You need a backup plan before you move to macOS Catalina

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 41
    ivanhivanh Posts: 597member
    You know what’s the most important part of an article about backing up? This article spent less than one sentence mentioning it and it was “and then make sure you test your backups regularly.”  How? 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 22 of 41
    mdirvinmdirvin Posts: 49member
    mobird said:
    For the regulars here on AI and the drive by visitors, do you back up and what is your method?
    Yes, every hour on the half hour between 7:30 am and 10:30 pm.  I use three NAS Raid 5 box's.  One holds all my data, the other two I use to schedule RSYNC backups each hour.  Plus I keep a copy of all my  images, and created video's on Backblaze, just in case.  I really don't keep much of anything on the computer HD. I use the 10gig ethernet connection from the iMac Pro to the Switch/NAS units.  Everything can be restored using drag drop, no need for a third party backup program to restore.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 23 of 41
    dougddougd Posts: 292member
    Wait a year before you upgrade
    stevenoz
  • Reply 24 of 41
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 7,622member
    ivanh said:
    You know what’s the most important part of an article about backing up? This article spent less than one sentence mentioning it and it was “and then make sure you test your backups regularly.”  How? 
    Take your backups and try restoring some files.

    You have the mechanical side (power, disk spinning up, read/write etc) and the logical side (corruption at file system or file level, Time Machine book keeping etc).


  • Reply 25 of 41
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member
    mobird said:
    For the regulars here on AI and the drive by visitors, do you back up and what is your method?
    All my live documents are either in sync with iCloud, DropBox or on an external SSD. I've upgraded 3 major revisions w/o a hitch. As an Apple Engineering alum with 30 years of UNIX experience I've never had a ``oh fuck'' moment on OS X or hell even Debian Linux. I have issues and I resolve them w/o investing in a back up solution.

    Sure, I'll get a NAS one of these days.
    mobird
  • Reply 26 of 41
    knowitallknowitall Posts: 1,648member
    Out of the box macOS makes snapshots of everything updated which can be restored using time machine.
    The snapshots are automatically placed on your local disk and do not depend on other (external) drives.
    So you are protected even without a backup plan or whatever configuration is suggested.

    edited July 2019
  • Reply 27 of 41
    knowitallknowitall Posts: 1,648member
    dewme said:
    Very timely article. I'm very nervous about this upgrade because they are changing lots of kernel level code. The fact that both of my attempts to try Catalina have failed so badly leaves me very concerned. The original High Sierra beta that rolled out APFS left my Fusion equipped iMac in a horrible state that took a full reinstall to recover from and left me with a bad taste in my mouth about Fusion drives in general. All of my Macs are getting older and big changes don't come easy to them.
    Hybrid is always worst of both worlds (or double trouble), never use it.  
  • Reply 28 of 41
    felix01felix01 Posts: 294member
    As two or three posts have already alluded to, there's a big difference in the Catalina file structure (bifurcated) and generating a bootable backup of Catalina is going to require a lot of work by the developers of SuperDuper! and CCC before they have a shippable (non-beta) version.

    And as of now, the back-up drive will have to be connected directly to your computer as opposed to being on a network.   

    For anyone planning on jumping on the Day One upgrade wagon, suggest reading the developer blogs on the Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper! websites. You'll glean a lot of 'under the hood info' about Catalina and might just decide to delay things a bit.

    This article talks about having a good backup prior to the Catalina upgrade but they haven't addressed how you back up Catalina (including the Time Machine limitations with Catalina) the day after you've upgraded. 
    mobirdcornchipwatto_cobra
  • Reply 29 of 41
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,858administrator
    knowitall said:
    Out of the box macOS makes snapshots of everything updated which can be restored using time machine.
    The snapshots are automatically placed on your local disk and do not depend on other (external) drives.
    So you are protected even without a backup plan or whatever configuration is suggested.

    This isn't a backup plan. This is protection against inadvertent file deletion by the user.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 30 of 41
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,858administrator

    felix01 said:
    As two or three posts have already alluded to, there's a big difference in the Catalina file structure (bifurcated) and generating a bootable backup of Catalina is going to require a lot of work by the developers of SuperDuper! and CCC before they have a shippable (non-beta) version.

    And as of now, the back-up drive will have to be connected directly to your computer as opposed to being on a network.   

    For anyone planning on jumping on the Day One upgrade wagon, suggest reading the developer blogs on the Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper! websites. You'll glean a lot of 'under the hood info' about Catalina and might just decide to delay things a bit.

    This article talks about having a good backup prior to the Catalina upgrade but they haven't addressed how you back up Catalina (including the Time Machine limitations with Catalina) the day after you've upgraded. 
    Correct. It wasn't intended to be one.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 31 of 41
    knowitallknowitall Posts: 1,648member
    knowitall said:
    Out of the box macOS makes snapshots of everything updated which can be restored using time machine.
    The snapshots are automatically placed on your local disk and do not depend on other (external) drives.
    So you are protected even without a backup plan or whatever configuration is suggested.

    This isn't a backup plan. This is protection against inadvertent file deletion by the user.
    Sure, I indicated you really don't need one.
    Nice to know I think.
    edited July 2019 cornchip
  • Reply 32 of 41
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,858administrator
    knowitall said:
    knowitall said:
    Out of the box macOS makes snapshots of everything updated which can be restored using time machine.
    The snapshots are automatically placed on your local disk and do not depend on other (external) drives.
    So you are protected even without a backup plan or whatever configuration is suggested.

    This isn't a backup plan. This is protection against inadvertent file deletion by the user.
    Sure, I indicated you really don't need one.
    Nice to know I think.
    I'm not sure what you're going for here, to be honest, but if you don't have your files backed up on another drive that isn't attached to your computer, you're making a mistake.

    These snapshots are good, but what they are not is a backup that will protect you from drive failure in any way.
    edited July 2019 watto_cobra
  • Reply 33 of 41
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,801member
    Kinda interesting...I bet there are some developers out there scrambling to make their apps, drivers, plugin's etc, macOS Catalina compatible (64-bit) and they've had YEARS to get this done yet they dragged their feet. I wonder how much crap Apple is catching for going all 64-bit? 
    cornchipwatto_cobra
  • Reply 34 of 41
    yoyo2222yoyo2222 Posts: 144member
    mobird said:
    For the regulars here on AI and the drive by visitors, do you back up and what is your method?
    For my iMac I use Time Machine (3TB drive) and about once a week connect an 8TB drive (kept in a fireproof safe between backups) using CCC. For my MacBook Air I use a 1TB APFS drive mounted on my iMac and made into a Time Capsule in System Preferences>Sharing. I take that with me and mount it using a Mac Mini at my vacation house.
    mobirdwatto_cobra
  • Reply 35 of 41
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    felix01 said:
    As two or three posts have already alluded to, there's a big difference in the Catalina file structure (bifurcated) and generating a bootable backup of Catalina is going to require a lot of work by the developers of SuperDuper! and CCC before they have a shippable (non-beta) version.

    And as of now, the back-up drive will have to be connected directly to your computer as opposed to being on a network.   

    For anyone planning on jumping on the Day One upgrade wagon, suggest reading the developer blogs on the Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper! websites. You'll glean a lot of 'under the hood info' about Catalina and might just decide to delay things a bit.

    This article talks about having a good backup prior to the Catalina upgrade but they haven't addressed how you back up Catalina (including the Time Machine limitations with Catalina) the day after you've upgraded. 
    Agreed,  the point is to make sure you have a tried and tested CCC of your working Mojave if the machine you are using might have to 'go back'.  Any drive on which one is testing Catalina is just that a test so backing it up as of yet isn't critical.  Using a beta CCC is more of a test of CCC beta than Catalina at this point.  If Catalina has issues wipe and reinstall, I've done that already and it works fine.  Anyone, making the suggestion that a fully working CCC for Catalina is needed infers someone is daft enough to be using Catalina as their primary macOS.  

    Not everyone has the luxury of a dedicated test Mac as some of us have so for those, especially as non-developer versions are released really needs to read this article carefully.  A well-intentioned but non-tech-savvy friend who lives in Europe jumped in feet first by upgrading his main Mac to Catalina with no backup other than Time Machine.  I talked him through how to wipe his Mac's drive in target mode from another Mac and then use Shift Command R to boot into Apple's net installation system over ethernet which put back an earlier macOS for him which was what he wanted rather than using TM, his data was all on externals.

    The thing that worries me is folks connecting their beta Catalina to their only Photos repository on the cloud and letting it get upgraded then wanting to go back to Mojave.  If the had full optimization selected and no local backup of the original images they are kind of on a pickle until they get a fully working Catalina.  Of course not having a full back up of all photos locally is insane but we are talking about end-users here.

    UPDATE: Mike just released a new beta CCC, 1 minute ago (10:50 EST Monday, July 22nd) that is able to deal with Catalina.
    edited July 2019 mobirdwatto_cobra
  • Reply 36 of 41
    mobird said:
    What drives did you populate the +918 with and what configuration are you using (Raid, etc.)?


    Did you install any SATA M.2. SSD'S?
    I populate the 918+ with Seagate Ironwolf 4TB HDDs, and I use the Synology Hybrid RAID (SHR) to give me a fault tolerance of 2 drives. This effectively gives me 7.27TB of space, which is quite enough for my needs in a distant future. 

    I didn't install any M.2 NVMe 2280 SSD because when I researched it, most people said that it will not increase performance.

    I must add that during working hours there are usually 3 computers connected to the NAS working on different files and so far I have never seen any slowdowns, so I'm quite happy with this solution.
    edited July 2019 watto_cobra
  • Reply 37 of 41
    knowitallknowitall Posts: 1,648member
    knowitall said:
    knowitall said:
    Out of the box macOS makes snapshots of everything updated which can be restored using time machine.
    The snapshots are automatically placed on your local disk and do not depend on other (external) drives.
    So you are protected even without a backup plan or whatever configuration is suggested.

    This isn't a backup plan. This is protection against inadvertent file deletion by the user.
    Sure, I indicated you really don't need one.
    Nice to know I think.
    I'm not sure what you're going for here, to be honest, but if you don't have your files backed up on another drive that isn't attached to your computer, you're making a mistake.

    These snapshots are good, but what they are not is a backup that will protect you from drive failure in any way.
    On iOS I don't 'backup' and restore a system by reinstalling the OS (that's fast) and subsequently loading my Apple ID profile which loads all apps and data (this covers most files). Note that email is automatically saved in iCloud (so all files are covered).
    On macOS I do similar but use time machine and an external drive to backup a fixed set of file locations (dirs) which contain 'work'.
    Because this isn't an ssd I attach this drive once in a wile and rely on local snapshots in the meantime, this is almost failsafe and extremely convenient.

    Note that ssd's are really save compared to hd's and can be inspected to see if they are nearing eol.
    I would say that replacing the time machine disk with an ssd wil make this setup almost 100% save and probably the best way backup (note that all backup methods have inherent risks that are most of the time real).

    edited July 2019
  • Reply 38 of 41
    stevenozstevenoz Posts: 314member
    knowitall said:
    dewme said:
    Very timely article. I'm very nervous about this upgrade because they are changing lots of kernel level code. The fact that both of my attempts to try Catalina have failed so badly leaves me very concerned. The original High Sierra beta that rolled out APFS left my Fusion equipped iMac in a horrible state that took a full reinstall to recover from and left me with a bad taste in my mouth about Fusion drives in general. All of my Macs are getting older and big changes don't come easy to them.
    Hybrid is always worst of both worlds (or double trouble), never use it.  
    "Never use it" ?? Probably millions of iMacs have it as the internal HD, as installed by Apple.

    As a longtime Mac user: Old likes old, New likes new. Don't upgrade OSs more than a few times and then stop.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 39 of 41
    macxpress said:
    mobird said:
    For the regulars here on AI and the drive by visitors, do you back up and what is your method?
    I don't back up regularly, but then again I have most of my stuff in iCloud so if I needed to reformat my Mac today it wouldn't necessarily be a huge deal. I don't have a lot of stuff anyways so its not worth it to me to setup TimeMachine when I can just store the few documents I have on iCloud Drive. My Music is Apple Music and my Photos are all sync'd with iCloud and I don't have any Movies to store. 

    If I were to try Catalina I'd just make a separate partition then if I need to wipe it out nothing is lost on my primary. That doesn't mean I'd skip backing up my stuff. 
    Reformatted my Mac and rolled back on Mojave with internet recovery (iCloud Drive failing to sync in Catalina beta was a deal breaker for me). Everything loaded and synced from an iCloud, no data loss whatsoever. I like iCloud Drive much more than Time Machine - it syncs across devices, all files are available on a phone when needed, and no more partial snapshots that fail to automatically delete when you go low on SSD space. And iCloud Drive has 30-days recovery for deleted content.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 40 of 41
    Yes you need to seriously consider backing up this time.
    I have been on the Beta program forever and never lost data. Catalina was a different story, it wiped out my entire Documents folder and desktop. Luckily I backup on the iCloud so all I need to do is reinstall my apps. My work laptop is a separate device. 
    Were your Documents and Desktop folders residing on iCloud or stored locally when Catalina wiped them?
    watto_cobra
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