Time Machine Alternative? Or other backup software to a NAS.

[Archigos]

I apologize if there's a better section I should have used for this, but didn't see a "Backup/Restore" area.

I currently have 2 Macs that I leave running 24/7 and have Time Machine turned off on the Mac Mini, but turned on on the iMac. I have a TerraMaster NAS that has Time Machine features built-in and used that for the iMac, but have non-stop problems with the backups.

If I delete the backup and start from scratch, I can get one full backup with no problem, just takes like a full day to complete. Then over the next couple of days, it will do maybe one or two backups if I'm lucky on its own. If I try to manually create a backup it sticks at "Preparing backup" for like 10 minutes then either just goes back to the normal Time Machine window (not doing a backup) or it throws an error saying that my backup file is currently in use and I need to eject it.

So, I got Acronis to do backups and it worked great, but the 1 year I had recently ran out and I can't justify paying the price they want for cloud backup when I can just backup the files to my NAS. However, I need recommendations of software that I can use to replace Time Machine and Acronis. I don't mind paying for the software but refuse to pay an annual fee. Ideally, I want to buy one piece of software and be able to back up both of the computers to the NAS, but I'm fine with not backing up the Mac Mini if I have to pay additional licenses.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

--Edit--
Not sure it matters, but for reference:
Mac Mini: Latest High Sierra (can not upgrade further)
27" iMac: Latest Big Sur (can upgrade to Monterey, just haven't yet)

 

[MacInWin]

Welcome to the forum.

There are alternatives, but none are hierarchical like TM. Commonly referred to as "cloners" the three most often mentioned here are Carbon Copy Cloner (Mac Backup Software | Carbon Copy Cloner | Bombich Software), SuperDuper! (Shirt Pocket) and Chronosync (https://www.econtechnologies.com). They all work pretty much similarly, making straight clones of whatever you point to as source on whatever you point to as destination. One thing to note is that all of them struggle with making a bootable backup of Monterey because of how Apple changed the way Monterey boots. And none are like TM in the date hierarchy where you can recover back to a specific date easily. Yes, they all have "archive" function that can allow you to save deleted files for a while, but they aren't as efficient at that as Time Machine. BTW, the reason you struggle with TM to a NAS is that TM makes a sparsebundle file on the backup drive, which essentially compresses all of the files into one big blob, which does work to minimize network traffic, but makes the backup "fragile" in that any single byte going bad in the blob makes the whole backup unusable.

As for multiple licenses and multiple machines, you'll be able to read the terms at each of the developer sites I've given.

 

[Archigos]

Thank you for your quick response. I checked out all three pages and narrowed it down to Carbon Copy Cloner and Chronosync. I had heard of Chronosync beforehand so I was leaning towards that one, but on a whim, I contacted CCC support to ask them about military discounts, and to my surprise, they offer one.

So I'm just waiting on an email back with my discount code but wanted to let other readers know in case they are in need of backup software.

TL;DR
If you need backup software, if you decide on Carbon Copy Cloner and have a *.mil email address, you can get a 25% discount. If you do not have a *.mil email address, contact their support requesting a discount and you will have to send them an image of your military ID and they will email you a code for the discount.

 

[MacInWin]

Good to know. Thanks for posting back. CCC is good software, I think you will like what you can do with it.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

For what it's worth, I use a Synology NAS as my Time Machine backup store and my Mac Mini is backing up to it. I haven't had any issues with the backups, they happen on their cadence and then once in a while I get the message that a new backup has to be started that does take a little while.

 

[MacInWin]

once in a while I get the message that a new backup has to be started that does take a little while.

That is the symptom that the sparsebundle developed a fault. And that is why I stopped using TM to a NAS. I do use cloners to a NAS, but the TM drive is directly attached. No sparsebundle that way. Although now, in Monterey, the snapshots that are the TM backups are sparsebundle format (or close enough to be the same thing).