Testing new macOS and external storage question

Off the Wall
1

Hi, @webline mentioned a problem with the current macOS:

I’m planning to get a new mac (currenty running a Mid-2012 MacBook Pro with Mojave) and have some questions:

  • How do you test a new macOS before you commit to use it every day?
    I was always unlucky with not being able to test a new macOS which is one reason why I currently still use Mojave (instead of Catalina, the last macOS that the mac could run). Do you have an extra partition for testing? Or is there meanwhile an easier way?

  • What do you use to extend storage?
    I’m currerty using external drives, however that’s a nighmare in terms of making sure that data is backed up in at least two places (one of them offsite). So I’m looking for an external storage solution that keeps (almost) everything (the internal drive of course needs an extra backup) in one place and which can easily be backed up to additional drives. Started to research NAS (Network Attached Storage) versus DAS (Direct Attached Storage) systems. Not sure what to get. Don’t really need a NAS’s features, however the mac is sitting in my bedroom, so I need a quiet solution. Unfortunately HDDs always produce a lot noise and getting large SSDs would be far too expensive. I’d really like to access the storage directly (i.e. via cable), but as far as I know all current cable connections have a length limit, i.e. I probably couldn’t place the storage in one corner of the room because it would exceed the length limit.

  • Do you use Time Machine? Do you use additional backup software?
    I’ve always used Time Machine, however at some point it stopped working (not sure whether creating the backup failed or restoring files from a backup). Because there wasn’t an easy way to make a clean macOS install I’m currenty only using ChronoSync. Is Time Machine running properly on new macOS?

  • Do you keep the macOS and your actual data on separate partitions or drives?

I’ve properly forgot to ask some more questions (it’s quite hard to get up to date with hardware and software after using an unchanged mac and unchanged macOS for so many years :slight_smile: )

2

I do have a special partition to test a new OS. When working with Xcode this was an important part of my environment. Since I don’t develop with Xcode for some time now I skip this step most of the time.

I do use external SSDs and a HDD, I have a NAS running and two cloud services. This mixed system grew over the past years. The NAS is my main backup unit. On the cloud server I store backups and files I need to access when I’m not in my office. And I like the idea that a copy of my files is stored at a different place outside of my office.

TimeMachine works well - I’m using an external SSD to store the Time Machine backups there. I use ChronoSync and SynologyDrive (for the NAS) as additional backup systems. Bitbucket is the place for my GIT repositories.
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No - one partition for my Mac. An additional partition to test new OS release (not in use at the moment) and a Windows partition using VMware.

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