How to Replace Time Capsule

Arq Mac app to backup to various targets (local and cloud) is an option.

Interesting that Time Capsule backups need to be reset frequencly. I'm using Time Machine to back up a Mojave laptop to my Synology, and it's as disappointing as backing up to an external drive shared from another Mac. In both cases, at least monthly it detects a problem and needs to recreate the backup from scratch. On the one hand, hooray for consistency checking, but on the other, it doesn't inspire any confidence that I'll have a backup when I need it, and it won't be older than a month.

I replaced Time Machine and my old Time Capsule (which failed backups too many times) with a regular disk on the Mac mini with ARQ. Super reliable.

I’m another person for whom Arq Backup has been working well.
I don’t have a Time Capsule, but I’m tempted to abandon Time Machine entirely in favor of local Arq Backup to an external drive, in addition to using their online backup.

I highly recommend taking a look at Carbon Copy Cloner's little-known "Remote Macintosh" feature. I've been using this for years. It can back up to any storage device on any Mac on your network. It doesn't use any sort of image format - it copies the files directly over SSH onto the target disk with all attributes intact. The best part is, when you need to restore, you can just physically attach the backup drive for super-fast local restores, *and* Migration Assistant will see it as a valid restore source so you can do a full restore from backup using Apple's own tooling.

Performance is excellent (many, many times faster than Time Machine over a network). I've used it on my local network, but also to back up remotely from other countries.

If you're using APFS as your destination format you can easily set a script to run after backup to create snapshots on the backup disk, emulating Time Machine's versioned backups. Carbon Copy Cloner has Apple's special Snapshot entitlement, so it can create snapshots that the system will never delete automatically.

The only caveat is it needs an actual Mac with an APFS or HFS+ volume to back up to, so you can't use a NAS device like a Synology. I just have a Mac Mini in my closet.

(I know this reads like an ad - I have zero connection to CCC. I just like backups!)

I also use Arq for my second-tier truly cloud backups.

@Gordon Thanks! I’m a longtime CCC user but somehow didn’t know about that feature.

Apple abandoning AFP is just stupid.
I have been using Time Machine for backups, for the convenience, but I am starting to doubt whether that is a good idea these days.

For what it's worth, Time Machine still seems to work well when it's on an local drive. Then again, I haven't updated past Ventura so maybe that's the not the case in Tahoe. It wouldn't surprise me!

While I have paired TM drives plugged into my Mac, I'll shoutout to my other backup solution for the "If Time Machine fails" situation, which is traditional file-level backup with ChronoSync.

Those folks have been making dependable, conservatively UI'ed (not chasing fashion) software for years, they've never asked for another cent after I bought the original licence, no matter how many complimentary upgrades have come out, and they've always been prompt and helpful with support email.

Not only is it a great backup tool (it can save replaced versions of files), but you can use it for any complex file syncing tasks.

We moved to backup drives being attached to a MacMini and network-mount them on our personal Macs as a TimeMachine target. Hopefully that will still work for some time…

@Bri I think Time Machine has generally gotten more reliable on local drives.

I think with macOS Sonoma + Synology NAS + smb-connection my Time Machine backups got reliable. Before Sonoma, I also saw from time to time messages to reset the backup. Since Sonoma, not a single error for more than three years now (and now with Tahoe)

perhaps it helps in my case:
- My MacBook always has a wired connection to the NAS, not wireless.
- The share on the NAS is only for Time Machine backups. When you define a share as Time Machine volume, the Synology NAS automatically optimizes it's smb-settings for macOS clients.
- I always check before putting the MacBook into sleep mode or take it into my bag if Time Machine is running, and if yes, I stop it manually and wait

I’m very surprised - given that most people around here are real software developers, and I’m just a mac user – that no one has mentioned restic. It’s excellent open-source software; easy to use; astonishingly fast. You can back up locally and to a bunch of cloud providers. I’ve got about 100Gb on google cloud storage that cots me like 50 cents a month. In order to get it running on a schedule you have to create a launchctl .plist, and I found that a bi fiddly and frustrating because apple has been changing launchd so much so quickly. But once I got it set up, it’s been running smoothly for a year. And for most folks around here it would be a breeze.

A single drive NAS such as the QNAP TS-133 works fine when properly set-up (without any cloud stuff, nothing fancy).

A T7 or other small SSD for Time Machine backups is also fine, but needs the user to actively do something. The NAS solution "just works" just as the Time Capsule was meant to work.

Personally I have 3 such NASses in my house, one in a separate building, plus multiple external drives for Time Machine backups, plus 1-to-1 copies using CCC to disks at my office, which in turn are backed up using Time Machine. And iCloud Documents. So far this configuration has served me well. Oh and air-gapped 1-to-1 backups using encrypted disks which are stored elsewhere but since this involves manual action they are not fully up-to-date.