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I my case (and I can't emphasis more on my teenager status back then) it was a permission issue, everything looked fine from my perspective, but CCC somewhat di

by Twisell 10y ago

I my case (and I can't emphasis more on my teenager status back then) it was a permission issue, everything looked fine from my perspective, but CCC somewhat didn't have the right permissions to sync folder of others users. So their home folder where actually empty. From my perspective the backup was a success... This traumatizing error is when I first learned about superuser and permissions. I guess CCC has gone a long way since then and added more safeguard. But I must confess that I've sticked to a "use the goddam standard tools" since then. Sure there must be a lot of more customizable or faster tools out there. But Time Machine stay "the backup tool my mum can't use wrong" I can't give enough to credit to Apple for that. And putting aside NSA/FBI problem, iCloud backup for iPhone is exactly as smooth. Literally every time I go to a Genius Bar, someone is about to hug a genius because of a successful restore from the iCloud of their broken/stolen iPhone. This is how you build a "faithful" customer base and no other tech company understand that better than Apple so far.

laumars 10y ago
Those points don't change the fact that you (and everyone else) should test back ups periodically. If it's not file system permissions nor other configuration problems then it will be a failing storage medium or just dumb user error. So the only way to be sure you have a working back up is to test that back up - ideally before you actually need to use it.
- Twisell 10y ago
  To be clear I can't agree more! I got a little lost while writing. But indeed my point was double check! Because in my case everything looked fine at first sight. This is even why I don't use the same process for my two backup (daily/monthly). Because to be fair you can't constantly check that your daily/hourly backup isn't corrupted, you rely on its build-in safeguard and occasionally you check it. But by using two different methods for daily vs monthly(offsite) backup, you significantly reduce the odds that the two different methods failed at the same time while you need them. (Also a monthly full clone is way easy to check than a Time Machine Disk)
- PhantomGremlin 10y ago
  Yeah, once upon a time at a startup, I wanted a file restored. We were small; the CEO was actually the one doing the backups (to QIC tape cartridges). Of course, the recovery failed. In fact, the backups hadn't been working properly for months. I lost a few hours of work; if our file server had actually failed, not having a good backup could have literally been catastrophic. As in would the company have survived?! I recall an ancient quip, more or less: "if you don't test your backups, you don't have backups, you have dreams".

by Twisell 10y ago

laumars 10y ago

Those points don't change the fact that you (and everyone else) should test back ups periodically. If it's not file system permissions nor other configuration problems then it will be a failing storage medium or just dumb user error. So the only way to be sure you have a working back up is to test that back up - ideally before you actually need to use it.

Twisell 10y ago
To be clear I can't agree more! I got a little lost while writing. But indeed my point was double check! Because in my case everything looked fine at first sight. This is even why I don't use the same process for my two backup (daily/monthly). Because to be fair you can't constantly check that your daily/hourly backup isn't corrupted, you rely on its build-in safeguard and occasionally you check it. But by using two different methods for daily vs monthly(offsite) backup, you significantly reduce the odds that the two different methods failed at the same time while you need them. (Also a monthly full clone is way easy to check than a Time Machine Disk)
PhantomGremlin 10y ago
Yeah, once upon a time at a startup, I wanted a file restored. We were small; the CEO was actually the one doing the backups (to QIC tape cartridges). Of course, the recovery failed. In fact, the backups hadn't been working properly for months. I lost a few hours of work; if our file server had actually failed, not having a good backup could have literally been catastrophic. As in would the company have survived?! I recall an ancient quip, more or less: "if you don't test your backups, you don't have backups, you have dreams".