{"id":88115,"date":"2024-01-17T17:23:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-17T23:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/?p=88115"},"modified":"2024-06-17T15:33:44","modified_gmt":"2024-06-17T20:33:44","slug":"backup-best-practices-add-a-separate-macos-volume-for-important-data-instead-of-storing-it-all-in-the-home-directory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/88115-backup-best-practices-add-a-separate-macos-volume-for-important-data-instead-of-storing-it-all-in-the-home-directory\/","title":{"rendered":"Backup Best Practices: Add a Separate macOS Volume for Important Data Instead of Storing it All in the Home Directory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Separate data volume enjoys lower risk of wipe-out from system meltdown, faster and smaller backups. <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Most users buy a new Mac and happily go about their business, letting all their Stuff get stored willy-nilly onto the internal SSD of that Mac into folders of their home directory: Documents<\/strong>, Pictures<\/strong>, Music<\/strong>, etc. This seeming simplicity has great appeal, but sooner or later the price for it will be paid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is, it is only a matter of time before there is a problem with the startup volume. If that issue means also wiping out all your important data in order to recover, you might pay a heavy price, if only in downtime as a professional, and maybe worse in data loss. Professionals and even non-professionals who consider their data priceless should thus consider the co-mingling of system+apps+data a perilous approach for the medium\/long term. Protect the stuff that matters to you by storing it in the lowest-risk way<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I address this post specifically to those using their Macs for work or similar<\/strong>, above and beyond rudimentary stuff like Mail, Contacts, Calendar, web browsing etc. Such simple uses are fairly well handled by iCloud functionality, though not that well once things like images over years are considered. (For instance, once images are in iCloud Photos they are very hard to move out<\/em> of iCloud photos for redundant backup on other media without significant headaches.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why storing stuff in your home folder is sub-optimal<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Volumes: Boot<\/strong> volume +
User data MyStuff<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Your home folder is on the startup volume. With recent versions of macOS, that makes backup and especially clone backups problematic due to security restrictions by Apple. It boils down to mixing user data with system software and applications, resulting in a confusing hybrid system+data volume that few can make sense of. Nor should anyone have to! It would have been better if Apple had cleanly separated system and applications and user data. That was not the decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a daily hassle, a single boot volume forces a fresh backup each and every time for the system portion, which is time consuming. And when done every day as it ought to be, it imposes severe wear on SSDs via excessive writes. There are various ways around this such as selective backups, but that adds additional complexity and additional backup drives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why not tackle this inappropriate mixing of system+applications versus user data head-on?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Namely, the key reason NOT to store your stuff in your home directory is as follows: when<\/strong> a macOS crap-out occurs (not “if”<\/strong>), your Stuff might be wiped-out along with the entire boot volume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such wipeouts from Apple bugs have happened to me more than once, most recently in 2023 with my MacBook Pro. The MBP was made unbootable by the Apple updater, forcing a complete wipe-out and reinstall. In the end, it was no big deal because\u2026 all my important data was on a separate volume<\/strong>\u2014not the boot volume. Yes, I had to do a reinstall, but I did not have to do anything about my data<\/strong>\u2014it was still there, unaffected. Moreover, my use of IntegrityChecker<\/a> (a critical best-practice part of backup strategy) proved<\/em> that my data was intact and unchanged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional reasons to proactively decide where your data should reside<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n