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From: Alan Browne <singularity@blackhole.org>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: Insomniacal Mac
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2024 17:50:11 -0400
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On 2024-06-11 16:40, Your Name wrote:
> On 2024-06-11 12:15:44 +0000, Alan Browne said:
> 
>> On 2024-06-11 00:48, Your Name wrote:
>>
>>> I've never bothered with Time Machine either. It's methodology seems 
>>> to be a ridiculous waste of drive space backing up mutiple versions 
>>> of the same document. I don't use Versions either and always delete 
>>> the old ones if using an app like Pages that insists on doing that 
>>> silliness.
>>
>> Following the initial backup, succeeding backups are differences only 
>> (changed files and new files), so it's a very slow accumulation.  Once 
>> the backup volume is near full, oldest redundant backups are removed.
> 
> Which, for those who want such a feature, partly defeats the purpose of 
> copying those old versions in the first place. When they want to 
> retrieve it, it could well be gone.

My older iMac TM volume is nowhere close to full after about 6 years.

It's not much of an issue.  If there is a version of a file I really 
need to freeze, I'll make sure it is standalone.

>>> I use CarbonCopyCloner to backup manually when I want to. The only 
>>> problem with it it that it is quite slow at working out what to copy. 
>>> If I've only changed a few documents, it still takes nearly an hour 
>>> to trawl through the entire drive before copying just those few 
>>> altered / new files. There was also a problem at one stage where it 
>>> would hang during that phase of working out what to copy and 
>>> eventually stop with an error, but updating to a slightly newer 
>>> version seems to have fixed that.
>>
>> Time Machine does not have this issue. Note you can install s/w that 
>> will run TM at a reduced pace (you turn off automatic TM updates and 
>> let the scheduler s/w invoke TM) - this also addresses your issue 
>> above to some degree.
> 
> For me Time Machine is a useless waste of time. That's why I turn if off 
> and chose to use CCC instead.

TM is my "live" backup.

I also maintain offline static backups of important stuff.

For my business the backup scheme is more elaborate and in depth - the 
goal being that despite the worst possible disaster front and back 
office can be up and running w/i 24 business hours (including the 
acquisition of hardware).

-- 
"It would be a measureless disaster if Russian barbarism overlaid
  the culture and independence of the ancient States of Europe."
Winston Churchill