Is there a good version of Time Machine?

[Ryan Schmidt]

Backups to a locally attached disk work fine. I've used this for years without backups becoming corrupted.

Backups to an Apple Time Machine over the network, whether over Ethernet or wireless, work fine. I've used this for years without backups becoming corrupted.

Backups to Server.app's Time Machine Server over the network, whether over Ethernet or wireless, should work fine, since it's a feature Apple offers and charges money for, but I have not personally used this yet.

Backups to a non-Apple network-attached storage (NAS) device that claims to have Time Machine support will become corrupted over time, with the likelihood increasing greatly if backups are attempted over wireless. I have used this for years, and have had to start my backup over from scratch after Time Machine declared it corrupted more times than I can recall. Non-Apple implementations of AFP (i.e. netatalk) are simply not sufficiently compatible with Apple's implementation to work reliably with Time Machine, no matter what the third-party vendor trying to sell it to you says.

My recommendation is to alternate backups between two different disks. That way if you lose one backup you still have the other. You could even keep them in different locations, i.e. one at home and one at work. Even if you only have one backup and lose it, that's not a problem because it's a backup; you still have the original.

-Ryan


> On Feb 28, 2016, at 7:26 PM, [ftp83plus] <gestos at ftp83plus.net> wrote:
> 
> I learnt the hard way that TM's efficiency is not necessarily what you expect it to be. Corruption from power loss on an external drive three times, surprise corruption on Linux server running AFP 3.4-compatible Netatalk two times in 3 months.
> 
> On directly-connected hard drives, there are very few issues.
> Over the network and especially wireless, just a small glitch can corrupt the backups. 
> Even Apple's own hardware doesn't necessarily prevent catastrophic failures.
> 
> Reading forums here and there, it seems there's no relationship between connected equipment and risk for Time Machine backups. I understood TM is basically so complex that it can't be repaired, no matter what some anecdotic evidence show.
> 
> So to answer your question Dave Horsfall, I don't think there's a "good" version of TM. It's all sweet while it works, but when it fails, it's usually the nastiest way you could expect.
> 
> Pat