Backups for the win!

Today I had a critical system failure on my on my old 2009 MacBook Pro that was acting as a Indigo & Plex server. System board seems to have bit the dust. The absolute last thing I wanted to deal with on a holiday weekend...

Anyhow, thankfully, with my backup strategy using Arq to backup to a local SFTP share on a Synology with remote backups on Amazon Cloud Drive... my Home Automation system was back up and running with only about an hour of downtime. I restored my Indigo set up to an aging Mac Mini; which I had actually been meaning to make this move for a while now... This was the first true test of the backup strategy I've adopted for all computers in our household. Thankfully, it passed with flying colors.

Just wanted to share with everyone and make sure everyone stops for a minute to think about their backup strategies. I can't imagine starting back at square one and my wife was thoroughly impressed we only had an hour of downtime. (In reality she was bored of me talking backup strategy, but I'll pretend she was impressed )

[jay (support)]

Agreed. Even if it's as simple as having time machine back up to an external disk (which is about as easy as backups get) it's worth it.

Agreed. Even if it's as simple as having time machine back up to an external disk (which is about as easy as backups get) it's worth it.

I've been using the backup plugin to back up the Indigo database to an external HD once a week. Would Jay's suggestion be a better method?

One of the things I have been concerned about is I have never checked to see if the backup made by the plugin copies the image folders. I have a boatload of custom control page images that would take a very long time to locate and reinstall.

Agreed. Even if it's as simple as having time machine back up to an external disk (which is about as easy as backups get) it's worth it.

I've been using the backup plugin to back up the Indigo database to an external HD once a week. Would Jay's suggestion be a better method?

One of the things I have been concerned about is I have never checked to see if the backup made by the plugin copies the image folders. I have a boatload of custom control page images that would take a very long time to locate and reinstall.

YES! Back up the entire system!

I use super duper to clone my machine every night at 4AM, the backup plugin and Time Machine backs it up as well to a separate drive. You can never have too many backups!

I use super duper to clone my machine every night at 4AM, the backup plugin and Time Machine backs it up as well to a separate drive. You can never have too many backups!

One note... Might be beneficial to consider an online backup system for critical files as well -- one unlucky lightning strike could take all that out in one fell swoop. Due to the size of backups, I only backup data off site -- I use CrashPlan but there are multitudes available.

Adam

I use CrashPlan but do you find it eats RAM for breakfast, dinner and tea?

I've got to the point of scheduling the actual service (windows version of daemon) to stop apart from a backup window overnight, even when it's own backup window isn't currently active?


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I have following backup:

- to external USB using TimeMachine
- to Amazon Cloud Drive using Arq
- Some files (iMovie library, Photos Library, Documents) are uploaded to my Synology NAS

--> Synology NAS then make two backups, one to Amazon Cloud Drive and one to external USB

(the same the macmini)

I'm doing every night a clone on a 128GB USB drive via CarbonCopyCloner and also via TimeMachine to a Synology NAS.
No probs at all, and everyone should do a backup.

Yassi

I use CrashPlan but do you find it eats RAM for breakfast, dinner and tea?

Depends upon your definition, I guess... mine is using ~500MB right now during a backup cycle. That isn't out of line with the other services that I have tried which are actively comparing files and only transferring the changed files and/or file parts as well as compressing the transfer. That is a lot of active processing to do on files so I can understand it using that much or more RAM.

My biggest complaint with it is that I find it a bit difficult to digest their statuses and % complete and incoming vs. outgoing to non-cloud locations (e.g. I let my dad's computer backup to my device). Those are hard to understand, not in concept but within their UI.

If you want to include a backup of the sql history data base a simple time machine or any other slow copy would not produce a consistent image of the database as it gets changed while backing up.
I am doing an sql dump at 2 am in the morning then a backup in time machine and super duper in 2 stages
Using indigo utilities for this.


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Just a note that CrashPlan is abandoning its home users and is suggesting small biz plan (looks like US$120 per year per machine) or recommending Carbonite for essentially the same money.

Very disappointing.


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I simply use SuperDuper every day on a schedule that backs up to my DropBox. I never have to worry about if something is backed up.

Thanks (not!) Dave.


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Thanks (not!) Dave.

I know, right? Several outlets are recommending Backblaze as a good alternative. I don't know anything about their product, so I can't make any kind of recommendation for or against it.

It does look worthy of inspection.

I have been using backblaze, with the $5.00 a month unlimited backup.

They have a $50.00 a year deal on now thanks to crash plan dropping all the personal users.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/crashpla ... -solution/

Great service from these guys.