eclectic Light article.
“Judging by widespread comments about the Big Sur betas, one major new feature being tested in them is a version of Time Machine which can at last make backups which are stored on an APFS volume. Up to and including Catalina, Time Machine has only supported two backup destinations: local storage in HFS+ format, and networked storage via AFP or SMB. As it is nearly three years since Apple released its new file system in macOS High Sierra, for many users APFS support is high on the wishlist for Big Sur.”
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“When Apple released the first version of APFS on Mac OS X, in High Sierra, its new snapshot feature was incorporated into Time Machine. They were initially used instead of the FSEvents database to determine what should be backed up.”
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“For Big Sur’s Time Machine to be able to back up to APFS destinations, those backups need a new structure which isn’t reliant on directory hard links, but would have the same effect in terms of creating the Finder illusion, and minimising space required to store what appears to be a complete copy of the volume being backed up.
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Determining what gets backed up in Catalina can thus depend on snapshots, and snapshots are made during each backup, but because the backup destination remains in HFS+ format it can’t use snapshots itself, and instead still has to rely on directory hard links.
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Several beta testers have reported that Big Sur’s backups maintain their Finder illusion as they are snapshots, which are mounted on demand when the user selects them in the Finder. Although a plausible explanation, there’s clearly a little more to it. Other reports confirm another feature high on the wishlist for Time Machine, that it can back up changed blocks from large files, rather than always having to copy the whole file whenever anything changes within it. These are interrelated: if backups are going to rely on snapshots, then it’s essential to use those file system metadata to minimise the amount of duplicated storage space by backing up blocks whenever possible. However, HFS+ had no support for doing that.”
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“In Big Sur, copying items to the backup is more complex than in Catalina. Not only are blocks copied (‘Files Delta Copied’ in the log), but unchanged directories are also ‘move skipped’ before the snapshot is made of the backup. The ‘move skipped’ directory appears to be a synthetic form of directory hard link which propagates unchanged directories into the backup. To understand how Big Sur can show a backup using a snapshot, we need to understand how it handles those two tasks, at the least.”
According to this “Next up: Arq 7!” article by its principal developer, you may want to wait until that version’s released before switching to Arq:
“Arq 6 has a cross-platform user interface made with Electron (like Slack and many other apps). Arq 6 works great for new users, but unfortunately there were unexpected issues with importing Arq 5 data, and feedback on the UI was largely (and sometimes very passionately) negative.”
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" At some point we tried prototyping Arq 6 as a ‘native’ UI on macOS, and realized we like it a lot better.
So, we decided to implement the entire UI as a ‘native’ UI. It’s got better keyboard navigation, it’s more intuitive, has a smaller disk footprint, and supports drag-and-drop to easily restore files to your desktop or a Finder window. It just feels better. We hope you like it too. We’re working on implementing the Windows UI as a ‘native’ UI as well."
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" Because it looks and feels so different and to avoid confusion we’re calling it Arq 7 ."
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" Arq 7 Features and Improvements"
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"More features:
Configure a single backup plan to include items from SMB network shares, AFP network shares, attached disk, or all of the above"
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"Plus all the Arq 6 features:
Perfect backups: Arq can use APFS “snapshots” (on macOS) and VSS (on Windows) to get a frozen-in-time view of the filesystem and create a backup from it, even as the files are changing on disk. Great for backing up virtual machines, for example."
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" Arq 7 Release Timeline
Arq 7 for macOS is in pre-release right now. If you’d like to get access to it right away, please email support@arqbackup.com and we’ll send you a link."