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You don't have to be smart do to this. You just have to find some tools and services that are "fire and forget." This is what I do: 1. All my working files a
by ubermonkey 5y ago
You don't have to be smart do to this.
You just have to find some tools and services that are "fire and forget."
This is what I do:
1. All my working files are in my Dropbox account (or my corporate Dropbox account). I did this initially to support working off two machines interchangeably, but the fact of the matter is that this creates an easy versioned backup of your "live" files. Nowadays, my Dropbox is fully mirrored on TWO backup computers here in my office (ie, a spare machine and an old machine).
Setup Effort: Minimal.
Ongoing Effort: Almost zero.
2. Because I use a Mac, I have Time Machine. It's glorious and can save your butt. It's the ONLY of these mechanisms I've ever had to use at scale (after a break-in and a stolen laptop). It worked flawlessly. Use it if you can. Every year or so, I get a new TM drive and archive the old one.
Setup Effort: VERY Minimal.
Ongoing Effort: Zero.
3. I also use Backblaze for offsite backup security. I happen to live on the gulf coast, so major storms are a concern, but there's probably some house-eating danger wherever YOU live.
Setup Effort: Moderate.
Ongoing Effort: Minimal.
4. Finally -- and this is the only part that needs actual action -- periodically I take a full image backup of my main machine's drive and archive it.
Setup Effort: Moderate.
Ongoing Effort: Moderate.
I keep my newest image and my last TM drive in someone else's house, too, but that MAY be paranoia.
- cloogshicer 5y agoHow do you do Time Machine backups without ongoing effort? Do you backup to a network drive or something like that?
- extra88 5y agoWhat effort? It runs automatically every hour. They include that they buy a new drive on which backups are written and archive the old one. Presumably they buy drives that are big enough to have a full backup and a reasonable about of space for the diffs (a drive 50% larger than the one being backed up is typically sufficient). Since Time Machine is in addition to other backup methods, they don't need to make an effort to keep a Time Machine drive offsite.
- cloogshicer 5y agoWhat I meant is, you have to physically connect the drive, unless you're using a Network drive, and I wanted to know how their setup works. I tried setting up Time Machine via Network Drive once and it didn't work so well, so I'm trying to learn.
- miked85 5y agoUsing Time Machine via network is the only way I have ever used it. I initially used Apple Time Capsule (RIP), and now just use a Time Machine compatible NAS.
- Joeri 5y agoI run a usb cable from the back of my imac to a drive hidden underneath my desk. It is effectively zero maintenance, because time machine removes old backups to make space for the new. For laptops I would aim for a setup where the drive is connected to whatever dock solution is in place. MacOS would backup automatically while the laptop was docked.
- ryandrake 5y agoTime Machine has been the only way I've been able to get the majority of my family's devices to consistently back up. Thankfully it's a mostly-mac house. Have an always-on Debian machine which acts as a NAS. Install and configure netatalk and avahi. Edit /etc/netatalk/afp.conf: [Time Machine] path = /path/to/backups time machine = yes And you're done. Don't lift a finger to do backups ever again.
- cloogshicer 5y agoThank you!
- chaostheory 5y agoToo complicated. Just connect a drive via USB.
- jhrozek 5y agonot OP, but yes, I backup both our Mac machines (TimeMachine) and my Linux machine (restic) to a Synology NAS that is in turn backed up to a cloud. I ended up using the Synology cloud because the setup was easy and they have a datacenter in the EU.
- MiguelHudnandez 5y agoYes, time machine can run over the network. It really is easy.
- gnicholas 5y agoEven with a Time Capsule, Time Machine can be annoying. I had to turn automatic backups off because for some reason every backup was hundreds of MB. It took my 2017 MBP 15-30 mins to complete each backup, which meant that 25-50% of the time my computer was on, it was backing up. This meant the fan was going and the computer slowed down.
- ubermonkey 5y agoReview your backup config, because it sounds like you're accidentally picking up something you shouldn't be. This happened to me at one point and the culprit ended up being that I had failed to exclude the folder holding my VMs.
- ubermonkey 5y agoThe current TM drive is plugged into the hub on my desk. In these COVID times, my laptop rarely leaves that desk, but even when it does there's only one cable to plug it all -- monitors, ethernet, various other peripherals, speakers, power -- into my laptop.
- b112 5y agoYou don't have to be smart do to this. You just have to find some tools and services that are "fire and forget." You just lost 99.99% of the population.
- zdragnar 5y agoTo be fair, several options do not require changing habits or behaviors once in place, and setting them up requires minimal assistance at most for the truly technically challenged. The problem, I think, is less in finding them and more simply knowing that keeping offsite backups is important (or any backups at all for that matter). Edit: especially given the prompt of someone who is impared, very young or otherwise 'less able' whatever that might mean to you.
- BiteCode_dev 5y ago> To be fair, several options do not require changing habits or behaviors once in place Please share.
- pjc50 5y agoYou'd be surprised how many people have Google Drive, which really is fire and forget. As are all the other cloud services. Hence their popularity.
- hulitu 5y agoOr how many people lost their data because it was in the cloud. Forget and fire.
- BiteCode_dev 5y agoI can't find such tool for the love of me. I'm ok to pay for it but: 1 - I need the client to use encryption and be open source 2 - It needs to run on linux 3 - It needs to backup files in arbitrary locations, including spanning several partitions (one NTFS, one ext3) 4 - It needs good filtering / curation capabilities 5 - Restore should have great granularity, and I should be able to browser the archive without having to unpack it all 6 - it needs to be easy to setup. I don't want to setup my own instance or mess with config files. I've never found a tools that could do all that. One of those always fail, and sometimes the tool promise all of them, but doesn't even manage to backup. Some backup only partially, missing a files. Some backup, and don't restore. Some can only restore the all archive. Some don't encrypt. Some are close source, or only available on Mac and Linux. Some will store wrong files, and you can't them out of the backup. It's crazy that in 2021, the state of backup sucks so much. So have 2 backups on 2 different hard drives for all my files. One with "way back machine", the other one with a simple cp. Then I take essential files, and I put them on a usb drive. My only remote backup are githup repo and emails. Any suggestion?
- Scarbutt 5y agoSo you just have to use dropbox, time machine, backblaze, several drive backups and someone's else house to store drives, simple!
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]