https://tsak.dev/tags/backup/ Recent content in Backup on tsak.dev Hugo en-gb Wed, 07 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://tsak.dev/posts/poor-mans-time-machine-backups/ Wed, 07 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://tsak.dev/posts/poor-mans-time-machine-backups/ <p>Back in the day¹ when I was still using a Mac, I always enjoyed the simplicity of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Machine_(macOS)">Time Machine</a> backups that Apple introduced almost 20 years ago. Simply plug in your dedicated drive, let Time Machine do its thing and hey presto, snapshots of your precious data. My wife&rsquo;s MacBook Pro from 2013 is still backing up to a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drobo">Drobo</a> 5N of a similar vintage over SMB to this day.</p> <p>I tend to synchronise my important folders such as documents, photos and videos via <a href="https://syncthing.net/">Syncthing</a> and that works without issue. However, I also have a large <code>~/Development</code> folder that I don&rsquo;t synchronise. To a degree this is due to the fact that I push most source code I care about to <a href="https://github.com/tsak">GitHub</a> or <a href="https://codeberg.org/tsak">Codeberg</a>. I also had bad experiences with Dropbox in the past where its synchronisation mechanism would get confused with operations in the <code>.git</code> folder across multiple hosts. And because of that experience, I never used to back up my <code>Development</code> folder, which was a shame, really.</p>