TM Backup on a RAID? Am I storing and backing up optimally?

3-2-1 backup strategy

3 copies of your data (the original is the 1st copy)

2 backups, using different backup utilities, going to different backup devices. This protects you from bugs in the backup software, and a failure in a backup Device.

1 copy off-site. This protects against natural disasters, fire, theft, etc...

Off-site can be done by using a cloud backup service, or using something like Synology and putting it in a family or friend's house. Does require that you have sufficient network bandwidth and not have low ISP data caps.

Or it can be physically taking a backup disk to an off-site location on a regular basis, swapping back and forth as you go.

I realize this is not always possible, or practical. Before Covid had me working from home, I would backup my Macbook Pro to storage I had under my desk at work. Now that I'm working from home, it is not as simple.

Time Machine. I've found it is most happy when the backup device is always available. Either directly attached, or if a network attached storage device, the Mac never leave the home, such as an iMac or Mac mini, or a Macbook that does not leave the house. Putting the Mac to sleep while in the middle of a Time Machine incremental backup, and then leaving the house with the Mac, will every month or so, cause the Time Machine backup to become corrupted, and you end up starting over again from scratch.

Hello jsunem,

As far as what you backup where, that is completely up to you. If you're using Time Machine, that's going to create a backup of the entire computer. If you have things that you want to specifically backup or move to iCloud, DropBox, or OneDrive, then go for it.

Time Machine natively does not have the capability to back up to a service like iCloud, DropBox or OneDrive, so it would really depend on how you're achieving that. Did you install some sort of program that is allowing you to have Time Machine send a backup to a cloud based service? If so, then you would have to test it out yourself to see if it is able to make backups to an external hard drive as well as send them to a cloud based service at the same time. Since it's not a built in function of Time Machine, the functionality or stability would obviously not be guaranteed. Are you just using a completely different backup service/app for the cloud based backups? If so, then that shouldn't have any effect on Time Machine continuing to do its backups.

As far as where you keep your Time Machine backup, the preferred method is always to use an external hard drive that you only use for Time Machine. Having a dedicated hard drive for Time Machine keeps things more stable since there aren't any other files aside from Time Machine backups being added or removed and lessens the chance of files getting accidentally deleted. That being said, if you have a large external hard drive and would like to divide it into partitions so you can use it for different things, you can absolutely do that.

Here's more info on using Time Machine and compatible backup disks:

Back up your Mac with Time MachineBackup disks you can use with Time Machine

Cheers!

TM is very finicky. Do not use partitions. I have used a Raid setup for TM and no issues but I prefer one large drive dedicated to TM. I also use Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) to make a drive clone (bootable) and I also make a CCC of the data that I keep in another location.