Jguerriere
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: Backing-up Air Time Machine or ICloud?

I have been using a Time Machine for years for my back-ups. It has saved me on more than one ocasion.

 

I now find that I am using the TimeMachine as external storage for picutres, music, and video. I am doing this because I am just out of space on my air.


This of coruse means I now have no back-up. If my TimeMachine fails, I am pretty much at a loss. So, I would like to use my TimeMachine as my external storage device, and back up the critical stuff (picture, video, and music that I did not buy from Apple) to a Cloud provider.


I can see how I can do this very easily with Google Drive, but would prefer to keep it all in the Apple ecocsystem if I can.


I have looked at Icloud back-up but it appears to be very application centric. Instead, I want to be able to back-up an entire drive or set of folders.


Any suggestions on how to do this while staying within Apple's walled city?

 

Thanks!

 

-John

MacBook Air

Posted on Jun 12, 2013 7:46 AM

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Jguerriere

Q: Backing-up Air Time Machine or ICloud?

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  • by fab4fifty,

    fab4fifty fab4fifty Jun 12, 2013 8:34 AM in response to Jguerriere
    Level 1 (40 points)
    Jun 12, 2013 8:34 AM in response to Jguerriere

    Hi John,

     

    some words first: I experienced Google Drive to be a great everyday solution, but it hits it's limits if your local hard drive is full, because it stucks you with the web interface. But neither iCloud nor the time capsule offer

     

    If you are looking for the least efford solution: plug a USB drive to your time capsule and use it to back the time capsule up. You will find instructions for that here. I think, this meets your use case most.

     

    If you consider taking your content to the cloud and make it accessible from everywhere, keep three things in mind:

     

    - if you don't have enough space on your local drive, you are limited to web interfaces

    - Google Drive and Dropbox are well integrated, you can use them how regular folders on your mac, if you have enough space to sync.

    - there are different online backup services dedicated just to backing up, but they don't solve your space problem as well

     

    Recommendation: Go with an external drive connected to the time capsule.