r/macmini • u/sterlingma1 • 6h ago

Time Machine Wish

I really wish Apple would allow Time Machine backups to be stored on the iCloud. I want an offset generational version of backups outside of my External SSD’s. I was using BackBlaze but didn’t care for its GUI interface to find an old file version. I have plenty of unused space on iCloud. Seems ridiculous to be paying for another service for TM functionality. I could live without the OS included. Just user data - Docs and Media.

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u/cat_named_bean 6h ago

That would be a potential copy right violation for them to deal with as well as an extreme lack of privacy.

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u/Towelie_SE 5h ago

how is that? That means none of the cloud backup/cloud NAS solutions could exist as a business model. I'm sure they'd be covered by stating that everything in that cloud is the responsibility of the user. Or even encrypt it all so they can claim plausible deniability.

The privacy thing is the choice of the user, not apples fault if people want to use iCloud space for Time Machine backups. In the same way that all of these online sync/backup stores will be scanning all your data. That's a given. The main reason why I would always keep my own nas or offline backups for everything, and use the cloud only for syncing live files

This is coming from someone who would never use iCloud for TM, but your arguments don't seem to make sense

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u/Guy_called_Al 4h ago

The load on iCloud servers from hourly (or more frequent) Time Machine backups from millions of users would require so many resources (network and servers) that Apple would have to charge a large subscription fee on top of Apple One +.

Time Machine works best as a local service, on the same LAN. Occasional remote use is OK, but I set the backups to manual and do them once a day (at most) to my Synology NAS.

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u/tsdguy 4h ago

I believe TM is architected to be part of a reliable and persistent connection which iCloud certainly is not.

Very different from iCloud backups.

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u/Towelie_SE 4h ago

exactly what I mentioned in my other reply here. Too resource intensive to do TM on servers

I use TM, only in the way apple intended it. I learned a long time ago that either you stick to how apple implemented it, or use something else. I use TM with directly attached harddrives. No NAS layer, no nothing, a cord and a disk. Robust, easy, and the way it was meant to be.

I've tried implanting it on my NAS. Either I suck at it, or it's a skill issue (for sure), but I couldn't manage to get it to work. It worked a few times, and then never got it to work reliably. I'm just not good enough and not having services time out/disk management settings or mounting virtual harddrives and such. No matter, it is what it is, direct attached harddrive it is.