Backing Up with Backblaze

Back a few weeks when my iMac began freaking out, I ended up getting a Macbook Pro. What this left me with was a new and empty laptop, an older iMac with most of my files on it… and a 3TB external drive that had all my Time Machene backup files on it.

I was pretty fast in setting things up again on the laptop, but I was really unsure what to do about backups. Should I get two external drives, and a fireproof box? Should I manually backup files, or use Time Machine?

I ended up partitioning the external drive, leaving 1GB for the Time Machine data I had… and creating 2TB for just plain “storage.”

I then copied over all the files I wanted to keep, moving then from the Time Machine side over to the storage side.

By the way, the drive for my Time Machine is named “Hot Tub Time Machine” (which I’m sure like 100,000 other people have it named this way). And my storage drive is called “Svalbard.”

Let me pause a moment and push my glasses up with my finger.

Once I copied over everything to my storage area (music, photos, documents, etc)… I then wiped Hot Tub Time Machine, and began using that partition as my backup.

So in terms of my new laptop and backing up via Time Machine… that’s good. Any content is saved in two spots, as it’ll be on my actual laptop or on the external drive.

But as far as the “storage” area on the drive? It’s just in one place, and that made me nervous. Since it holds all my old photos and pretty much every document I’ve ever touched… having it sit there in one place made me super concerned.

I talked with some friends online, and ended up going with Backblaze.

Disclaimer: I just signed up for this earlier today. The link (above) is a referrer link, and if you sign up… we’ll both get a month free. Note that you can also try the service free for 15 days, if you want.

The backup process is a bit slow, and the estimates show that it’ll take several… weeks to fully back up all my data. But I’m basically uploading everything bit by bit, so that kind of figures.

I feel good about this decision, and I think it’s an easier/lazier solution that having to maintain multiple external drives. A feel a bit more at ease, knowing that both my laptop (and my external storage) are being backed up somewhere off site.

If you’re curious to check things out this is their official site, and this is my referrer link.

Once things are fully backed up, I’ll feel settled again. For now, I’m just happy to have finally settled on a solution. Feels like a weight has been lifted (slowly).

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