Backup (locally and in the cloud) for an M2 Mac

Hi!
I have a few hundred gigabytes of data, mostly scanned negatives. As the archive grows, I am looking for a practical and safe backup solution.

Until now I have used Time Machine, but also backed up "manually" to an extra external hard drive. I want to switch to automatic backup both locally and to a cloud service.

Now I am testing Backblaze cloud storage and Chronosynk backup software, both as free trials. I am not how sure well they two fit together though. Any recommendations and thoughts are welcome!

@Sean might have a suggestion for you. Maybe he can chime in if he can find time.

Time Machine will do automatic backups but you can improve the safety factor by locating Time Machine on its own dedicated drive. That way if your main drive goes bad, Time machine is isolated from the main drive. I do that and have done that since 2000.

Time Machine on a local USB hard disk, plus cloud backup (I use Google Drive). Since you are not over 1TB yet, cloud storage is still affordable.

Hard drives aren't great at retaining data which isn't frequently accessed. The bit rot is real. My suggestion is a modern NAS like QNAP or Synology for local backups like TimeMachine. They also do periodic data scrubbing and can repair most bitflips or faulty disk sectors. Also, both have the capability of automatically backing themselves up to a variety of cloud storage providers. You will have 3 copies of everything: on your computer, your NAS, and the cloud.

Why not use Apple's Time Machine and an external SSD or HDD connected via USB?
I don't see any reason to bother with third party products.

Thanks everyone for your tips. For some reason, Time Machine does not work flawlessly for me. That's why I am lookin into other ways to backup.

Steven, thanks for pointing out NAS, I had not heard about that before. Might be interesting.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Carbon Copy Cloner. I find is useful for doing backups to external drives, in addition to my Time Machine backup.

Hi. I use a Mac Studio, and have a 14tb library.

My backup solution is:

QNAP TR-004 enclosure with 2x EXOS 14tb drives and space for 2x more.

SD card RAWS go to both EXOS drives. Working drive is called Pictures and backup is called Backup RAW. Backup RAW also goes to Backblaze.

External HDD is used weekly to backup my RAWS and lives in my safe.

I do not use SSD after experiencing a failure with one, fast but unstable.

After experiencing an issue where corrupted files were auto copied to my backup, I no longer automate any backups of master files. I ensure I have three copies of my original files, on HDDs as well as online. The only automated backups I do is for all the Lightroom catalogues and DXO .dop files which I use FreeFileSync to copy onto a spare 4tb drive.

My workflow is super simple though - copy the RAW files onto two places and then I’m done. Backblaze keeps the RAW files safe online and all I have to do weekly is ensure my external backup is synced.

I also treat my print ready edits the same way, three copies plus Backblaze.

@Erik Petersson, let us know how you like Backblaze.

I think I have my local backups sorted, but I need to find an off-site solution, as well. Backblaze immediately came to mind, but after reading the PC Magazine review about Backblaze, I am thinking maybe iDrive might be a competitive alternative?

I’ve used Backblaze for 5 years no issues.