We're way past the point where you need to guard your laptop with your life because you'll lose everything, as he puts it. Anyone who isn't already backed up to at least 1 cloud service is stuck in the last decade.
Replacing the hardware and restoring your environment is expensive and time consuming, sometimes prohibitively so. Let's say you're on a road trip through Mexico...
Also backing up a Macbook to the cloud is a lot of data, and Apple doesn't have an adequate solution for this. I was using Backblaze. Their restore method is mailing a USB drive.
Unless you have a local backup, which is not practical while traveling, restoring from backup is non-trivial.
> Anyone who isn't already backed up to at least 1 cloud service is stuck in the last decade.
Are finances not a concern here, or am I missing something else with this suggestion? I don't backup _anything_ to a cloud provider because my last-decades solutions (automation + home network NAS or SAN at work) _just works_, and I, and my company, don't need the recurring costs hit from a cloud provider.
> Are finances not a concern here, or am I missing something else with this suggestion?
Sounds like a little of both to me.
At home I keep my backups on a NAS with RAID 1 redundancy so I'm tolerant to most things. That entire 4TB array is backed up to the cloud through BackBlaze B2 because it's affordable and grants me peace-of-mind for scenarios where both disks fail. I don't use nearly the entire 4TB, so it's about $10/mo for my B2 usage.
So far in life, I've never had to use my cloud backups. Which is great, they'd be slow as can be to download. But the insurance of knowing they're there is completely worth it to me.
For many people here the finances of their tech are not a concern. It’s the source of our income so minor efficiencies can have a big impact on productivity and income. For me any reasonable expense that I will gain value from is worthwhile.
If you are a software engineer and you are concerned about $100/year in cost for your backup system, you might want to consider your priorities.
I guess... I make considerably more than that and my wife makes even more than I do (both of us are Software Engineers, no kids yet) and I have way more important and interesting shit to spend my money (and time) on than cloud provider backups. We also both grew up relatively poor, her from an immigrant family and myself from hillbillies in the Appalachians. Maybe that has something to do with it.
A lot of people who grow up poor have a hard time adjusting their spending habits to optimize their life when they become well off.
I've known such people who will go through great aggravation, follow on sunk costs no good reason, and waste a lot of time - just to save a few dollars or feel they didn't waste money.
I waste probably a few thousand dollars a year on expenditures I never utilize. If the dollar amount is below the cost of the aggravation, I generally won't bother.
If you're working as a software engineer, I assume you are making at least $100,000. A $100 annual cost to ensure your data is saved, and the time savings from maintaining a local backup, seems well worth it and it doesn't make sense to me for that cost to weigh into the decision.
Also backing up a Macbook to the cloud is a lot of data, and Apple doesn't have an adequate solution for this. I was using Backblaze. Their restore method is mailing a USB drive.
Unless you have a local backup, which is not practical while traveling, restoring from backup is non-trivial.