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Why Do So Many People Fail to Back Up?

11K views 163 replies 31 participants last post by  csonni 
#1 ·
I know the 'backup' threads have been posted almost Ad nauseam at ehmac and elsewhere, but Tidbits recent email seems to suggest many still don't do or have at least a backup of any personal or needed data backup(s), nor have many users that I know of that do, even checked that their backup is current or even works.

I only know of one elderly lady that neither saves nor keeps any, even personal data, which I would guess is an exception.

So the tidbit article may help other more normal Mac users:

TidBITS: Why Do So Many People Fail to Back Up?

And from my experience for those that just and only rely on 'Time Machine', I'd agree with their, and others, comments on the 'iffy' reliability of Time Machine.

Gheese, I even have an appointment with a busy volunteer Mac user to fix her problems on Wednesday, and when I asked with our phone call if she had a current working backup for all her volunteer work data, she didn't know. So following my directions, she checked her TM "backup" on her expensive over-sold Time Capsule for her use, and she said the TM Pref Pane said that no backup drive volume was even available, and a notation that that her last TM backup had been completed in Sept 2012!! And no sign of her Time Capsule access anywhere.

So folks, or at least for those that don't realize the importance of a good, current updated and working backup, when was the last time you checked your backup??

End of my sermon, and I have harped for years, and I no longer shed a tear when ones data goes poof!!
 
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#5 ·
+1


CCC every morning at 6 am.
+1

can never have too many copies of priceless data.. also how much is your time worth?
how long can your business be down? most business fail if they dont have access to their data..

8 years ago.. I lost 2 weeks worth of invoicing .. lucky for me, i had email copies so I reentered the data manually..

ever since then, I have it in the cloud, on DVD, on HD x 2..
with space being so cheap can you afford to be cheap? ;)

Ever since I have been preaching my experience and back up to everyone.. Sadly the message is only reaching 40%.. the other 60% need to experience the loss so they know what the value / cost of down time is..
Most people believe in [ it will never happen to me - which can prove deadly. ]

 
#6 ·
And from my experience for those that just and only rely on 'Time Machine', I'd agree with their, and others, comments on the 'iffy' reliability of Time Machine.

Gheese, I even have an appointment with a busy volunteer Mac user to fix her problems on Wednesday, and when I asked with our phone call if she had a current working backup for all her volunteer work data, she didn't know. So following my directions, she checked her TM "backup" on her expensive over-sold Time Capsule for her use, and she said the TM Pref Pane said that no backup drive volume was even available, and a notation that that her last TM backup had been completed in Sept 2012!! And no sign of her Time Capsule access anywhere.
Time Machine is not "iffy." It's not flawless, but neither is any backup solution, technically speaking. It is the end user's responsibility to check from time to time that their backup solution is actually working - not just set it and forget it. There are any number of reasons why her Time Capsule could have stopped working properly.

I've never had a problem with Time Machine myself, dating back to Mac OS X Leopard days when it was first introduced, and it is my only backup.

To answer the original question, this is what I hear most commonly: "Because Macs are known to be reliable and don't break."
 
#7 ·
A very useful little Dashboard App to keep tabs on Time Machine activity is "TIME MACHINE BUDDY"
I use this myself, but I also run a script that keeps a "live" update of my TM log in the bottom corner of my monitor. I can see instantly if things are working or if there are any errors.
Then of course there are my daily and weekly CC Clones. (who me, paranoid?) :yikes:
 

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#8 ·
I do not use TM. I backup all my data/info once a month to an external hard drive. More particularly, I backup financial and professional data (almost) daily, and my iPhoto library is backed up on an irregular basis, on average about once every two months. When we return from a trip with hundreds of images, I backup all the SD cards onto DVDs before loading them into iPhoto. So, for much of this I have redundant backups.

My major shortcoming is that I do not store any of the above off-site. If my house burned down, it would all be lost. Perhaps I should backup to the 'cloud' as well. It seems though, that clouds are quite ephemeral and insecure.
 
#9 ·
My major shortcoming is that I do not store any of the above off-site. If my house burned down, it would all be lost. Perhaps I should backup to the 'cloud' as well. It seems though, that clouds are quite ephemeral and insecure.
They aren't really ephemeral. It's still based on physical storage devices. But even if you thought that the cloud was occasionally unstable, the chances of it being unstable on the day of a house fire are pretty astronomical.
 
#13 ·
I appreciate your largesse, Crawford. I'm always intrigued by the emergence of metaphors that are oxymorons. Thinking of off-site storage I would consider metaphors closer to what people want or expect, for example, rocks, vaults, foundations, mineshaft, granite, etc. As someone pointed out to me, we already use the 'cloud' when we use the internet.
 
#11 ·
I use a Mac Mini home server as the destinaiton for Time MAchine backups from my computer and my wife's. If a backup has not occured in the last x number of days (I can specify x), the server automatically alerts me. The server itself also does TM backups of everything on a local drive array.

I also keep all finished product (mostly processed photos) and important documents backup up with CrashPlan to CrashPlan central (unlimited storage) I'm very grateful that Teksavvy does not count upload traffic in their data cap. I upload many hundreds of gigabytes to Crashplan on a monthly basis.

More than hardware failures, unintentional deletion of files by users is the biggest reason to have a good backup in my opinion. It often happens, even to the most diligent among us :)
 
#12 ·
this is wild. I have had a few crises from a sudden failure to who knows what.... but I was able to simply grab a new HD and pow. In fact, I have a 2nd lap that I also back up - even though I don't use it anywhere near as much a before. It was an old (ready very old - PATA !), and I simply used BackUp and boom.

Not sure how anyone not backing up can offered to do so. HD prices @ lowest - free software, and happens in your sleep.

what's not to like?
 
#14 ·
Cloud storage is a great idea as long as you are comfortable with the NSA in the Paranoid State of America having warrantless access to your files.

Yep even Apple is admits handing over at about the rate of 1000 a month.
 
#16 ·
That's why it's a good idea to independently encrypt files that will go in cloud storage. TrueCrypt is free and works quite well.
 
#17 ·
I have a daily (3:30 AM) SuperDuper backup, a weekly SD backup and a whenever-I'm-away-from-home backup on a 2.5" Hitachi Touro drive that goes with me. I keep meaning to set up a TM backup too, but so far haven't.

I also have all most of my files on my MBP - and update them from my Mac Pro regularly.

Those cloned backups have saved my bacon several times. :)
 
#18 ·
I've mentioned in other threads my challenges in supporting a colleague who simply cannot get backing up into this brain. This is after two total laptop drive failures that cost him enormous amounts of work (including a book that he was about to submit to his publisher - no backups anywhere of that file).

In the end, I convinced him to replace his cable company's Wireless router with an Apple Time Capsule. Going on a year now and his backups are automatic whenever he's connected to the WiFi at his home... never has to think about it. Sure, there's no redundancy nor off-site backup but it's a helluvalot more than he had while flying without a net.

His version:



Apple's newest version:

 
#21 ·
I've mentioned in other threads my challenges in supporting a colleague who simply cannot get backing up into this brain. This is after two total laptop drive failures that cost him enormous amounts of work (including a book that he was about to submit to his publisher - no backups anywhere of that file).

In the end, I convinced him to replace his cable company's Wireless router with an Apple Time Capsule. Going on a year now and his backups are automatic whenever he's connected to the WiFi at his home... never has to think about it. Sure, there's no redundancy nor off-site backup but it's a helluvalot more than he had while flying without a net.

... ...
Has he or anyone actually checked that it's all working and current?
 
#20 ·
+1!!

I really have to emphatically agree with jamesB, that both the latest AirPort Time Capsule and AirPort Extreme Base Station have to be some of the ugliest butt ugly Apple designs ever!!

I couldn't believe the image on the post and thought is was some sort of sick joke!! Sorry Apple, just plain bad and I'd suggest stupid design as well. :( :(

I'm sure Steve would be rolling in his grave.
 
#27 ·
People don't backup their data because the optimism bias influences their effort/risk assessments.

Optimism Bias: Tali Sharot: The optimism bias | Video on TED.com

I personally use Time Machine (nightly to a cheap NAS), CCC (daily to a cheap USB drive), and favourite photos also find their way to Flickr and Shutterfly. Email and contacts are in GMail. Passwords are in LastPass.

I also use DropBox andSpiderOak, but only for convenience, not for backup.
 
#29 ·
My HD became corrupted the other day. I hadn't even realized that I was booting from my cloned drive, except that the work was four hours old. Nicely fixed the HD with Disk Utility and back in business within minutes.Trouble catches up with every drive eventually.
 
#31 ·
:confused:


Watch out for that alternate cloned volume booting, as I got a help call from a user that was missing some emails he swore that he had not deleted.

What seemed to be happening that at times he was booting from his CCC clone, and other times from his normal boot volume, and I just suspected that was due to his possible PEBKAC problem.

And what seemed to be happening was that his Email client app and its POP account settings were set to 'delete emails from server when downloaded'.

So when he booted into his alternate boot volume, such 'deleted' email messages were not available.

Yes, it was a bit of a head scratcher problem. :confused:
 
#32 ·
FWIW I change the desktop on my log-in, admin, and personal user, profiles before I run a clone or disk image, then change back once the process is complete. Takes a few seconds and if I see a generic desk-top at the log-in stage I know right away I am not booted into my main HD.

That said I use the option key during boot, when I want to start-up from a secondary volume. Have never had an accidental boot into a secondary boot volume but it could happen if the primary were experiencing problems.
 
#35 ·
Yes, I was quite surprised to see that, especially as just a router.

I guess it's cheaper to mass produce them and keep the fan in as the Time Capsule will not doubt need a fan to help keep the HD cool. I would have thought that Jony Ive's design team might have just used a finned aluminum extrusion for the case for cooling.

But I don't believe the previous Consoles had a fan, but were prone to overheating, especially when people piled paper and books on top of them - one of the reasons for the design of the original space capsule Airports, so nothing could be placed on top.
 
#36 ·
It also looks like the antennas use the full height of the unit, which would improve gain and beam-forming capabilities. Unfortunately, compact size does not go hand-in-hand with improved wireless performance.
 
#37 ·
Nope. Just the "Beamforming antenna array" at the top.

The vertical wires are just to connect to the top mounted antenna.

As the take-apart article shows and the key word from their description of its Beamforming antenna array seems to be "Beamforming".

Quite an advanced type of antenna it seems when I looked it up to find what it is and what it did. Not exactly your average router antenna. ;)
 
#44 ·
No one will be modifying an AirPort Extreme to take a drive, so the entire discussion is moot. A good 2TB 3.5" drive is at least a hundred or more (2TB WD Black is $169), meaning modifying the AirPort Extreme is more expensive than buying a 2TB Time Capsule in the first place. ($199 + $169 + manual labour + cables vs. $299...).
 
#47 ·
Most people need to lose important data at least once before they truly learn to backup. I do data recovery for some clients and nothing speaks louder than loss. Using something like Disk Drill can recover seemingly lost data from seemingly dead drives more often than not.

I backup everything at least twice and extremely important stuff 3-4 times.
 
#48 ·
Yup, but....

Hmmm...??? Are you associated with the Disk Drill software or developers perhaps?

Not exactly the best user's comments for it at:
https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/35373/disk-drill

And I don't know of any Mac software app that can recover any data from any really dead non-working, non-mounting drive without using some sort of physical switching and/or the use of some clean room.
 
#57 ·
I back up anything important to me on an external drive as needed and use Dropbox and Google Drive as well as a Corsair Survivor series USB drive on my keychain for all my school work as well partly as another backup and so I can easily access them from any machine making it so I never forget a project at home on my desktop.
 
#63 ·
Still I prefer to clone hard drive, make bootable as well as minimal system copies. TM is good enough but again I dont know how to boot from TM. Mac Geniuses please let me know if it is possible to make a bootable time machine copy?
 
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