Resolved Suggestions for a 4TB HDD 2.5" for Time Machine backups

[Alpha Centauri]

I'd honestly, just buy any 4TB portable external drive. Given that you're backing up a laptop, you'll probably want multiple drives anyway. It doesn't matter as much that the external be particularly fancy; just that it work when your internal dies or when your logic board needs to be replaced.

Thanks to this thread I'm learning a lot, hopefully visitors to this also. Seeing as my initial order for the Samsung T7s was going to cost nearly the same as for NVMe m.2, the T7s will be going back as soon as they arrive for a substantially better drive option.

I've obviously managed to derail my own thread re TM quite a bit but the acute priority will now first be to sort 2 backup clones. Soon as I've got this I'll concentrate on a reliable TM drive solution again.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Thanks to this thread I'm learning a lot, hopefully visitors to this also. Seeing as my initial order for the Samsung T7s was going to cost nearly the same as for NVMe m.2, the T7s will be going back as soon as they arrive for a substantially better drive option.

I've obviously managed to derail my own thread re TM quite a bit but the acute priority will now first be to sort 2 backup clones. Soon as I've got this I'll concentrate on a reliable TM drive solution again.

NVMe and portable SSDs aren't bad for Time Machine. I'm never going to recommend against one. Though, if the goal is to have multiple backups (and for anyone backing up a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro, it really ought to be), then you can definitely get away with using a cheaper external hard drive for ONE of the drives if push comes to shove. Generally, the people I consult for want to set up a viable Time Machine backup system on the cheap, so that's what they'll end up doing (and I won't argue against it because it's still a viable strategy). But hey, if you can do a portable SSD, then more power to you! I'd still suggest making multiple backups (that you store in different places).

 

[okkibs]

Both SSDs are fully compatible, the PCIe generation does not matter. The 980 is a waste of money for most scenarios. To make better use of the capabilities you can use a Thunderbolt housing that does not use the USB protocol. Technically you can get around 30Gbps with it or around 3.5GB/s. That will be the absolute maximum your Macbook is capable of, but even then the 980 would still be bottlenecked. And finally, as I mentioned before none of this matters for backups as Timemachine isn't programmed to make use of this. There will be zero speed differences.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

Both SSDs are fully compatible, the PCIe generation does not matter. The 980 is a waste of money for most scenarios. To make better use of the capabilities you can use a Thunderbolt housing that does not use the USB protocol. Technically you can get around 30Gbps with it or around 3.5GB/s. That will be the absolute maximum your Macbook is capable of, but even then the 980 would still be bottlenecked. And finally, as I mentioned before none of this matters for backups as Timemachine isn't programmed to make use of this. There will be zero speed differences.

Got ya. I realize I've veered somewhat to my OP re TM and am asking about 980Pro (or 990Pro) drives more so with Super Duper cloned back ups. So last Q about TB enclosures then to achieve max speed:

Would you still recommend a Sabrent TB in that case or another manufacturer? In the Amazon.de store I found this TB3 case but there's no mention of 40G: https://www.amazon.de/Thunderbolt-zertifiziertes-werkzeugloses-Aluminium-EC-T3NS/dp/B08FT59SB6/ref=sr_1_3?crid=K1URSB4ADXIE&keywords=sabrent+nvme+m.2+thunderbolt&qid=1689412444&sprefix=,aps,116&sr=8-3

So I don't mess it up with matching any of the Samsung NVMe's mentioned thus far, should the enclosure specs always state M-Key (B+M Key)?

I'll be ordering what I need on Monday so am educating myself on all options available. As you know, I flirted even with the idea of a 980/990 temporarily in a USB-C case for future purchase of a TB enclosure when prices drop substantially (saving buying again) but for two drives as backups it's quite a lot of money.

Come Monday I'll hopefully come to my senses and just order 2x Evo870 and 2x Sabrent USB-C (that you linked) enclosures.

Cheers

 

[okkibs]

That Sabrent Thunderbolt housing is 4x more expensive than a USB one and it's very old: M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen 3 x2. This is useless. You'd need something with x4. This number stands for the amount of PCIe lanes, M.2 NVMe SSDs have 4 lanes, so the only way to make full use of them is to use a Thunderbolt housing that also has 4 lanes. And in case of that Samsung 980 Pro you'll need the PCIe generation to be 4.0, not 3.0. This housing is PCIe 3.0 which would be fine for the 970 if it had 4 lanes, but at 2 lanes it would limit even the 970.

PCIe gen 4 x4 Thunderbolt enclosures do exist, but they will always say limited to 2.8GB/s or 3GB/s or something like that. That is the maximum Thunderbolt can currently handle. The USB-C port of your Macbook can only do 30Gbps maximum for such data connections which is below what the 980 Pro can do. The only solution is to wait for new Macbooks with Thunderbolt 5 in a couple years. No TB5 devices exist yet.

The M-Key thing doesn't matter, as long as you get a NVMe M.2 SSD and a NVMe M.2 enclosure everything NVMe will always match.

I have told you this before, you also have the issue that backups are done on the file system level. They will be much slower than what even the slowest old SSDs can handle. The free version of SuperDuper also works on the file system level. I am not sure what the paid version can do, since I haven't bought it (I find it as well as CCC to be entirely useless since TM works perfectly fine).

I have also told you about queue depth but you ignored that. Even the fastest 980 Pro is limited to about 800MB/s for single-queue-depth operations such as doing backups, no matter the software you use. Even if you had a Macbook 2030 with Thunderbolt 6 and 400Gbps and a NVMe SSD that says 10GB/s on the packaging, it still will be limited to 800MB/s-1GB/s for single queue depth.

These SSDs can only reach even half of their promised speeds in benchmarks, and with very specialized software that was written specifically with this in mind. Benchmarks work because they are precisely written to get the most out of SSDs. Super Duper and other apps were not programmed with this in mind.

I still do not understand what you are trying to do, why do you need backups to be this fast? TM takes care of this in the background where the speed doesn't matter. The incremental backups take a couple minutes to complete.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

I still do not understand what you are trying to do, why do you need backups to be this fast? TM takes care of this in the background where the speed doesn't matter. The incremental backups take a couple minutes to complete.

Right, thank you for the info re PCIe and NVMe, etc. I've come from the world of FW ports, a sketchy Catalina patched OS, 13yr old MBP, SD clones...and somehow still have my data from 15yrs ago, albeit struggled to keep things working. So this is new territory and I'm trying to do it right with (also) a limited budget.

I've always been a fan buying internal drives + enclosures and was then seeking perhaps some future proofing in relation to transfer speed, as I tend to keep drives a while. Perhaps overthought this part and drowned in the marketing specs. Secondary to this, my reasoning for speed was that I'll likely plug those drives in more frequently if transfer is quite quick. But I get it now.

I realize my post is quite confusing as quite simply I'm somewhat lost with a backup strategy with this new MBP and the logistics of keeping multiple backup drives up to date. The plan was SD cloned backup with the T7's, one onsite, one offsite and one TM backup (what the OP was initially all about). Thankfully the T7 purchase has been refunded. From own reading it was advised to choose at least twice capacity for TM drive to what the internal has, hence I looked for 4TB and portability of a 2.5". The MBP is mainly couch bound, moves about to balcony, etc. No desk scenario.

I run a very basic modem (don't use its weak WiFi) from the ISP and 3 mesh routers that only now have one Ethernet port free. I did explore the idea of utlizing the modem's usb port as a nas solution for TM but the manufacturer (AVM) doesn't support Time Machine. This would have been ideal as it wouldn't have mattered if there was a slower HDD attached.

So I guess (for time being) will order two of those 2 TB USB-C Sabrent enclusures+870Evo's and will either:

1. Save for an affordable 4TB SSD for TM and use the purchased drives for offsite and onsite cloning

OR

2. use one Sabrent for onsite cloning + the other one as an interim TM backup (my 2 TB internal is only 25% full atm) and save for that 4 TB TM drive.

Hopefully that clears up why I've been flip flopping in this thread of the best solution for this moment in time with the resources I have. Thanks for all your advice and detailed explenations, none was ever ignored. I'll get there in the end.

 

[okkibs]

You can just back up to the two 870 SSDs with TM and keep one offsite. It takes care of doing the correct incremental backup to each one automatically. Do not use the USB port on any router for this, those connections are very unstable and will corrupt backups. You can get a cheap Synology NAS with two ports, they usually support TM just fine. It's very convenient though due to the inherent risk with interrupting network connections at least one external backup is good to have. I use my NAS for offsite backups, it just replicates the locally stored TM backup over the internet to another NAS someplace else. You can get the Synology and fill it with 2x 4TB Crucial MX500 SATA SSDs. Wouldn't be my preferred choice as I still think NVMe M.2 SSDs are more reliable but they are the cheapest 5 year warranty SSDs out there.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

You can just back up to the two 870 SSDs with TM and keep one offsite. It takes care of doing the correct incremental backup to each one automatically. Do not use the USB port on any router for this, those connections are very unstable and will corrupt backups. You can get a cheap Synology NAS with two ports, they usually support TM just fine. It's very convenient though due to the inherent risk with interrupting network connections at least one external backup is good to have. I use my NAS for offsite backups, it just replicates the locally stored TM backup over the internet to another NAS someplace else. You can get the Synology and fill it with 2x 4TB Crucial MX500 SATA SSDs. Wouldn't be my preferred choice as I still think NVMe M.2 SSDs are more reliable but they are the cheapest 5 year warranty SSDs out there.

Though only have the MBP really, am also very much liking the NAS idea, it backing TM w/out interaction on my part (it's all it needs for me to do). Today, went to couple big box stores to inform myself about Synology specifically, basically the staff had little knowledge and relied on ChatGPT. NAS appears a niche market in my town so I'm stuck with a couple basic Q. hopefully you have time as I'm coming to the conclusion of this thread:

1. NAS will blow my budget many times over BUT following your last reply, I've looked at Synology's plethora of models and believe I've identified the following with some affordability and my very basic needs.

DS223j (€200) OR DS223 (€270). Both 2 bay 2"5 or 3"5. Wish they had small model only for 2"5. Looking at the specs I've a gut feeling the DS223 would be ultimately better value.

2. Basic connection I run 3x older Linksys Velop tri-band mesh set-up for WiFi (100/40MBPS) Only the master node is interesting for reliability. It has 2x RJ45 ports, one via ethernet cable to the ISP's basic modem, other port to the 4k TV. IF I use a Y-splitter, keeping the TV hardwired, other end hardwired into the NAS, is that all there is to it? The NAS wired into the Velop and I have TM backup access via WiFi to my MBP?

3. Bundles I know we talked about NVMe, T7s, 2"5, MX500 but not 3"5 HDD for TM. Amazon.de also has 3 bundled options (albeit HDD) with the DS223 between €530-€550

A. DS223 + 2x 4TB WD RED Plus HDD
B. DS223 + 2x 4TB Seagate IronWolf NAS HDD
C. DS223 + 2x 4TB WD Red+ fitted/ tested with SE DSM installed (whatever that means)

OR

D. DS223 + 2x 4TB MX500 = €680

What do you think? Stay well clear of all three 3"5 HDDs in absolute favour of the 2 x MX500 option?

Thanks for your patience with this.

 

[okkibs]

Don't really see a difference between the NAS except the memory, perhaps you can check with reviews. You cannot use Y-splitters for this purpose, that's not how they work. Bundles A and B are pretty much identical, the drives have nearly identical specs. Not particularly cheap spending 500+ on that and only getting 2x4TB... option C sounds like someone opened the package and set up the NAS, seems useless.

Probably best to do HDDs for the NAS, the MX500 benefits will be wasted on that cheap Synology. The money you save you can spend on a third HDD as a replacement if one of the 2 main HDDs fails.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

Don't really see a difference between the NAS except the memory, perhaps you can check with reviews. You cannot use Y-splitters for this purpose, that's not how they work. Bundles A and B are pretty much identical, the drives have nearly identical specs. Not particularly cheap spending 500+ on that and only getting 2x4TB... option C sounds like someone opened the package and set up the NAS, seems useless.

Probably best to do HDDs for the NAS, the MX500 benefits will be wasted on that cheap Synology. The money you save you can spend on a third HDD as a replacement if one of the 2 main HDDs fails.

So a Y. splitter is out and a network switch instead then?

You're right, 1 GB memory was practically the difference. Down the YT review rabbit hole I come across other models DS723+(2 bay with 2GB RAM) and DS923+ (4 bay with 4GB RAM). The 923 with more bays for expandability without adding seperate case enclosure in the future. Got excited as both feature user upgradeable (only from Synology) memory. The exciting part was that both also take 2x NVMe drives BUT limited to non-Synology drives for caching OR size-limited/ very expensive Synology m.2 for data pooling. Quite proprietary.

The 923+ would give me the option to run a couple IronWolf Pro NAS 3"5 8TB drives and perhaps also 2x MX500/EVO870 in the future. I've no idea how far back a TM backup can go with say an 8TB external, backing an 2 TB internal. Perhaps 4 TB would be enough. Would twice the capacity be even enough? Those SSD could run Super Duper clones as another backup medium but I cannot be sure this can be done wirelessly.

On the wireless topic, and the whole point of the backup process running in the background, I've read that using TM to backup to Synology system wirelessly will open myself to corruption due to spares bundle errors. No idea how widespread this issue is.

What are your thoughts on upgrading to the better model (923+ 4 bay) but mainly does all this sound highly unreliable with a wireless setup to my MBP?

This almost needs a new thread in its own right as the question has taken quite a different direction.

 

[okkibs]

I do not experience the sparsebundle corruption at all, but I have the automated hourly snapshots turned off and once a day I just click Back Up Now in the menubar. Perhaps the cheapest Synology units don't offer the best performance, but I doubt it's so bad that it would corrupt the backup. TM requirements are really low. And to me it doesn't matter if the backup takes a couple minutes longer to complete.

Many years old backup sparsebundles can corrupt eventually, as long as you have multiple backups and don't need the full backup history on every one you can delete a corrupt sparsebundle and start over with a fresh backup. I have many copies of my data so I don't care if TM runs into an issue. Last time I had a problem was 5+ years ago and my current backup is from a fresh Big Sur installation and works fine now on Ventura still. Eventually I'll start a fresh one just to avoid corruption risks.

How much capacity you need depends on how much data changes in between backups. If you store 1.5TB (initial backup size) and every day 20GB change that are backed up and you run a backup every day a 4TB backup disk would run full after 125 days. Just as an example. TM can remove older backups to regain space. If you take a backup twice a week with 20GB of changes it would last 62 weeks so over a year in the previous example. So the backup frequency and amount of data will determine how soon it runs out.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

I cannot remember if you also use TM over WiFi to your Synology. That’s where ppl seem to experience the most corruptions (from my reading only).

The 4 bay DS923+ (empty) I ended up looking at is just shy of €600, so not the lowest end but a still, cheaper consumer model. I feel I’ve misunderstood the concept of TM NAS, thinking it would mirror (immediately) write to changes. Off course didn’t consider that at least with a NAS HDD it would first spool up and look at changes to incrementally write to disc.

Another consideration in a living room would be noise of 2 x 3“5 8TB NAS Drives and the 2 case fans. I’ve no metric on this.

Thanks so much for the estimation of TM size planning vs frequency. Gives me a good idea at least.

Came home yesterday and had to restart my modem, main mesh router lost/ didn’t recognise my wifi password until the restart. Not the most stable mesh routers those Linksys.

 

[HDFan]

ou can get a cheap Synology NAS with two ports, they usually support TM just fine.

I have given up on NAS TM backups of 2-3 TB of data as:

1. Incremental backups are incredibly slow, measured in multiple hours even with very fast 10 GbE or thunderbolt connections. Probably would take days with WiFi.

2. Backups always are corrupted within a few weeks

I've looked at Synology's plethora of models

QNAP generally has better hardware, supports thunderbolt and 10 GbE on some models.

See:

NAS Compares

Simply passionate about NAS

nascompares.com

 

[Alpha Centauri]

4TB Crucial MX500 SATA SSDs. Wouldn't be my preferred choice as I still think NVMe M.2 SSDs are more reliable but they are the cheapest 5 year warranty SSDs out there.

What do you think of the Samsung 870 Evo 4TB Sata internals, compared to the MX500 4TB? Both are (in my country) the same price. I've looked at many reviews and there's quite mixed user comments on the much newer 870's prematurely ending with bad sectors but testers all recommending them for the better performance. So difficult to get factual metrics.

 

[okkibs]

More than twice the TBW, that is the hint that the Samsung uses higher quality components.

 

[splifingate]

I opened-up my Airport Time Capsule, and replaced the internal HDD with a larger drive a few years ago...

...can only imagine that I could do the same, now, with a larger HDD

Airport Time Capsule A1470 Hard Drive Replacement

Outgrown your Time Capsule? This guide describes how to swap the hard drive in a Time Capsule A1470 from the original 2TB Seagate drive to a 6TB WD...

www.ifixit.com

 

[Alpha Centauri]

More than twice the TBW, that is the hint that the Samsung uses higher quality components.

Indeed. The 870 EVO 4TB version has half the TBW of the QVO equivalent. Interestingly enough the QVO is also available as an 8TB with similar TBW of the 4TB EVO but is also almost Euro 400.

I wish there existed a 870 EVO 6TB for TM for my 2TB internal. Would have been the perfect size I think.

 

[ChrisA]

I find that Time Machine backups to 2.5" spinning rust drives are positively glacial.

Time Machine runs every hour. Backup speed hardly matters, as long as the backup is finished in under one hour. It is not like you have to wait wile it backs up. It runs automatically in the background.

The best setup for a notebook is to have the backup done over WiFi so you never have to physically connect the TM drive.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

I’m the OP. Does anyone know if a Synology NAS can be used for cloning (I’ve a paid Super Duper version) over wifi?

 

[HDFan]

Does anyone know if a Synology NAS can be used for cloning

You can backup to a Synology or other NAS via TM, Carbon Copy Cloner, etc. I have never gotten TM to work reliably however.

Bootable clones are an entirely different issue.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

You can backup to a Synology or other NAS via TM, Carbon Copy Cloner, etc. I have never gotten TM to work reliably however.

Bootable clones are an entirely different issue.

For my use case (backups for MBP) a NAS for cloning and TM would only be interesting, but only over WiFi. So whilst the ISP's signal is rock solid to the modem, the master mesh-router node occasionally (once or twice a month) drops the connection and has to be restarted. This now really makes me hesitate going the NAS route for backups. For sure plugging in external portable drives, on a set/ regular basis, into the MBP be the far more reliable option. Just not as convenient.

Btw, what did you mean by "Bootable clones are an entirely different issue"?

 

[ignatius345]

I find that Time Machine backups to 2.5" spinning rust drives are positively glacial.

I guess, but does it matter? I have no idea how long my Time Machine backups take because I have it set to 1x/day and it seems to happen overnight. Thought about moving to an SSD but just don’t see what the benefit would be of spending the money.

 

[ignatius345]

I've never had any issues with it and it has good reviews, but to each their own

Have the same drive. Seems to be running just fine to me. I have a second Time Machine drive as well so if it did fail I’m still looking at minimum two other copies of my data.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

You can backup to a Synology or other NAS via TM, Carbon Copy Cloner, etc. I have never gotten TM to work reliably however.

My experience is the opposite. TM works fantastic for me on Synology NAS for several years now. However, while it's never disappointed me, I don't rely solely on it for backups. See earlier post about what I think of as a near complete backup solution involving basically 3 targets: Synology for TM and 2 rotating HDDs also for TM, with one of the latter always stored offsite. I also sync mostly recent work files between desktop and Mac so that is an incomplete but additional backup for the recent stuff for my own worst-case scenario (which would be a loss of all local backups the morning when I would be going to rotate the off-site drive (thus it would only be up to date about 30 days ago).

Since our opinions cancel each other out on Synology for TM, perhaps others will chime in for OP and/or online reviews for this purpose may share some additional insights.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

I guess, but does it matter? I have no idea how long my Time Machine backups take because I have it set to 1x/day and it seems to happen overnight. Thought about moving to an SSD but just don’t see what the benefit would be of spending the money.

Personally, I don't see any benefit to paying much more to allocate SSD for TM. If setup as default, TM is going to be backing up only what someone created in the last hour or so as new files. Superior SSD speed to back up up to 1 hour's new creations seems like it is overkill (IMO), even if someone is cranking on something complicated and intense like maybe FCPX production (which should be backed up in other ways such as RAID IMO).

Ideal TM storage is at least 2X-3X or more total storage to be backed up now (and best guess in the fairly distant future). I would guess that math would generally point to a 4TB M.2 for many if not 8TB. 4-8TB of HDD is much less expensive than m.2.

If I had the money to even consider m.2 for TM, I'd probably reallocate that m.2 for active use purposes and put an old HDD towards the TM task anyway. But, of course, to each his own. Someone may have a very good reason for wanting to TM to SSD. I suspect some think the lack of moving parts is a huge advantage but others question the longevity of the cheaper SSD technologies that most buy vs. good old HDD.

In doing some testing on my new Silicon Mac to try to resolve the very irritating "unexpected ejection" issue, I wanted to rule out that maybe Silicon really wants only very new firmware/HDD hardware. So I dug up some long-since retired HDDs from back into the 2000s to mix in for testing too. The ancients connected just fine and the data was there- one at over 20 years old. I wonder if the SSDs I've picked up for new computers lately will still be functional and fully accessible in 10-12 years. TBD.