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SoCoder -> Blogs Home -> Blogs

 
Jayenkai
Created : 09 May 2024
 

The Old MacMini
For a few months I've been trying to figure out the best way to do daily backups.
My NAS is attached to the secondary router, but leaving the two switched on 24/7 seems somewhat redundant, especially when you consider that the secondary router isn't connected to the primary router, and therefore the internet at large.

The options are..
1. Big giant cable through the bungalow, and permanently leaving a router and a noisy HDD NAS running 24/7.
2. Buy a new NAS that has Wifi capabilities and SSD drives. And, boy have I hunted. Sure, I can get something to do it, but nothing below about £600 or so. Ludicrous.
3. Buy a new NAS that's small and compact and that can fit by the TV and router in the living room. .. This option "could" conceivably work, but I've no plug sockets, and given we've not stress tested the electrics in the house, I'm somewhat reluctant to start adding in extension cords and the like.

...
A month or so ago I bought a USB External drive, and have been using that for backups. It's nice and fast, and does the job, but it's a "don't forget to plug in the drive at the end of the day and set off a backup" sort of situation.

I wonder what else I can plug it into, then, that might work a little better?
And out came the old MacMini.

I switched it on and up popped Windows 10. And then down popped Windows 10, and then the thing looked to be dead.
I asked Bing/CoPilot what to do, and it suggested holding Command+Option+R+P when turning it on, to boot into MacOS, and .. Yup, that worked!!

So now the MacMini's sitting there, updating.
I pretty much primarily used Win10 on the thing, so it has a LOT of updating to do. It's currently running Catalina, which is from 2019. Not sure it'll upgrade all the way to Sonoma, since it's an Intel chip, but we'll see how well it does.

It's been about 3 hours since I switched it on, and it's still sitting doing updates.
And it has a HDD!! Poor thing!



From what I can find in my gmail, I *think* it's from 2015. Goodness me, that's a long time ago.

 

Comments
Thursday, 09 May 2024, 11:20
Jayenkai
 		All finally updated, and I'm doing the first backup to it. That'll take hours, since it's copying the whole Server/JNK folder structure. .. gah!! Once done, I can see how fast and useable it actually is, when doing the second backup.
*fingers crossed*
Thursday, 09 May 2024, 11:55
Jayenkai

... The primary backup isn't going very fast!!!