SuperDuper, Carbon Copy Cloner and Others

SuperDuper, Carbon Copy Cloner and Others

Byrichard

In 2007 I bought a copy of SuperDuper that I used to backup my laptops for a while. I bought the licence for fourteen GBP in 2007 and it is still valid to this day. That’s less than a GBP per year of use. The tool is simple. It allows you to backup your mac’s system disk or other drives and make them bootable when relevant. This means that you can run your laptop or desktop either from your local drive or an external drive.

Superduper

If the internal drive fails you can switch to the backup drive within seconds. Just hold option at boot, select the backup drive, and boot into your external hard drive. Continue working. The same licence now costs 27 CHF but since this is a lifetime licence it’s worth having.

Carbon Copy Cloner

I heard about Carbon Copy Cloner regularly through various podcasts, and work, so I decided to play with that backup solution but it requires you to pay for an upgrade every few years. It’s 50 CHF now, to buy for the current version, and half off for the next version. I stopped using Carbon Copy Cloner around 2017 or so because MacOS changed to APFS and broke backup solutions. At this point we had to switch back to slow and clunky Time Machine.

The issue with apps today is that they’re built on the ‘pay yearly’ and ‘pay monthly’ model, which both makes sense, and makes no sense. It makes sense that in the age of incremental upgrades we would pay constantly to have apps updated but at the same time this constant paying for apps becomes expensive.

Apps are Expensive

For a long time I would download a dozen or more apps per week from the iOS app, to play with, and enjoy. Over time every single app began to cost 27 CHF per year or more. At this point a dozen apps at 27 CHF per year comes to 324 CHF per year. This is too expensive. It’s good for Apple but awful for users. The worst thing about paying per year is that the companies that are charging are not even making enough to survive, so we’re paying for nothing. Apple benefits but we, and developers, just pay through the nose, just to exist.

And Finally

I am grateful to Shirt Pocket, the company behind SuperDuper for updating the app and allowing us to use it for over a decade without having to pay a yearly upgrade fee. Paradoxically they thanked me too, in their aknowledgements too. If you’re looking for an affordable bootable system disk backup solution then I would still recommend them today.

Five Hundred and One Days Later

Five Hundred and One Days Later

Byrichard

I have written a blog post a day for five hundred and one days. My legs are achy from a twenty minute run yesterday and I am writing this from a 2016 Mac Book Pro running Ubuntu 24.04 on an external SSD. I am running it this way because I wanted to test whether the OS bothers me, encouraging me to return to MacOS or whether it is stable enough for me to use this browser seriously.

Creux Du Van

Tomorrow I am going to the Creux Du Van for the first time in nine years. I went nine years ago alone, and now I’m going with a group of people. It’s my first group activity since the World sXR Forum in 2019, or maybe the last was the Black Movie Film Festival in Geneva in January 2020. In either case this is a big step. The pandemic never ended so I never resumed being normal.

Yesterday I was sent a message asking if I would like to cancel my participation tomorrow. I saw it this morning. The cruel paradox is that I hesitted. I’m an introvert. I feel that someone would enjoy doing the group activity more than me so I would leave them my place.

Four Year

It’s four years since I did something with a goup. If I like it “tant mieux” and if I don’t “tant pis”. I could be like the others and catch trains and buses but that would add an hour to the travel time, and I love that my lungs have been COVID free so far. I don’t want that to change.

If I like the group then I would do more activities with that group, and if I don’t then I can do things with others. I could even organise things, as I used to, for a few events, a few years ago.

Spring and Summer are coming back, and the pandemic will never end.

Pestered by the Trackpad

As I write this with the Mac Book Pro running Ubuntu 24.04 I find that I keep clicking the mouse every so often and moving the cursor to where I do not want it to be. When I was getting used to this laptop I had this problem and now I seem to have the same issue with the new OS.

Nextcloud and Photoprism

I installed Nextcloud and Photoprism on this machine, as part of the experiment. I want to see how different the experience is with a higher spec machine than a Raspberry Pi. Photoprism seems much faster. When I get used to using Ubuntu on this machine I will install it on the local drive.

And Finally

The light is yellow today, due to sahelian sand being in the clouds. I noticed that the wind felt warm yesterday and today we see evidence that the warm wind came from the Sahelian region. Things will be covered in sand by the end of the day.

Migrating Audiobookshelf From Instance to Instance
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Migrating Audiobookshelf From Instance to Instance

Byrichard

Yesterday I switched from Ubuntu on the Pi5 to Raspberry Pi’s version of Debian. I experimented this because I had just moved the data from one file system to another so it seemed like the right time to switch from one OS to another.

ExFat to Ext4

The first step was to move my data from an Exfat volume to an Ext4 volume. The next was to mount the drive and connect both Photoprism and Audiobookshelf to their new volumes. I also copied the audiobookshelf folder from the system drive for the old OS to the system on the new OS. I then adapted the docker-compose files with the correct information and started both Photoprism and Audiobookshelf.

Photoprism

Photoprism is now reindexing all photographs from the photos folder. Once that is done I will migrate the photos from the import folder. I am not doing that yet, because I don’t want it to confuse which files are already in the archive, and which ones are duplicates during the upcoming import. I expect this to take several days.

Audiobookshelf

With Audiobookshelf I was able to copy over the books with ease but I need to add some new books that I bought since the last update. I did not migrate podcasts. Although I enjoy using Audiobookshelf to listen to podcasts I find that it is quite fiddly. You need to login as the admin to add podcast series, and configure how many podcasts to download and how often to check.

If there was an app for iOS for Audiobookshelf then I would really enjoy using the service. It’s easier to use the default apps. If I listen to podcasts on two to three apps I need to mark them as read in one or two other places and that’s work. For now I will keep audiobookshelf for books and the most recent podcasts from one or two podcasteers.

And Finally

Although the server changed from one OS to another, the hard drive where files are stored changed the applications behave as if nothing had changed. This means that I do not need to login to services yet again. This also means that I can now start duplicating a server setup between machines once I understand how to synchronise changes.

ExFat Stability Issues
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ExFat Stability Issues

Byrichard

Yesterday a drive failed to mount so Photoprism and Audiobookshelf failed to work. The server was up and running but the files were not accessible. For this reason two of my services have been unusable for several hours. I believe that the issue came from using an ExFAT drive rather than EXT4 or another journalled file system.

The reason for which journalling is important is that Pis and other systems crash, and when they crash, read write cycles are not completed. The consequence of this is that the drive that had been fine before the crash becomes corrupted after the crash and needs to be fixed. Most of the time this is quite easy. I use disk utility two to three times, and eventually the problem is fixed long enough to backup the data.

Why This Matters

The rational thing to do is to think, “I’m using these drives for something that NAS drives are designed for so it’s normal that external drives would fail.” The reality is that the file system has a bigger role to play than the drive type. If the drive keeps track of what it was doing, and what was interrupted then it can quickly resume from where it left off. Without a journal the drive just sees missing data and asks for repairs to be done. By “asks for repairs to be done” I mean that it fails to mount until the issue is resolved.

Looking Forward

From now on I will use ExFAT as a temporary solution for when I move data from one OS to another but once the move is finished I will use APFS for mac, EXT4 for Linux systems and NTSF or equivalent for windows when flexibility is not needed. It’s easy to format a drive to a more resilient file system.

And Finally

Once I have backed up the data I will reformat the drive to EXT4 and copy the data back. This should make the drive more resilient.

A Rainy Day

A Rainy Day

Byrichard

This morning it rained and this afternoon I fled from noise pollution. I had planned to write a blog post this morning but inspiration failed to come. I was distracted because I don’t know whether it is the USB ports on a PI 5 that have failed or if it is a drive or two that have failed after being plugged in for several weeks in a row without being turned off. The issue is with external drives.

I moved two hundred and thirty three gigabytes of audiobooks from one drive to another and now I am in the process of moving several years of photos from one drive to another. This drive will then feed audiobookshelf and Nextcloud. I am undecided as to whether it will also feed Photoprism or not. Nextcloud and Audiobookshelf have proved to be the more interesting the apps I have experimented with in recent weeks.

I noticed a fault this morning, which is why I was distracted. For some reason the drive is either failing after being on non-stop for weeks in a row, or the Pi5 has faulty USB ports.I would have tested the drive on a mac to see whether I have the same issue but I am waiting for several hundred gigabytes to be moved from one drive to another. Once the move has been made I can determine what the issue is.

At the moment I am tempted to move Nextcloud and Audiobookshelf to a Pi4 8GB, especially if the USB ports on the Pi5 have failed after a relatively short amount of use. I hope that it is not the drive that has failed because it might be harder to recover some data. Paradoxically I will have lost the three most recent years.

And Finally

It’s because of my experimentation that I have not deleted the photos from Google Photos, Flickr and other places. Once I know that my solutions are reliable I will be destructive about which services I am retiring and which ones I am keeping.

A Short Run After Two Walks with Hiking Sticks
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A Short Run After Two Walks with Hiking Sticks

Byrichard

In the last three days I have been for two walks with hiking sticks and a short run. On Sunday the walk was a ten kilometre loop that took me across several villages. During the walk I noticed that a barn’s roof was generating about 8000 watts of energy despite the day being overcast. If more farmers placed solar panels on their roofs we would have less need for high tension lines across the entirety of Europe ruining natural landscapes as power distribution would be local.

A short Run

I ran just 2.5km before walking the rest of the way. I wasn’t using the 105 CHF On Running cyclon shoes as I need to return those. Instead I was running with the 110 CHF trail glove shoes. I ran a short distance because I haven’t been running for a while so I don’t want to overload my system. I also wanted to make sure that I didn’t feel that my heels had hit the ground too harshly.

Interval Training

I walked for five minutes and then I ran for one minute, and then I ran for one minute, and then I walked for a minute, and then I ran until the bottom of a slope and then I walked up the other side, and then I ran for the flat bit up to the tunnel and then I stopped the running track. I could have been more ambitious but it’s easy to fall into the trap of pushing more than we need to, just for it to look normal or good on strava, Garmin or other places. I am a walker, not a runner. I can walk one and a half hours to two hours per day, every single day, with ease.

I could get to that level of fitness with running but at the moment I need to work on building a good base, and then I can push further. It’s also a way of breaking the walking routine. if I run I can go out for a shorter period of time but get a better cardio workout.

Not Quite Nordic Walking

I started walking with hiking sticks, first because I have a minimal shield if unleashed dogs decide to attack me again, and secondly because it uses my upper body. By the end of the walk on Sunday I could feel that some arm muscles were not used enough in normal walking.

It’s amusing to look at cadence when walking with hiking sticks because for a big portion of the walk my steps per minute was zero. When I use walking sticks I make them long. I take two to three steps between stick movements so it counts as if I am either not walking, or taking a third as many steps as normal. That’s why my step count after a 10km walk is just 8000 for the whole day, rather than 17,000 as it would have been if the step counter had been in a pocket or somewhere else.

And Finally

For the first time in a while I went for a walk without a bag. Usually I always have a bag with me, whether it’s empty, which it usually is, or not. I don’t know whether it impacts my running comfort but I will try to run without a bag for a few runs, to see if I feel a change.

YouTube suggesting Six Videos at a Time
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YouTube suggesting Six Videos at a Time

Byrichard

Yesterday when looking at YouTube over lunch I noticed that they now show six videos at a time, compared to the 20-30 videos they used to show, back in the good old days. This means that you have six videos to choose from. The algorithm is cutting down our choice constantly from 30 videos down to 20. and now 6.

Pigeon Holed

If we watch one channel’s content then that content will be shown exclusively until we grow tired of it, and then we will have to choose from a dozen or less content creators. Sometimes videos will appear in three or four categories. It’s hard to browse when there is so little choice.

Plenty of Choice

In the days of renting DVDs for a night or two we would go into the shop and there would be a few recommendations but then we could go into the library and search for a while, trying to find content by genre, mood or more. Today that browsing experience is getting worse.

When I look for something to watch on YouTube or Netflix and Prime I want to have a real choice. I want to see a breadth of choice within a single screen. I don’t want to be forced to watch what algorithms force people to watch. If you recommend content because it’s popular, but it’s popular because it has been pushed on people, then it is not popular. It is spoon fed. The algorithms are cheating us and content creators. We’re being cheated because we have no choice, and content creators are cheated because they are invisible.

The Paradox

What I liked about YouTube is that it provided us with a breadth of content to choose from. We might have browsed for a few minutes and skimmed through thousands of videos but we had real choice to find ideal content. Now, with six videos being shown at a time we’re forced to pick out of six. This isn’t choice. This is scarcity. Thousands of hours of content are uploaded to youtube every minute and yet the algorithms get everyone to watch the same thing.

The problem is that I don’t know what I want to watch for half an hour to an hour so I don’t have key words that I want to look for. If I’m forced to see six videos, rather than browse, then I’m likely to give up rather than search. Usually we look at YouTube and similar sites to discover new content.

Prime

YouTube wants us to pay for prime but they take our ability to choose. They use algorithms that, because content is pushed on us, become worse and worse with recommendations. We can give feedback, but not proper feedback. I sign up for Prime, enjoy it for a few weeks, and then it becomes toxic and I take a break. The algorithms pigeon hole us, rather than learn about us.

And Finally

I love the medium of video. I love well produced content. I love content of a certain type. Google’s algorithms looks at users and recommends the content that it would give to teenagers to 40 years olds, and vice versa. The recommendation engine knows our age, and our viewing habits over a decade and a half. If people are worried about privacy, just look at ads and YouTube recommendations and you will realise that algorithms know nothing about us. Algorithms, by now, should know that I hate sensationalism. I realise that hating sensationalism is sensationalist. The point is that if recommendations for content are bad, then we are likely to take a break.

Downgrading Icloud from 200 GB to 50 GB
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Downgrading Icloud from 200 GB to 50 GB

Byrichard

If there was the option to downgrade from 200GB to 100 GB I would have taken it as I needed 51.6 gigabytes to backup my phone and other data. Since I couldn’t I went through and removed my photo backup as well as back ups of folders that don’t need to be backed up because they are cloud serice in the first place. Imagine the rational of backing up backups. It makes sense, but without exageration.

I am able to downgrade because I have Immich, Kdrive, Photoprism and Nextcloud backing up my photos as well as two to three hard drives. The beauty of this solution is that I go from spending 36 CHF per year for iCloud down to 10 CHF per year. I go from spending 100 CHF per year down to about 35 CHF per year, and I go from being obliged to be loyal to cloud providers because I had no local backup of everything, to being free to jump from service to service on a whim. By whim I mean that I can dump a service as soon as a cheaper option appears.

There are two reasons for me dumping iCloud. The first is that they’re more expensive than all other solutions so to use them is to throw away money. The second reason, and the more damning one is that if you store photos on iCloud once you reach a certain library size you’re trapped.

You’re trapped because although you can create several libraries on external drives you can only download photos from the cloud on the system drive, not others. This means that with a 500 GB laptop drive that is full with files you’re trapped within iCloud. Your data is locked in until you get a mac mini, add a two terabyte drive, and download all your files.

In the end I used Immich, Photoprism and Kdrive to backup the data that was trapped in the cloud before removing photo sync from the phone with iCloud, relying on Immich, Photoprism, Nextcloud and Kdrive. Why so many services you may ask. Experimentation, and redundancy. Immich is in very active development so they recommend not to rely on it. Photoprism seems stable. Nextcloud is good too, but it’s better for backing up files from computers and more. Kdrive is the offsite backup.

And Finally

Now that Nextcloud takes care of synching files between devices and Immich, Kdrive and other solutions take care of backing up photos and videos there is less pressure for me to use cloud services such as iCloud. I keep the 50GB plan because I can still backup my phone in the cloud as well as various app data. If it was not for these constraints I could dump iCloud entirely. The biggest storage hog on iCloud is the phone’s backup.

Playing with OpenAudible and Audiobookshelf
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Playing with OpenAudible and Audiobookshelf

Byrichard

Last night I finished converting all my audiobooks to a DRM free format. In the process I learned that the m4b format renders much faster than mp3. I spent weeks trying to convert AAX files to mp3 and then by accident I agreed to convert files to m4b and it took the time it took for me to walk on my daily walk to be done.

Migrated to Audiobookshelf

Now that all the files have been converted to mp3 and m4b I have uploaded them to Audiobookshelf. Some files failed to import. The rest imported with ease. The advantage that I now have is that I can browse through my audiobook collection faster than if I use either Audible’s phone app and their website. The other advantage is that my files are self-hosted locally so unless my hard drives fail I have my own copy, as I would if I had bought physical books.

Fiddly

When you’re listening to Audiobooks on a laptop the website works well. When you’re listening on an iOS device the epxerience is slightly more complicated. You need to navigate to the website in a browser, find the book, and then start listening. If you use it for podcasts then it plays one podcast and then you need to select the next. On a computer podcasts play one after another.

Create Users

Audiobookshelf allows you to create users. You can have one that has admin privilieges that is used just to add podcasts and create libraries etc and a second one to use as a user. By seperating the two there is less chance of making a mistake.

You can create multiple libraries for multiple users, so in theory you can create a library per person, for them to upload their own books. You cannot restrict library A to user A, library B to user B etc. You can control whether people can upload, download and more. You can give people access to listen, via the site, but restrict who can download to keep.

And Finally

OpenAudible and Audiobookshelf give us a way to keep the content that we spent money buying for our own personal use. If Amazon or Audible go bankrupt then we do not end up with nothing, after spending 100+ usd per year for content. I like both OpenAudible and Audiobookshelf

Using Nextcloud as a Timemachine Backup

Using Nextcloud as a Timemachine Backup

Byrichard

Around a week ago I setup the Nextcloud desktop client to keep an eye on four folders. It synched three out of four folders with ease and struggled with the fourth so I removed it from the sync. Now I have three folders that sync permanently, and when I mean permanently I mean that within seconds of creating two screenshots they were backed up by Nextcloud.

Wireless Backup

By using Nextcloud to backup specific folders I don’t need to have the laptop plugged in to a drive. As soon as a file is created it syncs to the cloud, available on the mobile phone or other devices. You don’t need much storage for this to work. An SD card with 128gb is enough. This isn’t meant to be a secure backup. It’s meant as an iCloud and Google Cloud alternative.

When files are synched as soon as they are created we have the advantage that if the laptop suddenly crashes or fails we have the synched version available within seconds, rather than when we run time machine when the drive is plugged in.

Self-Hosted

Because the device running Nextcloud is self-hosted, either at home or offsight this means that you can backup and recover from anywhere but it also means that if you need a fast recovery you can unplug the drive from the Pi device and backup directly, in an emergency situation. If you have more time then synching from Nextcloud locally will work well.

Audiobookshelf Synchronisation

If you have a collection of Audible or other books that you own and that you want to make available to read via Audiobookshelf you can. You could use OpenAudible to make them DRM free, and from then on get Nextcloud to move them from your personal computer to the server for indexing. This workflow is of interest because it takes time to convert books from one format to another.

I am converting books that I own, as a backup in case Amazon, Audible or other suddenly goes bankrupt and I lose access to books that I own. I use Audiobookshelf because it has good metrics but also because it provided me with hands on experience of setting such a server instance up, and then using it.

And Finally

Once Nextcloud is setup it runs in the background and you don’t need to think about it. It’s easy to install, especially if you use snap install nextcloud. The one thing I would like is to have a simplified method of changing the drive from being local to the system disk to using an external disk.