Step 2: Offsite backups to Backblaze with rclone I am aware that a RAID is not a backup but backing up to a RAID ensures that our backups are safe even when a disk fails in the NAS. The NAS, by the way, uses large, spinning hard disks in a RAID configuration. CCC stores the passwords for both, the share and the disk image, in the local keychain on the laptop. The disk images are password-protected and encrypted, so that even if someone were to gain access to the NAS share, they wouldn’t be able to access the backup data. The yellow symbol indicates that the backup file share isn’t mounted, but when running a backup CCC can (and will) mount the file share and then the disk image on that share. That signals that CCC will keep some old files around, similar to the history kept by Time Machine. In the screenshot you can also see a shield with the letter C in it. In the screenshot at the top of the post, which shows the CCC backup task for my home directory, you can see that the destination is “erik.sparsebundle” on “Backups”. That share is named “Backups”, and the disk images generally have the same name as our usernames. For each of our home directories, no matter which laptop they come from, there is a disk image on a file share on the NAS. One thing I haven’t written about is where exactly the backups are stored. This makes the backups a good deal smaller than full-disk backups, and having to spend a couple of hours reinstalling the OS and applications if a laptop really breaks or is lost/stolen seems like a sensible trade-off for smaller backups. The backup only covers our home directories because that’s where the data we care about is stored. I write should because there’s no guarantee that a laptop will complete the backup in the one hour window it’s given. I set it up to back up the home directories of our laptops every night on a schedule that should only see one laptop at a time doing a backup. Unfortunately, though, Time Machine doesn’t really give you any configuration options.Įnter the picture Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC), which offers all the configuration options a geek could ask for, and probably more. A backup that happens at night, when the laptop isn’t in use, would not only be sufficient, but it would also be preferable. And while there are some cases where hourly backups can be useful-an rm -r in the wrong directory for example-neither I nor the rest of the family have found hourly backups important. This is the case even with super-fast Wifi and gigabit local networking.
It backs up files once an hour, and over a network this is a slow process, which tends to impact network performance on the laptop. That said, my experience with Time Machine wasn’t great.
Online backup time machine software#
Openmediavault, the software running our home NAS, makes this relatively straight-forward, too. Even better, there are different solutions that allow Unix-based servers to act as Time Capsules. The actual hardware products have been discontinued many years ago, but the process is still supported. Time Machine is the built-in backup solution and it is not limited to storing the backups on an external drive. But what if you don’t want to have an external drive hanging off your laptop? Or if you don’t want to store all your files on iCloud? I didn’t want either, so I came up with a different strategy, which involves Carbon Copy Cloner, a NAS, rclone, and Backblaze.
Online backup time machine mac#
Backing up a Mac is a solved problem, right? Just attach an external drive for Time Machine and sync your files to iCloud.
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