Help with new Hard-drive

[Lyons00]

Hi,
I bought a new M3 iMac. Now my Time Capsule stopped backing up. Apple was no help at all. I've tried many different things to get it back up and running, but nothing worked.
Can someone help me find the correct HD to backup with Time Machine, something just plug and play?

Thank you, Jerry

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I recommend a drive at least 3x your data size. 5x is even better; if you're buying a new backup drive getting one with more capacity isn't going to cost much more.

All you need is USB-C, which pretty much any new disk will come with.

Format, etc - doesn't matter. macOS will format it for you. My advice is get the one with the longest warranty.

 

[Lyons00]

Thank you

 

[Bigwaff]

I've tried many different things to get it back up and running, but nothing worked.

Can you enumerate the "many different things" you've tried so we don't waste time posting suggestions and replying.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

My standard "oh, no, there he goes again!™" reply:

If you want back that works, then STOP USING time machine.
And START USING either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.

I make no apologies to other users for this long-standing recommendation.
I've seen many MANY posts from users here over the last 15 years who couldn't get a tm backup to work.
But I've seen very few posts from users who couldn't recover from a CCC or SD backup.

 

[Lyons00]

Can you enumerate the "many different things" you've tried so we don't waste time posting suggestions and replying.

I erased the drive, then added it back....Apple had me remove the time capsule and start all over....as in erasing everything that was on it.....changed some settings and honestly not sure what they did. Adding the time capsule back still showed error 19...thank you

 

[Mike Boreham]

OP:

My standard "oh, no, there he goes again!™" reply:

If you want back that works, then STOP USING time machine.
And START USING either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.

I make no apologies to other users for this long-standing recommendation.
I've seen many MANY posts from users here over the last 15 years who couldn't get a tm backup to work.
But I've seen very few posts from users who couldn't recover from a CCC or SD backup.

@Fishrrman How many of the bad reports were in the last two years? and when did you last use it yourself?

For many years my own experience was as you say...not good. But TM has been completely reincarnated in APFS and my experience from the last two years has been very good, recovering individual files, restoring whole machine from TM backup and rolling back machine with local TM snapshots.

I should say my own good experience has all been with local direct attached drives. I have no experience of anything networked.

PS I use CCC as well but when the need arises TM is my first go to nowadays...it didn't used to be.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

OP, much good advice in this thread. I'll add only one more thought...

BUY at least TWO BIG drives to BOTH be TM or CCC/SuperDuper backup drives. Full backup to both and store one in a secure offsite location like a bank safe deposit box. Then regularly rotate the one in use with the offsite one. This is key to protecting against very real flood/fire/theft scenarios.

Personally, I have no problem at all with TM as my backup solution (10+ years now) but respect Fishrrman posts on this topic. So if you opt to use TM, consider a THIRD drive so you can have at least one regular backup via CCC or SuperDuper too. As FreakinEurekan offered in #2, big drives are cheap... and having too many backups is a much better "problem" vs. having too few.

If I felt some doubt about TM, I'd probably store one of my TM AND a full backup of CCC or SuperDuper OFFSITE, then fetch both when it's time to switch, backup both and then get the latter back to the offsite location ASAP. Or maybe work that option as an in-between backup (between the TM backup swaps).

For example, I'm on a monthly schedule for swapping drives. I've decided about every 4 weeks is the right amount of time for my data protection needs. So if I wanted to mix in a CCC or SuperDuper backup, I might backup that way at about the end of the 2-week boundary:

• end of month: swap TM drives
• mid-month: fetch CC or SuperDuper drive, backup and get it back to offsite storage ASAP
• end of month: swap TM drives again

An approach like this would make my worst case of potential dataloss occur on the 14th- immediately before the update to the CCC/SD drive. To be worst case, the offsite TM backup would have to catastrophically fail (no possible data recovery) and thus the CC or SuperDuper backup would be 29 days out of date. I'd lose the last 29 days worth of new data in a full restore from the CC or SuperDuper drive.

If you are really shaken on TM but still want to use it, you could flip this concept: 2 CCC or SuperDuper drives and 1 TM drive, rotating from home to offsite in the same kind of (regularly scheduled) way.

The main point in this post is that ONE drive is not a good backup... but better than no backup at all. TWO drives with one always offsite means you can survive fire/flood/theft that takes out the Mac(s) at home AND the backup drive at home. Just do it.

 

[ignatius345]

@Fishrrman How many of the bad reports were in the last two years? and when did you last use it yourself?

For many years my own experience was as you say...not good. But TM has been completely reincarnated in APFS and my experience from the last two years has been very good, recovering individual files, restoring whole machine from TM backup and rolling back machine with local TM snapshots.

I should say my own good experience has all been with local direct attached drives. I have no experience of anything networked.

PS I use CCC as well but when the need arises TM is my first go to nowadays...it didn't used to be.

I've had problems with CCC too.

Last big one was when I tried to get CCC to run backups of several smaller drives to separate volumes on a single external portable HDD (CCC's recommended setup for my particular backp scenario). I left it for days and days and saw basically no progress. CCC's documentation said a lot about how using an APFS-formatted spinning HDD was super slow and would cause problems. And it certainly did... with CCC.

So, I stopped CCC, reformatted the drive clean and let Time Machine handle the backup. It completed it in a decent amount of time without stalling, and I've been using that drive in rotation with my other Time Machine drive and it's worked perfectly -- APFS format and all.

I've used CCC for years and it's done me a lot of good in various situations, but so has Time Machine. And the current, APFS version of Time Machine is miles ahead of the creaky old version that was based on weird hard link trickery behind the scenes. The poster above doesn't really realize this because he hasn't use Time Machine in however many decades and doesn't realize how much it's changed.

My biggest concern with CCC is its complexity. And recovering a file buried many levels deep "CCC SafetyNet" folder is a lot less simple and intuitive than Time Machine's dead-simple setup and recovery.

CCC is a great "power user" tool, but I think the average user's better off just plugging in a Time Machine drive and leaving it alone.

 

[gilby101]

CCC is a great "power user" tool, but I think the average user's better off just plugging in a Time Machine drive and leaving it alone.

Absolutely!

If TM's configurability is sufficient - use it! CCC has no advantages in that case.

I do use CCC - but only because it allows multiple backups sets with different configuration choices (and knows how to backup iCloud Drive).

Recovery with TM is much easier as all snapshots are immediately visible in Finder. I use it for my boot volume.

 

[Fishrrman]

gilby wrote:
"Recovery with TM is much easier as all snapshots are immediately visible in Finder. I use it for my boot volume."

Seems to me that CCC now does "snapshots" as well.
You can configure that with CCC's preferences.

However, that's one of the first things I TURNED OFF with CCC.
I don't want them!

 

[Mike Boreham]

gilby wrote:
"Recovery with TM is much easier as all snapshots are immediately visible in Finder. I use it for my boot volume."

Seems to me that CCC now does "snapshots" as well.
You can configure that with CCC's preferences.

However, that's one of the first things I TURNED OFF with CCC.
I don't want them!

Yes CCC does. But CCC Snapshots are of and on the backup drive, and is how it does Safety Net now on APFS destinations.

Time Machine local snapshots are on the boot drive and a very convenient way of rolling back the entire machine to a recent state very quickly. Much quicker than any reinstall or migration. But you can't roll back across a macOS update, that does require a reinstall and migrate.

 

[gilby101]

Seems to me that CCC now does "snapshots" as well.

Yes (just like TM), but viewing CCC snapshots in Finder requires extra steps. TM's snapshots are immediately visible. Try it.

 

[Mike Boreham]

Yes (just like TM), but viewing CCC snapshots in Finder requires extra steps. TM's snapshots are immediately visible. Try it.

How do you see TM Local snapshots in Finder? I only know how to see them in Disk Utility.

TM’s local snapshots are snapshots of the boot drive and are on the boot drive, and CCC‘s are of the CCC destination, and reside on the CCC destination. At least that is my understanding.

 

[gilby101]

How do you see TM Local snapshots in Finder? I only know how to see them in Disk Utility.

I may have confused things. I was thinking about snapshots on the destination. TM snapshots on the destination are immediately visible in Finder, CCC's require more steps. My point being that recovery of a few old files (from the backup volume) is easier in TM than CCC.

Local snapshots (whether from TM or CCC) require a visit to Disk Utility, view snapshots and then control-click Open in Finder.

 

[Mike Boreham]

My point being that recovery of a few old files (from the backup volume) is easier in TM than CCC.

I agree with that!

Local snapshots (whether from TM or CCC) require a visit to Disk Utility, view snapshots and then control-click Open in Finder.

Third party apps can't actually create local snapshots on the Boot volume. Only Time Machine can do that. Tinkertool System Pro has this helpful comment when you try to instruct one. If you click 'yes' a snapshot is created on the local boot rive but it appears in Disk Utility as a Time Machine Snapshot.

 

[gilby101]

Third party apps can't actually create local snapshots on the Boot volume. Only Time Machine can do that.

Not quite. Creating snapshots (local or backup) requires a special entitlement from Apple. Apps I use (CCC, Chronosync, Arq) have that entitlement and do create local snapshots on both boot and other backup source volumes. The apps have to take responsibility for removing the snapshot at some point in the future. CCC, by default, deletes local snapshots on backup source volumes after 24 hours (just like TM), but is configurable. Chronosync and Arq create local snapshots to provide a consistent file system before backup and remove the snapshot when the backup is complete.

Tinkertool System Pro has this helpful comment when you try to instruct one. If you click 'yes' a snapshot is created on the local boot rive but it appears in Disk Utility as a Time Machine Snapshot.

That is a neat trick. I assume TM deletes them after 24 hours - is that correct?

 

[Mike Boreham]

Not quite. Creating snapshots (local or backup) requires a special entitlement from Apple. Apps I use (CCC, Chronosync, Arq) have that entitlement and do create local snapshots on both boot and other backup source volumes.

Yes you’re right. I realise I was trying to use CCC to create a snapshot on the SSV which of course it can’t but it can on the -Data volume of the boot drive. I assume Tinkertool System doesn’t have permission so has to ask TM to do it.

The apps have to take responsibility for removing the snapshot at some point in the future. CCC, by default, deletes local snapshots on backup source volumes after 24 hours (just like TM), but is configurable. Chronosync and Arq create local snapshots to provide a consistent file system before backup and remove the snapshot when the backup is complete.

The advantage of CCC (and probably the other apps) is that the control of snapshot retention is much more flexible than TM which is 24hrs only.

That is a neat trick. I assume TM deletes them after 24 hours - is that correct?

I don‘t know but expect so. I will try and observe. Unlike CCC, Tinkertool System has no options to manage snapshot deletion, and uses TM to create them I expect it relies on TM to delete them as well.

Reason for last edit: add ‘no’ to last sentence. Typo.

 

[gilby101]

I will try and observe.

So will I. I have TTS, but have never explored this part of its APFS functionality.

Edit: The snapshot I created with TTS was deleted pretty quickly - probably by the next regular TM backup.