Backup advice for Apple Mac please

Hustler

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I currently have an iMac 1 TB machine from 2012 / 2013.
I'm only using about 120 GB of the 1 TB.

I back files up using a combination of 700 / 730 mb CD’s, dropbox and emails to myself with attachments various.

The CD’s are obviously small in size, dropbox is an outside company so not under my control and emails are a little restrictive on size.

Some advice if possible please -

I do not currently have an external hard drive but rather think I should so is there any particular make / size to go for ?

And then should I simply use the Apple time machine or just make selective back ups to the external hard drive ?

Any other hints and tips appreciated.

Thanks very much.
 
apple time machine is by far the simplest way to do it, you can use any drive to act as a back up. in systems preferences it'll ask you
 
apple time machine is by far the simplest way to do it, you can use any drive to act as a back up. in systems preferences it'll ask you

What he says! Plug and play. After it has backed up practice with it a bit to understand how you can search for previously stored info. Mine has been invaluable when I have inadvertently deleted something and want to go back a few days/weeks to find it.
 
Thanks very much Lo and Andy.
I will do as I'm told here and do exactly that.

Final quesion please - and particular external hard drive make / size to go for ?
 
I'm pretty sure mine is 1Tb. If you are really only using 120Gb then 1Tb should more than future-proof things for you. My hunch is that when I bought mine with my Mac 1Tb was the smallest on offer.
 
1Tb as Andy B says.
But given the extremely low prices in mechanical drives, consider future-proofing your set-up getting a 2TB drive (might be just a tenner more).
 
I'd go large and back that up with cloud storage, for small-ish files plus that means you cna draw that down as you need it anywhere.

or go for a non mechanical drive SSD but these cost proper money at the moment.

the most important aspect is organising your file structure to help find and get stuff back when you want it
 
Thanks very much people.

I'm on the case and looking to buy now.

Lo - I like to think my file structure is good and understandable as I did spend all my working life in the computer programming / analysis game.

Thanks again all, appreciated.
 
You should have on site and off site backups. It’s no good having your backup sat next to your machine if the house goes up in flames or some toe rag nicks the lot.

I have been using Carbonite for a few years and find them really good. If you needed to restore from them they will dump everything onto HD and courier it to you. Much easier/faster than trying to download it all!!
 
I'd recommend investing a very small amount of dosh into CCC (CarbonCopyCloner).

This makes fully bootable clones of your computer onto the external drive. The benefit of this is if your machine dies (or is lost / stolen), you can be instantly back up and running just as you left it. It's fully automated - you just plug the drive in and it does it's thing. Or you can schedule it.

As others have stated, this backup drive is no use if you leave it next to the computer to be stolen or burned at the same time! I have two - one at home, one at work, and make sure I plug each on in at least once a week.
 
You can also use CCC to backup to a remote server.
Agreed, it is worth the money.

For online storage, if you don't need access to the data often, Amazon glacier is pretty useful.
 
I wouldn’t rely on TimeMachine for anything important.

Click on the TM toolbar icon - bet you it says ‘Preparing Backup’. Probably has done for weeks and months and in that time has never done a backup. Something you only find out when you need to restore.

I use ChronoSync much more reliable and adaptable.
 
You should have on site and off site backups. It’s no good having your backup sat next to your machine if the house goes up in flames or some toe rag nicks the lot.......

Good point indeed, thank you.

I'd recommend investing a very small amount of dosh into CCC (CarbonCopyCloner).

This makes fully bootable clones of your computer onto the external drive. The benefit of this is if your machine dies (or is lost / stolen), you can be instantly back up and running just as you left it. It's fully automated - you just plug the drive in and it does it's thing. Or you can schedule it.

As others have stated, this backup drive is no use if you leave it next to the computer to be stolen or burned at the same time! I have two - one at home, one at work, and make sure I plug each on in at least once a week.

I shall look into this CCC as it means nothing to me at the moment.

............

Thank you one and all, and also er-minio and stolzy for suggestions.
I'm going for at least one of the above but need to understand them all a little more before I do.
Most appreciated people.
 
Click on the TM toolbar icon - bet you it says ‘Preparing Backup’. Probably has done for weeks and months and in that time has never done a backup. Something you only find out when you need to restore.

Clear the TM volume and start with a fresh backup.
I use TM to backup my macs on a Qnap NAS at home. It's been going strong for the last 2 years with no hiccups.

Of course, I do backup my work files also in another location via CCC.
 
Clear the TM volume and start with a fresh backup.
I use TM to backup my macs on a Qnap NAS at home. It's been going strong for the last 2 years with no hiccups.

Of course, I do backup my work files also in another location via CCC.
Sure, I know how to fix it (actually delting the .inProgress file works better), but a backup system should work repeatedly and reliably without me having to check every time to make sure its done its job. There are no error messages with this problem and there is no indication that the backup hasn't happened.

Unfortunately people only find out about this bug when they need to do a restore and find their last TM backup was 6 months ago.
 
There are no error messages with this problem and there is no indication that the backup hasn't happened.

You are right.
I just have the habit of checking it every once in a while, but yes, that doesn't work for a "normal" user.

The drives in my NAS are a bit noisy and I changed the TM schedule to do one backup per day around 10pm. I normally hear the NAS writing data around 10 and I know the backup is happening.
 
For simple cloud backup I can recommend Backblaze, very effective, not silly money.
 


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