Disaster Recovery & Time Machine - my lessons

[kierenlon]

I thought I would share my experience here and maybe someone can learn from it and avoid future pain. People may also make suggestions to do things another way or better.

In short: Time Machine Works Great & consider creating a Service Account User

Waffling on:
My setup was a 2017 i5 MacBook Pro with 256GB SSD. (I try to keep only current / working data on the computer with everything else on cloud / archived so that I can switch machines easily if needed)

I have a Synology NAS set up as my network Time Machine backup and and also a USB disk as a 2nd Time Machine

Further to that, photos are backed up on the cloud on both google drive and Amazon Prime.

Without warning, the MacBook stopped working the other week. It just decided not to power on. I bought a M1 MacBook Air as a replacement and restored from the Time Machine USB disk. This was seamless - everything transferred over including my keychain for password for websites etc. I did have to set a new password for the M1. I couldn't remember how to connect to the Synology NAS so I need to make a paper note of that should this repeat.

I was up and running pretty quickly. Quite impressed with how easy Time Machine made it.

I plan to get the broken laptop repaired at Apple (assuming a power supply fault) and then sell it to recoup some of my unplanned spend.

Annoyingly Apple ask for an admin password when repairing computers "for diagnostics" They don't need to do this - they could use single user mode from boot but it is what it is. It's annoying or inconvenient to me because (stupidly) I have some account details in plain text on my account, some partially saved financial logins in keychain and web browsers etc. When I get the MacBook serviced I will also need to rotate passwords / credentials which is good practice anyway.

Anyway, to follow from that, what I recommend is setting up a service or guest account on your Mac with admin rights. That way, If you need to grant access, it doesn't need to be your main user account. Obviously locking anything important away in locked files or disk images if access to your main account might be required.

 

[rpjallan]

Thanks for the info kierenlon. This sort of stuff is always useful to know.

I was having problems with Time Machine backups not completing properly on my M1 Mac mini until I updated to 12.2.1 yesterday. I was thinking of giving Time Machine away but I'll keep it up after your experience.

 

[robgendreau]

Thanks for the tip about the user account. Apple should publicize that; kind of an oversight by a company that prides itself on transparent privacy rights.

 

[Greg Edwards]

Thanks for the tip about the user account. Apple should publicize that; kind of an oversight by a company that prides itself on transparent privacy rights.

That is a good idea. It's fairly common practice with office computers but I had never considered it before for a personal computer as I am the admin!

I wonder. Say you have a mac set up to automatically log in to a certain user account without requiring a password. If you have an issue, can you force it to boot just to the login screen and choose another account?

 

[kierenlon]

Thanks for the info kierenlon. This sort of stuff is always useful to know.

I was having problems with Time Machine backups not completing properly on my M1 Mac mini until I updated to 12.2.1 yesterday. I was thinking of giving Time Machine away but I'll keep it up after your experience.

You are welcome. I was impressed how well Time Machine worked.

My USB disk hadn't been synced for about 3 weeks as is the problem with USB backups, we often forget or putoff plugging them in.


The Synology NAS has time machine on the home wifi, so a backup is done automatically every time I am at home. The problem with that was that I didn't know off hand how to connect to the NAS Time Machine instance with my new MacBook. I still don't. I'm sure that is quite simple - I just need to investigate and write down the steps in a notebook or save on cloud notes (dropbox / google drive etc

 

[kierenlon]

Thanks for the tip about the user account. Apple should publicize that; kind of an oversight by a company that prides itself on transparent privacy rights.

It may have changed. My last experience was in 2015 when getting the logic board replaced under a recall. Apple wanted admin login (my main account) to test the screen. On that MacBook, the solder had failed for one of the graphics cards. (it had intel and and ATI). Booting would have a display but as soon as the system got to a login prompt, the graphics card would switch and I lost video so it was not possible to log in.


It's possible, the need for a user account may have been specific to that issue.


Apple should be able to run diadnotics in rescue mode, from a off computer boot (USB disk, network etc) or run admin tasks in single user mode (if the boot loader is not locked).



I have been unwell, so not able to take my broken 2017 MacBook in for repair yet but when I do, I will report back here on whether they require an admin user password.




I think aside from me stupidly having account details and passwords in plain text, the biggest risk access to email as a trusted device. Pretty much all accounts can use email to verify a user. I doubt an apple employee would act in a bad way but that is perhaps another security gap I need to close. I should probably do the same on my Samsung phone too. That has a secure folder (KNOX) where you can protect apps with additional verification steps like password / fingerprint.

 

[kierenlon]

Thanks for the tip about the user account. Apple should publicize that; kind of an oversight by a company that prides itself on transparent privacy rights.

That is a good idea. It's fairly common practice with office computers but I had never considered it before for a personal computer as I am the admin!

I wonder. Say you have a mac set up to automatically log in to a certain user account without requiring a password. If you have an issue, can you force it to boot just to the login screen and choose another account?

I'm not an expert but I assume it will always auto-login to the default account until those settings are changed. If it's a desktop, that is perhaps less of an issue than a portable device that might get left somewhere someone entrusted could access.




For auto login accounts, assuming they just need internet access and some basics, it might be worth restricting their admin permissions and have another admin account for that. That said, I think any attempt to change items will ask for a password anyway.

 

[lightandaprayer]

It's great that Time Machine worked well for your data migration. But based on my experience with Time Machine, I would not rely on it as the only option for data migration purposes.

The only time I relied on Time Machine for data migration for a new OS install it failed miserably. . . On the other hand, I have used SuperDuper cloned volumed numerous times over the past 15+ years without a hiccup. I've stopped using Time Machine for a number of reasons besides the migration issue.

I recommend having a cloned backup volume using SuperDuper, CarbonCopyCloner, etc. They can be configured to perform automatic backups but, of course, it requires having a drive connected to your Mac at all times. I opt for manual backups instead.

YMMV but I wouldn't put all of my eggs in one basket. . .

 

[Greg Edwards]

Thanks for the tip about the user account. Apple should publicize that; kind of an oversight by a company that prides itself on transparent privacy rights.

That is a good idea. It's fairly common practice with office computers but I had never considered it before for a personal computer as I am the admin!

I wonder. Say you have a mac set up to automatically log in to a certain user account without requiring a password. If you have an issue, can you force it to boot just to the login screen and choose another account?

I'm not an expert but I assume it will always auto-login to the default account until those settings are changed. If it's a desktop, that is perhaps less of an issue than a portable device that might get left somewhere someone entrusted could access.

For auto login accounts, assuming they just need internet access and some basics, it might be worth restricting their admin permissions and have another admin account for that. That said, I think any attempt to change items will ask for a password anyway.

I do use password protection on my macs (both portables), although I hadn't in the past. It's really not a big issue to do so, and I know it's good practice to use password protection, but to be frank, it was a bit of a pain every time I woke the laptop up having to type the password in when there's only me and wife at home.

I just wondered if there was a special key combination like safe mode or boot menu to stop automatic login on startup.

 

[rpjallan]

It's great that Time Machine worked well for your data migration. But based on my experience with Time Machine, I would not rely on it as the only option for data migration purposes.

YMMV but I wouldn't put all of my eggs in one basket. . .

Yes, I agree with this too. I am also using CCC to backup as well.

You can never have too many backups. What I need to do now is make a list of all my available drives sorted from smallest to largest & work out some sort of strategy to have multiple backups of everything.

I used Retrospect back in the day & it saved me a few times mainly with accidentally deleted or over written files. The big advantage of Retrospect, back in the time of smaller drives especially, was that it could be set up to span multiple drives.

 

[Mike Boreham]

It's great that Time Machine worked well for your data migration. But based on my experience with Time Machine, I would not rely on it as the only option for data migration purposes.

The only time I relied on Time Machine for data migration for a new OS install it failed miserably. . . On the other hand, I have used SuperDuper cloned volumed numerous times over the past 15+ years without a hiccup. I've stopped using Time Machine for a number of reasons besides the migration issue.

I recommend having a cloned backup volume using SuperDuper, CarbonCopyCloner, etc. They can be configured to perform automatic backups but, of course, it requires having a drive connected to your Mac at all times. I opt for manual backups instead.

YMMV but I wouldn't put all of my eggs in one basket. . .

As discussed in previous threads I think you should say that your previous experience was with Time Machine on HFS+ and that it has been overhauled and much improved since it went all APFS. But I do agree keep alternatives.

I have just been involved in a personal disaster recovery situation. I give remote support (FaceTime and TeamViewer) to my sister and husband in New York, I last visited when I commissioned their new iMac in 2016 and set them up with Time Machine and three CCC backups (rotating offsite) .

The fusion drive in her iMac died last week and she has bought a new Mac. She has just successfully restored the TM backup onto her new Mac. And this was an HFS+ backup since it was started in 2016. (Edit: my sister says she replaced the original 2016 TM back up, so the one she just used may have been APFS)

 

[lightandaprayer]

As discussed in previous threads I think you should say that your previous experience was with Time Machine on HFS+ and that it has been overhauled and much improved since it went all APFS. But I do agree keep alternatives.

While APFS is an improvement over HFS+, it is not a panacea for Time Machine issues. People are also having problems with APFS formatted drives albeit perhaps for different reasons. . .

 

[lightandaprayer]

I used Retrospect back in the day & it saved me a few times mainly with accidentally deleted or over written files. The big advantage of Retrospect, back in the time of smaller drives especially, was that it could be set up to span multiple drives.

Retrospect was my introduction to Mac backup software. In "Take Control of Backing Up Your Mac" Joe Kissell writes that Retrospect has enjoyed a resurgence since the 2018 release of Retrospect Solo which goes for $3/month or $49 for a single-user license. Solo has a simplified interface as it lacks certain features that are geared toward network admin.

 

[rpjallan]

Thanks for that info. I’ll definitely have a look at that.