Backup plan for macbook, a bit confused!

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robodelfy

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May 20, 2013
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Hi

I have a macbook pro with a 256gb ssd for the OS, and a 750gb HDD for everything else. I make music, videos etc, and just have it full of data I could not afford to lose.

I currently use time machine to backup on to two seperate HDDs, one that I keep with the computer. But obviously all of this could be ruined in a single accident!

I am now considering online storage. It seems that backblaze is the simplest option, and as far as backing up everything it seems perfect, but restoring sounds like a nightmare. You just get a zip file with your backup in it, with the same folder structure etc. Does anybody know much about this? The other main competitor is crash plan but that seems resource hungry and I can't really have it running in the background all the time when making music. It also looks a bit convoluted

Then finally it seems like maybe a good idea to clone the hard drive so I have a bootable HDD straight away if things go wrong. But as I have two seperate drives, is it possible to clone both on to a single drive?

Sorry I am not hugely tech savvy, but any help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks
 
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drtweak

drtweak

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I recommend Carbonite. It isn't as resource hog and if something happens, you get a new laptop or restore it to another one is easy. You login into your account. tell it you want to reinstall to this machine, then ask if you want to restore your files. It restores them to where you want them (will be in the same user folder as long as the user name is the same as the old machine) and it just restores them in the background.

Great thing is it is offsite so if something really horrible happens, which i hope it doesn't, your data is safe. You can also request them to ship you a port hard drive with your data for an extra cost if says your internet is just too slow (which most download speeds are so fast that it should only take a few hours to days depending on how much data and how fast your connection is.

Cloning is a good way to go but the thing is Time Machine backups the OS as well but you have to then restore everything though the time machine app on a mac that is up and running so it is kinda over redundant (but then if your data isn't in at least 3 places you aren't backed up enough as they say)

So if you have your data on your laptop, your daily TM backup, your other Manual backup drive is it?, and then an offsite you will be covered pretty well.
 
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robodelfy

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Thanks dr tweak

Yes carbonite was definitely climbing the list! Backblaze just doesn't do some very essential things even though its very simple. It looks like it would take weeks for me to do the initial backup! That is a bit of a problem living in teh countryside, sharing a connection!

Thanks for all your advice, I will follow it. I am starting to cinnsder just some cloud sharing thing like Google Drive and just choosing the essential stuff, rather than backing up everything!
 
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BadAsAl

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I like Crashplan but only because it doesn't care if you are installing on a server or a personal computer, whereas Carbonite charges more for a server license. Personal is the same price as Carbonite. But I have installed and used both and they do what they are intended to do. Initial backup will always take a long time and especially so over a slow connection. Just start it late at night or when there is less activity on the connection. You can pause and restart if it doesn't complete in one go.
 
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robodelfy

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I think with my connection it could take months! Which seems a bit crazy, because if I change laptops which I plan to in a few months then I have to do it again! I think I might have to re think my plan, maybe just uploading much less, so i think the cheaper cloud stoarge might work. 100gb on google drive for £2, seems resaonable

Thanks for the help
 
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BadAsAl

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I have tons of data on my computer but I only cloud backup the important stuff that I cannot lose like my QuickBooks, photos, etc. I know you do a lot of music stuff so you will have more critical data than I do. I have a drive attached to my router that backs up all my stuff every hour and I use one drive for the critical stuff. So I have local and remote backup.

So yeah, see if you can pare down to what you really really cannot lose for the cloud backup and then keep doing what you are doing with your local backup.

To answer your other question, you can clone both drives easily (SuperDuper works great and is free). Off the top of my head you could just partition your backup drive into 2 partitions and then just clone your boot drive to one partition and then clone your other drive to the other partition. This works using SuperDuper at least manually and likely there is a way to automate it in the paid version.
 
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drtweak

drtweak

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Just to clarify, Cloud storage is NOT a backup solution. It is a syncing solution. In other words, if you delete a file on your PC a "Backup" program will not delete it from their cloud backup. If you delete the file on your PC it WILL get deleted on the cloud storage and it does not keep multiple backups. IT is good for convince reasons but not as an actual backup solution.
 
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BadAsAl

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drtweak brings up a good point and you will want to check any cloud based backup for how they handle deleted files.
Carbonite retains any file you delete from your computer for 30 days.
Crashplan retains them indefinitely unless you set a time limit in preferences.
 
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robodelfy

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Thanks guys, thats good advice. Yeah I dint think of it. And yeah some of the backup programs dont keep deleted files for long, backblaze being one.

I will look into carbonite a bit deeper
 
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