Originally Posted by MartyByrde
Thanks for that perspective. On the other site where I have put together the poll, not a single response for "None - do not perform backups". Not really expecting any, as such folks do not want to admit to it.

As for the "less than 25%" you mentioned, SuperDuper! is actually free (as long as you are satisfied with its basic functionality). But possibly most folks are not aware of that.

Also, it seems that a good portion (maybe somewhat well over 50%) of individuals insist on using Apple software, no matter what other excellent products are available, and thus the high percentage for Time Machine.
  1. Of the many Mac users I know, including members of my family, I am the only one who is even vaguely aware there are such things as user support forums, much less log onto one.
  2. From many years of using and moderating various support forums, I'm convinced that of the relative few who are aware of such things the vast majority only visit a forum if and when they have a problem. Even Apple's own Discussions are heavily biased by that fact and they are a LOT bigger and a LOT better known.
  3. From this same several years experience I am convinced that habitués of forums are heavily influenced by the opinions of a relatively few "power posters" (my term 😉) and the most highly recommended solution for any given task can vary significantly from forum to forum.
  4. Taking a survey of the habitués of any given forum may be representative of that forum, but is a self-selected, sample of a self-selected sample and does not in any way represent a valid cross section of the general population.
  5. Without knowing the number of people who logged onto the forum while the survey was being conducted it is impossible to determine if there were sufficient responses to constitute a statistically valid sample of even that population.
  6. I provide technical support to fifteen or so Mac using friends and family members scattered from Florida to California and of that number only four do any sort of regular backup, in spite of my constant nagging (I know I am the one who will end up having to pick up the pieces). One is my wife (I didn't give her a choice); another is a former son-in-law who realized the necessity after his hard drive crashed and he lost three years of business records a week before he was to turn them over to his tax preparer, one is a friend who gave in to my preaching on the subject, and the fourth a minister friend that I bought and installed the drive for after she accidentally erased two years of her sermon files. None of the rest do any backups at all.
  7. It is vastly easier to convince the TYPICAL user to plug in an external drive click one option in system preferences, select the drive and forget it; than it is to get them to select, purchase, install, configure, and run CCC or SD on any sort of a regular basis.
  8. Time Machine's ability to resurrect versions of the same file from multiple points in time cannot be readily recreated using CCC or SD. (Albeit CCC's ability to manage and recover from APFS snapshots is workable over the short term.)
  9. Time Machine and CCC/SD have their legitimate uses, but they are not equivalent, especially in a "production' environment.

If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein