Finally Went to SSD for Backups

Hardware
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Just wanted to share some recent experiences with hardware purchases.

First, bought a CalDigit TS4 Thunderbolt dock for my desktop setup, upgrading from a TS3. Very happy with it so far. Not cheap, but the price from Apple was actually a little better than from Amazon, or anywhere else I looked, so I’m counting that as a win. Works well, looks nice beneath my Apple Display, fast enough for my needs.

Second, I finally bit the bullet and bought an SSD drive to use as the destination for my daily backups. I had a big LaCie thing before and it worked well, but it seemed to be getting more and more noisy, and I started to feel like it was going to wear me down before it wore itself out. I don’t store a lot of videos, so I don’t need a ton of backup space, so I settled on an OWC Express 1M2 with a 4TB SSD. Again, not cheap, but Amazon was a little cheaper than the OWC site and delivered the next day (I’m in Seattle, so may be a bit spoiled). The drive appears sturdy and well made.

I’m using the new OWC drive for Time Machine Backups, and also versioned backups of user data using ChronoSync.

So far I’m very pleased with both purchases. My desktop is whisper-quiet (except for my typing) and a little more compact, and the two new pieces of hardware sit next to each other like they were always meant to be together as part of the same design aesthetic.

And so, finally, I’m happily all-SSD all the time!

6 Likes
2

I have mentioned elsewhere the noose that large internal storage on a Mac can be. I have a 4TB internal SSD and if I follow Apple’s guidelines, I need an 8TB drive for Time Machine. Now that is expensive in SSD land.

This is why I wanted an SSD. But… I do have a decent workaround. It’s only 4TB, but the late-model WD MyPassport portable drives are incredibly quiet. The workaround aspect is I back up a big chunk of my internal storage (my photos) by other means (on demand to a NAS, so noise is less of an issue, and to the cloud).