4 ms·

I like TM because it is more than a traditional rsync style backup. It appears to back up the state of machine and has allowed me to recover access to old goog

by wadkar 7y ago

I like TM because it is more than a traditional rsync style backup. It appears to back up the state of machine and has allowed me to recover access to old google accounts by formatting the MBP and restoring it to 3yr old TM backup point. Can backblaze let me restore my MBP to its state (including firefox/chrome logins, keyring/keychain passwords) as it was on Feb 12, 2018?

anonsivalley652 7y ago
Yes they can, if they backup everything (apart from the system) while running as a privileged user and files are quiesced too. Everything is a file in macOS. There's no magic, nothing hidden and nothing special about TM.
- wadkar 7y ago
  Who's they? Is it some configuration that I can handle at my end as an administrator? Or is this some possibility that we aren't sure can be actualized? Also how do I restore that backup to a blank MBP/disk so that I get the same state of affairs as I had on Feb 12th 2018?
Fnoord 7y ago
The feature you want is called dedup(lication).
- wadkar 7y ago
  I searched for deduplication on Backblaze and it's definitely not what I want. The feature I want is exactly as advertised by TimeMachine : an ability to restore a blank MBP/hdd to a point in time on the Time Machine backup timeline. See: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203981#macos https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203981#macos Apparently, you can pay backblaze $$ and they'll ship you a USB drive assuming you backed up your TimeMachine to backblaze: https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000046834-How-to-restore-your-Time-Machine-backup-from-B2 https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000046834-Ho... So, I might as well have a local USB drive taking TM backups. Point is, Time Machine has a specific utility that Backblaze cannot provide. I am not sure if anything like this is even possible on Windows?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Fnoord 7y ago
    You should not bank on 1 backup, but at least 2 (1 of which is offsite). So you have original, on-site backup, off-site backup. In case of big trouble e.g. fire/burglary/disaster, you still got your off-site backup. Your on-site backup could be a NAS or USB stick, and your off-site backup could be on Backblaze. You only use the off-site backup when your on-site backup fails. At that point, you need to shell out money, because it costs money to download the data (costs per GB). Dedup saves you space. With incremental backups, lots of it. Saving space saves you money. Both on retrieval and on storage. All that Time Machine does for you is a really nice UI allowing you to go back to snapshots. Git allows that, too. ZFS and Btrfs allow that, too. I'm not aware of a UI as good as Time Machine though; that is the problem. But for an off-site backup, maybe you don't require that.
    - wadkar 7y ago
      I am afraid you missed the point I was stressing about TM. It’s not the UI for me but the UX. The ability to restore a blank HDD to a macOS + state of all applications (including cookies and cache that’ll allow you to “go back in time”). Agreed on other points about offline storage and offsite backups. I just think TM has its place and backblaze/syncthing has its own use case. My argument is you can’t replace one with another.
      - Fnoord 7y ago
        Yes, I can see the use-case. It is one reason why I am excited about NixOS. I just believe with a good UI you can make it good enough, akin to TM.
ValentineC 7y ago
> Can backblaze let me restore my MBP to its state (including firefox/chrome logins, keyring/keychain passwords) as it was on Feb 12, 2018? The Backblaze consumer product is unlikely to be able to do so, with all the files that they automatically exclude: https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217665388-What-does-Backblaze-Backup- https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217665388-What-...

by wadkar 7y ago

anonsivalley652 7y ago

Yes they can, if they backup everything (apart from the system) while running as a privileged user and files are quiesced too. Everything is a file in macOS. There's no magic, nothing hidden and nothing special about TM.

wadkar 7y ago
Who's they? Is it some configuration that I can handle at my end as an administrator? Or is this some possibility that we aren't sure can be actualized? Also how do I restore that backup to a blank MBP/disk so that I get the same state of affairs as I had on Feb 12th 2018?

Fnoord 7y ago

The feature you want is called dedup(lication).

wadkar 7y ago
I searched for deduplication on Backblaze and it's definitely not what I want. The feature I want is exactly as advertised by TimeMachine : an ability to restore a blank MBP/hdd to a point in time on the Time Machine backup timeline. See: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203981#macos https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203981#macos Apparently, you can pay backblaze $$ and they'll ship you a USB drive assuming you backed up your TimeMachine to backblaze: https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000046834-How-to-restore-your-Time-Machine-backup-from-B2 https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000046834-Ho... So, I might as well have a local USB drive taking TM backups. Point is, Time Machine has a specific utility that Backblaze cannot provide. I am not sure if anything like this is even possible on Windows?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Fnoord 7y ago
  You should not bank on 1 backup, but at least 2 (1 of which is offsite). So you have original, on-site backup, off-site backup. In case of big trouble e.g. fire/burglary/disaster, you still got your off-site backup. Your on-site backup could be a NAS or USB stick, and your off-site backup could be on Backblaze. You only use the off-site backup when your on-site backup fails. At that point, you need to shell out money, because it costs money to download the data (costs per GB). Dedup saves you space. With incremental backups, lots of it. Saving space saves you money. Both on retrieval and on storage. All that Time Machine does for you is a really nice UI allowing you to go back to snapshots. Git allows that, too. ZFS and Btrfs allow that, too. I'm not aware of a UI as good as Time Machine though; that is the problem. But for an off-site backup, maybe you don't require that.
  - wadkar 7y ago
    I am afraid you missed the point I was stressing about TM. It’s not the UI for me but the UX. The ability to restore a blank HDD to a macOS + state of all applications (including cookies and cache that’ll allow you to “go back in time”). Agreed on other points about offline storage and offsite backups. I just think TM has its place and backblaze/syncthing has its own use case. My argument is you can’t replace one with another.
    - Fnoord 7y ago
      Yes, I can see the use-case. It is one reason why I am excited about NixOS. I just believe with a good UI you can make it good enough, akin to TM.

ValentineC 7y ago

> Can backblaze let me restore my MBP to its state (including firefox/chrome logins, keyring/keychain passwords) as it was on Feb 12, 2018? The Backblaze consumer product is unlikely to be able to do so, with all the files that they automatically exclude: https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217665388-What-does-Backblaze-Backup- https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/217665388-What-...