@Anna_123, you can check very fast USB-2 from USB-3: If the inside TAB of the connector is black, it is USB-2. If it is blue, it is USB 3.x.
And as @BLUEFROG says, USB-C is the container. The cable could be anything. There are charge-only cables (and then max charge power), audio-only, video, data, data+charge, data+video+audio, in any combination, and between data, different speeds… USB-C is an incredibly mess thanks to the European Union, and the only way to identify them is in the envelope and confidence you have the vendor is not lying to you. Some common sense is needed, as there is almost impossible that a 40 Gb/s cable could cost 3 USD, and so on.
Thank you. That’s really helpful. So I have USB-3 cables.
Good to know not to embark on the USB-C rabbit hole. I did Google different types of cables, but did not find anything clearly explained for a person without technical background.
Yesterday I downloaded the trial version of CCC, and today it informed me that the new WD drive has errors which is what I suspected because of how it behaves.
That’s just one more curve ball to handle backups
When backing up does not work properly, it is like a part time job.
Anna (and forgive me if you’ve done this and I missed it) - did you run Disk Utility on this drive?
I mean running 'First Aid".
Also, can you send a screenshot of what you see when you launch Disk Utility and selected this drive?
Weekly, 3am Sunday: CCC to dedicated USB drive, full clone
Daily, every 6 hours: Arq backup of user profile using SFTP to my server, incremental
Daily, 3pm: Arq backup of user profile to OneDrive (Business), incremental
Daily, 9pm: Arq backup of user profile to OneDrive (Personal), incremental
Ad-hoc: CCC to sparsebundle image on a shared USB drive, full clone, performed before macOS updates or any other major changes
One thing I have not seen mentioned in this thread - does anyone run test restores to make sure that what they are backing up is able to be retrieved? I tend to do it when I remember, not religiously on a schedule.
Testing for retrievability: For CCC, I don’t think I ever had a problem retrieving anything. Likewise for Backblaze. Two or three decades ago it wasn’t so, files would sometimes come back corrupted, esp. jpeg and tiff
I tried Time Machine when I first started using Macs but, as others have said, reliability was a factor in that I would get failures, having to start over due to issues, etc.
CCC and Arq have never failed me, unless it’s something I’ve done wrong
One point about WD Passport drives; they are special drive SKU’s where the data and power interface is USB on the hard drive circuit board. They do not end in a normal SATA connector and a separate USB to SATA board.
What that means is if the USB connector dies, there isn’t a way to get the data off the drive unless you can find the exact USB jack and a good technician to change the jack. Not many companies will reveal their internal part number lists.
I do not recommend my current back-up process, which I imagine will inspire winces to many in this thread, but I wanted to add a tip which I think makes Time Machine more “usable”.
I only started backing up when I started using DT last year (everything was in various clouds before that). I used Time Machine because it’s built in to Mac already, and an external hard drive (WD 2TB Elements). Time Machine and the blooming external drive ran somewhat constantly and it was VERY ANNOYING, so for the sake of my sanity I had to change the workflow. I downloaded TimeMachineEditor, which others have mentioned here. You can set it to run at specific intervals, but
a) it assumes your Mac will be switched on and the hard drive installed at that time, and
b) that DT will be closed.
Since the hard drive gurgles away when plugged in, I don’t leave it plugged in to my Mac when it’s not in use.
Someone commented somewhere in this forum that they think DT backups have been unusable in the past because DT was open when Time Machine took its backup. (This may or may not be true but I took it on board!)
I’ve used TimeMachineEditor to disable all backups. Every morning when I start work, I plug in my external drive, and manually run Time Machine (it has an icon in the top right of Mac screens so this takes 2 clicks to start). It takes 15 mins - 30 mins (I don’t really pay attention), and in that time DT is closed (most apps are) and I’m just checking emails, reading messages, organising my to-do list, thinking about life. After a while I check Time Machine (clicking the icon in the top right corner), and if it finished I eject my drive and that’s it for the day. I could of course do this at lunch, before I shut down for the day, etc. Morning works for me as I’m much better at following routines in the morning.
This way, I’m backed up, but I don’t have Time Machine running constantly and I don’t have an annoying external drive making noise (also I don’t have to remember to unplug it carefully if I want to move my laptop somewhere else!).
If that suits your habit and works for you, it sounds good to me. I do one backup per day as well. However if I’m working on something especially critical I can always initiate another backup manually, if needed.
OK, more seriously, I see some benefits in your routine. I am not entirely sure backups of open DT databases are unusable, though. But I did have issues migrating previously open databases between computers.
@BLUEFROG Jim, would it be a best practice to always close all dbs before backing up - if so, the same would apply to CCC, no?
I mean, I could add a “Close databases, quit Devonthink” action to CCC.
I think this is somewhat preferential, though IIRC @cgrunenberg suggests it and he’s more authoritative than I. Also, since TM and CCC are doing snapshot-style backups (not APFS snapshot, but backing up from a singular point in time), I generally don’t worry about what I’m doing once it’s started its backup in the background.
That being said, I don’t purposely close the databases when I do my backup. However, I have also scheduled my backup at a time where my Macs are on and connected to the backup volume but DEVONthink isn’t in active use. So while DEVONthink and its databases may not be closed, they are also not busy doing anything.
Planned use: 1TB SSD Drive, which would be kept connected to my M1 MBA to keep my actively used DT Databases and other frequently accessed files. Is keeping it plugged a safe practice?
I have a WD My Book for Mac, which I would connect on a weekly basis for backups.
