iMac HD Backup

[eytonxav]

Any recommendations for non-cloud backup storage for an iMac (e.g. time machine, time capsule, other)? This is mainly for my iMac, and I would like to hardwire connect it, but we are also using iPhones and DW has an iPad.

 

[braumeister]

I have Time Machine running always backing up to my Time Capsule, which is also my main router.

I also have another hard drive connected and use SuperDuper to automatically make a complete clone of my Mac every night. SuperDuper works great, and I also make a monthly backup on another drive using Carbon Copy Cloner, which is also a great product.

 

[mpeirce]

Any recommendations for non-cloud backup storage for an iMac (e.g. time machine, time capsule, other)? This is mainly for my iMac, and I would like to hardwire connect it, but we are also using iPhones and DW has an iPad.

Pick a big, cheap USB hard drive. Costco sells these cheap (there was a recent thread here mentioning this) or on Amazon. Plug it in, reformat the drive (HFS+), MacOS will ask if you want to use the fresh drive as a TimeMachine backup drive, say yes. Done.

If you are backing up your phones to the iMac, those backups will get backed up to the USB drive as well.

I stopped backing up my iOS devices to the Mac because I rarely plug them into the Mac any more. It's more reliable to let the devices backup to iCloud over WiFi.

Apple gives you 5GB for free, but if you have things like a large photo library you need to buy more storage. The 50GB plan is $0.99 per month. Pretty cheap (even for this forum!).

One advantage of wireless backups to iCloud is that if you ever lose your phone (say, when traveling) you can get a new one, restore it from backup, and be back to "normal" all before leaving that nice Apple store in Florence...

 

[audreyh1]

We use compact Toshiba hard drives - 3 terabytes inexpensive. Available at Amazon. DH says to also spend $10 buy a better USB cables than what they provide.

We don't do cloud backups or airport/wifi time machine backups. Just do direct connect and manually backup occasionally.

I still backup my iOS devices to my Mac laptop.

We also have a 5K iMac.

 

[FreeBear]

Any recommendations for non-cloud backup storage for an iMac (e.g. time machine, time capsule, other)? This is mainly for my iMac, and I would like to hardwire connect it, but we are also using iPhones and DW has an iPad.

Any generic USB 3 external drive would work. A "portable" like a Western Digital Passport is nice because it powers off the USB; no extra cable & wall wart. Suggest at least 2-3 TB, at least twice as big as your internal drive.

I also have another hard drive connected and use SuperDuper to automatically make a complete clone of my Mac every night. SuperDuper works great, and I also make a monthly backup on another drive using Carbon Copy Cloner, which is also a great product.

Cloning the internal system drive is a great idea on imacs especially if you have a standard internal hard drive or a fusion drive (standard hard drive with SSD built in) AND you have lots of special software and hardware set up. I've got ancient photo software and audio stuff that would be a PITA to reinstall and get functioning. Cloning makes restoration almost trivial. On the other hand, if you just have the standard Apple software and mainly surf the net, the standard Time Machine backup would probably be enough and is almost completely automated.

For some reason, at least in my experience, Macs eat hard drives. The pure SSD are much more reliable.

 

[photoguy]

For my data, I use rsync from the command line to backup to 3.5" drives which are stored unconnected. Maybe about 4tb base size. 2 copies unconnected + 1 copy offsite. When I want to make a backup, I just pop it into a USB drive dock.

I use CCC to make bootable clones of just the boot drive on my machines. CCC uses rsync internally.

I also use time machine just on the boot drives my machines. Time machine is slow and it's not browsable without the TM interface so this is really a last resort.

 

[Beldar]

We just use Time Machine and an external 2TB HD. Set & forget.

Oh, and the few times we've had to back in time a year or two to recover a missing folder or file was a breeze.

_B

 

[bw5972]

Any recommendations for non-cloud backup storage for an iMac (e.g. time machine, time capsule, other)? This is mainly for my iMac, and I would like to hardwire connect it, but we are also using iPhones and DW has an iPad.

I use Time Machine to a USB connected external drive. The proof in the pudding was the IMAC hard drive failure I had earlier this year. After having a new drive installed, it was simple and painless to have Time Machine do a complete RESTORE and I was back in business without losing a step.

 

[Ronstar]

I time Machine to an external drive. Comes in handy. I used the time machine backup to upload stuff to my new iMac when I bought it.

 

[audreyh1]

This is the little portable 3TB Toshiba drive DH favors, he just doesn't like the cable. <$90 from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canv...317954&sr=8-2&keywords=toshiba+3tb+hard+drive

You do need to do the Mac formatting as MPierce describes above.

 

[eytonxav]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Think I'll opt for one of those external HDs.