Remote workers: What's your plan in case your Mac dies?

If I lost my main machine I’d have one on order to replace it ASAP and then load up from my bootable backups as soon as it arrives.

If i was in a city I’d consider a rental but out here not an option. There isn’t even an Apple store within 400 miles.

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Short answer: backup machine, and write it off as a business expense. Get a cheaper, older one if you’re on a budget.

I’ve got a 2012 Mac mini hanging around in case something happens to my well-backed-up iMac.

But as my files become more OS-agnostic the day becomes closer that I can put work files in Dropbox/Box/iCloud and simply access them (or most of them) from an iPad or even a web browser via Google Docs.

I’m inclined toward counting on a rental if this comes up again.

When this comes up again. Hardware fails.

Another option: Mac Mini, or some other inexpensive second Mac. Use it as a NAS or media server most of the time, then draft it as my primary machine if I need something in an emergency.

I’m also shifting my documents to platform agnostic, as you say. But there’s a trade off here – cost of not taking advantage of proprietary Max features now vs. cost of being locked into Mac platform.

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I never looked into a rental - didn’t think it was possible to do a short rental here in NYC, but that could be wrong.

If it was available, and affordable, and they let you wipe the drive before returning it, then I’d keep their number handy and probably go that route.

I don’t really want to keep this mini hanging around, and given this thread I’m considering looking into emergency short-term rental options if that’s feasible and saying goodbye to the mini.

I’m planning on getting a new iPad Pro when announced, and unless there’s an emergency any time soon I’ll probably instead be looking into the options of using it as a replacement machine in case of an emergency. Especially if the rumors are true that it might be able to utilize an external monitor!

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Another option would be to pick up something like a Chromebook and a subscription to MacStadium for a month or so. This is cheaper than getting a new Mac (assuming yours can be fixed), and you get an affordable setup - though you’ll always need an internet connection to connect to the Mac.

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Now I need to look up what MacStadium is…

They have lots of Mac Mini’s Mac Pros, and even iMac Pros which like a server you rent (theoretically to use them as a server).

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Take an extended vacation!

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I like this idea best of all!

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Hey I’m just being logical hahahahah!

Although you were caught out this cycle, I think multiple redundancy is easier with a Mac than other hardware due to their longevity. Perhaps consider an older used Mac as suggested or keep older hardware in the next upgrade cycle (or borrow yours back). Mac hardware lifespan makes this economical. As a professor, my MBAir is a campus warrior on the go 3-4 hours a day for lectures, labs, meetings, office hours etc. It gets set up in some sketchy situations. I do pass on my older Macs to family but I kept an old white plastic MacBook as my backup. Everything is redundantly backed up and I can fall back on old versions of lectures or PDFs already posted for students if all else fails. Very workable for hours, days or a few weeks and makes you appreciate the newer hardware when you get it back. .

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I don’t think I saw iCloud mentioned as a backup. I have signed into my iCloud account may times from my work PC to open and edit files many times. I would think something as simple as a Chromebook could serve as a backup? Maybe people don’t find iCloud reliable?

I would still advocate to have some kind of a “hard backup” like a NAS, or Time Machine hard drive.

But, I have recently contemplated giving up my Late 2016 MBP since I really use my iPad Pro 12.9 almost all the time.

I have an old 2011 MBP laying around I could have to the one off occasions. Thinking of getting a Chromebook to have around.

I use Mac, iPhone and Windows I prefer Apple but cost is a consideration and I do try to use cross platform services so I am not locked into one platform. I use Onedrive since I have Office365 that gives me 1TB of space included with my Office365 subscription along with the applications. I am fortunate that work has provided my MacBook Pro which I run parallels with Windows 10 so I can have the best of both worlds. My wife is non technical and I have her using a Chromebook which has been working well for her. If I had a job change or lost my job I would be hard pressed to buy my own MacBook Pro. I am hoping in October they release a lower cost MacBook to replace the MacBook Air if they could have an updated MacBook for under $1,000 that would be helpful to a majority of people that would like a computer.

My career has had 25 - 50% travel so I needed a system to be sure that everything stayed in sync/ I used Office 365 and DropBox, and kept my files within that structure. I periodically copied the working documents into OneDrive and SharePoint. I could access the data on my personal laptop, the company laptop, my home PC, the IOS devices, and if necessary, i could use the web versions of the Office software on any machine with an internet connection.

Now that I am a free agent, I have the company furnished computer out of the loop. I travel with an IPad most of the time but there are times that I need to carry the MBP to events. Recently I had my main machine die in the middle of a report. I was able to move to the MBP and complete the report. I ordered a new Mac Mini. It has not taken too long to get everything running.

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Having suffered a MacBook failure a few weeks back - it was a late-2008 model so it had a good innings - it was a perfect opportunity to assess my storage and data availability needs.

At work I have a Dell laptop running Windows 10 but I only really use it when connecting to servers on the corporate network. For the rest of my work I use(d) my MacBook. Because of the cross-platform nature of my day job, all my work documents are stored on the client’s OneDrive for Business/SharePoint/O365. I also have my own OneDrive for Business/SharePoint/O365 sub which hosts my domain’s email. This makes accessing my files easy from any device on any platform.

The only data I didn’t have access to in the three days before my new MBP arrived was my Lightroom catalog and a few other bits and pieces that were stored on the MB’s internal storage. My DEVONthink databases are synced to iCloud so I was able to access them on my iPhone.

The only other issue I faced in those three days was having to use Windows 10 for actual work as opposed to Microsoft-related techie stuff (scripting, sysadmin, etc) as part of my day job :slight_smile:

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