> On Mar 7, 2016, at 10:47 AM, mkehoe <[email protected]> wrote: > > "Get an external HDD, plug it in and let Time Machine do it’s thing. It has > saved my butt numerous times, and once it’s set up and running you can just > ignore it until you need it. " > > I use Time Machine, but have been reluctant to leave the external drive on > 24/7. I usually plug it in and run periodic backups. In your opinion, does > leaving the external drive on and connected all the time wear out the drive > much faster than leaving it on? I don't make that many daily changes to > critical data, and when I do, I do an immediate backup.
As a rule, for desktop macs, I tend to say ‘leave it on’ (but see below). The Seagate HDD I use will go to sleep when the computer does or is turned off. I’ve had a couple of disk failures over the years, but fortunately the backup disks never failed at the same time as the computer ones :-) For laptops, I do the same thing that you do, mainly for convenience. So long as you are disciplined about the ‘regular’ part :-) this is a good backup strategy. A PROPER backup strategy would involve multiple disks, rotating them on and off site, unfortunately Time Machine isn’t well suited for that;I’d use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper if I was going to go that route. Cloud-based solutions are also an option, if you have a fast enough network connection. In the light of the advent of Mac ransomware, <http://researchcenter.paloaltonetworks.com/2016/03/new-os-x-ransomware-keranger-infected-transmission-bittorrent-client-installer/> however, I’m starting to think that maybe keeping backups disconnected might be a good thing; if you get a ransomware infection, all mounted volumes are going to be affected, which would include a Time Machine volume. KeRanger is a particularly scary case; it was properly signed, so gatekeeper would let you just download it and run it, if you had set your security settings appropriately (or, *in*appropriately in this case!). I would go to the System Preferences, and make sure that the Security And Privacy general settings were set to only allow apps from the Mac App Store (ideally) or ‘Mac App Store and Identified developers’ (which would have let you run the infected application without a problem :-(. This isn’t as onerous as you might think; if you download a program from someplace that isn’t signed (like lots of perfectly safe Open Source stuff) you can run it by right-clicking on the program icon and selecting ‘Open’. You will get a windows saying this is from an ‘unidentified developer’ are you sure?. If you click on Yes, the program will run and be entered into your Gatekeeper ‘allowed apps’ database so you can run it again after that by just double-clicking on it. This ransomware stuff is insidous, we had one Windows system on our network get infected last week by Locky, and it managed to encrypt several terabytes of mounted network volumes before we disconnected it. We were easily able to restore from the previous backups, but it takes about a day to restore everything from tape. This *sounds* expensive, after all, we’re talking about a couple $70-$120 drives and a fair bit of work, but consider the cost of recreating everything on your hard drive…if it’s even possible, you can’t go back in time and re-take baby pictures. -- Bruce Johnson University of Arizona College of Pharmacy Information Technology Group Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs -- -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "G-Group" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
