Protect your Mac with a smarter backup plan
Hello Mac friends,
When you visit MacMedics, I always try to share everything you need to know about protecting your data. There’s a lot to cover, and it’s hard to fit all of that into a quick check‑in or checkout conversation.
To make it easier, I recorded a short audio session you can listen to in the car or whenever you have a few minutes. In about 9 minutes, I walk through Time Machine, why backing up matters, and how to think about protecting your Mac, iPhone, and iPad.
I see data loss almost every day, and it’s heartbreaking. In many cases, it happens because someone didn’t realize what was (and wasn’t) being backed up, or they had the wrong idea about how their backup worked. My goal with this recording is to give you a simple, practical blueprint so you’re never in that position.
If you’d like help setting up Time Machine, we offer that as a free service to the community. You can:
- Bring in a blank external drive from home and we’ll configure it as a Time Machine backup for your Mac.
- Or purchase a drive from us and we’ll set it up while you’re here.
We can also help you get iCloud Backup working properly on your iPhone or iPad. Stop by the shop and we’ll walk you through purchasing the right amount of iCloud storage from Apple so all of your data is safely backed up.
For off‑site protection, you can also try Backblaze using my affiliate link, which includes a 30‑day free trial: https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-backup.html#af9wuu
You can read the entire tansscript of the recoding here:
I’m Dana Stibolt, a long-time computer consultant and the owner of MacMedics, which I founded in Annapolis in 1989.
The purpose of this recording is to explain the importance of backing up your Mac Computer or your iPhone or iPad.
Almost every day, a customer comes into MacMedics who’s lost their data in one way or another. It’s my mission to ensure this never happens to you.
Let me tell you a short story about one of my customers: in early 2023, Apple referred a customer to me who was incredibly panicked about her data. This customer was a Ph.D. student who had done fieldwork in Peru, and something had gone wrong with her MacBook Air. She took her sick computer to Apple, where they replaced her logic board under warranty for free. What my customer needed to understand was that the hard drive in her computer was embedded in the logic board that Apple replaced. Since 2018 the SSD hard drive on your laptop has been embedded in the logic board.
This customer lost three years of Ph.D. dissertation and master’s thesis work, a book she was writing, and over a month of photos from her fieldwork in Perú. This poor customer had a nervous breakdown in the store when I told her I could not help her. They contacted Apple to see if they could get the old logic cord back, but I don’t know if they were successful. She returned a few days later with an SD card from her drone that she had used in Perú, and we were able to recover all of the data on the SD card. This customer thought that she was backed up to iCloud. But unfortunately, sometime during her educational journey for her Ph.D., she switched credit cards and forgot to update the card for iCloud. After 180 days of not doing anything with the data, Apple erased it per their policy. iCloud is a powerful tool with many great features, but it’s not the end-all backup many people think it is. The moral of the story is to be successfully backed up; you need more than one backup! For customers with this high-level amount of data or someone who’s working on a book or someone who is manipulating data for their customers, for instance, let’s say a wedding photographer, you need multiple backups, and you need backups of backups.
In another short story, a customer who happened to be an ex-FBI agent who was involved in some intelligence consulting left his briefcase in the back of a rental car at LAX in California. Unfortunately, somebody stole the briefcase containing his unencrypted computer, and he was traveling with his backup drive. So not only did he lose his laptop, but he also lost his backup. This illustration shows that data loss can happen to anybody, anywhere. It also shows why everybody needs a cloud element in their backup plan.
If you’re having difficulty getting started with backing up your data, I’ve got you covered. MacMedics offers free time machine configurations and setup. You can bring your own drive from home that’s blank and ready to be used, or you can buy one from us. If you have an iPhone or iPad and need assistance setting up iCloud backup, stop by the shop, and we’ll help you buy the storage and get your iPhone or iPad backed up!
iCloud Doesn’t Back Up Your Computer!
Why do people get confused about iCloud backing up their Mac? There are several reasons. The chief reason is that the iCloud brand name implies that data is being backed up; iCloud, at its heart, is a syncing service, and “syncing” data is not the same as a “backup” of your data!
Let’s talk about iPhone & iPads first
Apple does offer a service called “iCloud Backup.” iCloud Backup backs up ALL of your critical data on an iPhone or iPad to an iCloud data file. But it’s only for mobile devices! Your data on your Mac is not backed up by iCloud Backup. It also doesn’t back up anything already stored in iCloud. This includes contacts, notes, voice memos, calendars, bookmarks, reminders, messages in iCloud, iCloud photos, and shared photos.
Apple offers a free 5GB of space with a new iCloud account. Unfortunately, people who start using the free 5GB on their iPhones often forget to pay for more, they don’t know how to pay for more storage, or they assume that when iCloud is switched on (even if it’s out of space), their data is still being somehow backed up. They are partially correct as data from apps like Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Safari, News, Stocks, Home, Wallet, and Game Center do not count against your 5GB free iCloud storage space.
I LOVE the iCloud backup for iOS devices, as it’s a REAL backup! If you’re not already using that service, it’s only $1 a month for 50GB (one of the best deals from Apple!). It will automatically back up your iPhone or iPad when it’s connected to power, the screen is locked, and it’s on WiFi.
Don’t forget that when you’re traveling, join the hotel WiFi and force a backup to ensure your vacation pictures are backed up. If traveling with a strong cell signal, you can now force that backup via your cellular data! This is especially important when traveling overseas, as iPhone theft is widespread! Also, depending on where you are in the world, your iPhone could just be confiscated or mysteriously disappear when you’re going through security.
Now let’s talk about iCloud Drive and your Mac
iCloud doesn’t back up your Mac totally. It’s a widespread misconception that it does. So while data may be synced between devices while using iCloud Drive, not all of your data on your Mac is getting backed up directly. iCloud Drive, which needs to be turned on in order to work, only backs up your desktop folder and your documents folder. If you’ve also opted in for iCloud photos, then your photos will also be sent to iCloud. iCloud doesn’t back up every single file on your computer, this is why you need Time Machine! Time Machine is one of the strongest features of the Mac OS. It’s free and straightforward to set up!
Services like iCloud, Dropbox, and OneDrive are sync services, and sync services are not backups. The Backblaze 2022 Backup Survey found that 44% of Americans who own a computer lost access to their data when a shared or synced file was deleted.
We all know how reliable Macs are, and your data is super safe on the hard drive inside your Mac, but things can go wrong with your Mac (or it can be lost or stolen), or you might accidentally delete something. This is where Apple’s Time Machine is so powerful! It will have your data protected for all users of your Mac. Time Machine is your BEST first line of defense against data loss. Remember always to have your data backed up before running a major Apple OS upgrade!
Use the Golden Triangle of Data Protection to your advantage:
- Automatic backups – Time Machine gives you that!
- Redundant data – Again, Time Machine has you covered!
- Off-Site backups – I Like Backblaze for this, which I use and highly recommend!
Also, since 2018, the “hard drive” on Mac laptops has been part of the main logic board. So, for instance, let’s say one drop of water got in and fried the logic board; I can’t “remove” the hard drive as I could just a few years ago. It’s why it’s SO important to back up your data with newer Macs.
If you’re already backing up, congratulations! That doesn’t mean you’re totally out of the woods. I recommend that my customers make a date with themselves two or three times a year to double-check your backup plan and ensure that it’s backing up as you intended. Layers of backups are a great idea. And you really can’t go wrong with too many backups. In the business of IT, there’s no such thing as too many backups. I’ve seen it all: photos of deceased loved ones gone, the story I mentioned where the Ph.D. work got erased, and a widow whose husband had recently died. Somehow his iPhone ended up going through their washing machine.
I hope you found this recording valuable. If you need help with anything Apple-related, my team at MacMedics and I are here to help. Just email us or stop by the shop or call us, and we will be delighted to assist you.
Thanks!
