Just bought a new Mac mini. Been many years since I’ve run Mac OS. But I also use an iPhone and iPad. So I figure it’s time to complete the ecosystem. At work (I’m a teacher), we use Windows 11 laptops. But everything is web based.
I. When it arrives and I start it up for the first time-will it run through a basic set up routine? Stuff like asking to join my network, updating OS and connecting to my iCloud account?
Any recommendations for immediate changes I should make to the system and or preferences? And or useful apps/programs?
On my current home Windows 11 setup, I use several different browsers, all for different purposes. They should each have some utility to allow me to copy my profiles over when I set them up on the Mac mini, right?
Paul Thurrott did an article on essential utilities for people moving over. I did a quick search, but didn’t find it, but I’m not at my computer at the moment.
But… I’d still suggest using it for a few days to see what is OK for you and what you might want to change.
Yes, most browsers will allow you to move your profiles over and sync them.
Your out of the box experience should be excellent. The Mac is fully secure out of the box. In fact, many of the setup suggestions you’ll see on Reddit and elsewhere are about turning down security.
Don’t install anything until you see something you truly need. Everything extra you install has the potential to cause problems. If there’s a browser you used on Windows that you really prefer, it’s fine to install it, but I’d stick with Safari at first.
Think of the Mac as “batteries included.” With Photos, iMovie, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote there’s probably nothing else you’ll need.
Leo-I use Microsoft 365 and Google Drive. Both for work and personal. With that in mind, do you still think I should just stick to using Safari as my only browser on the Mac mini? And can I simultaneously run separate profiles/instances of Safari?
On m work MacBook Air, I use Safari for my Microsoft 365 stuff and I use Brave as a secondary browser. At home, I keep switching between Brave and Safari. I prefer Safari in some ways, but it had problems with a couple of sites a while back and I switched over to Brave for a while.
I also have Firefox on both, but, even though I was a Firefox user from the early beta days, when it was called Phoenix, I don’t use it as much today - it has intermittent problems with YouTube.
Learned from this video how to run multiple instances of Safari (and other apps) on my iPad. I’m assuming the procedure will be the same on my Mac mini.
I think this is the Paul Thurrott article you were talking about. It’s behind a paywall.
It’ll actually be even easier! You’ll open Safari, and then hit Cmd(or ctrl/alt, don’t remember on a standard keyboard)+N for a new window. Or you can click in the top bar (with menu items. often called the menubar) item titled “Window” and usually you’ll see the options there to make a new window/instance.
I used to use Carbonite, which I think is the same thing as Backblaze. Problem is I live in a rural area with a slow internet connection. So the initial backup takes soooo long.
I’m think it might be worth my while to invest in some sort of synology setup. Something with hot swapable drives. So every week I could store one of the hard drives at my work. Do you have any experience with that sort of setup?
A Synology makes sense. Then an external USB drive to copy the contents of the Synology to, which you then take to work.
Swapping the drives out won’t work, they are part of a RAID array, so removing drones will start a rebuild, which takes time.
At work we use Synology and QNAP NAS for server backups, then a copy of the array to an external drive, which starts automatically with a cron job. The external drive is then stored off site in a fire safe.
Sober second thought. Almost all of my data is on the cloud in various accounts (I use Google, OneDrive and iCloud and the data on those 3 accounts is all replicated to another cloud service).
So really, I guess I just need to clone the Mac mini once I have it configured the way I want? I could use either the Disk Utility or Super Duper to accomplish that. I think it would be a lot cheaper than buying a NAS.
I don’t think that follows the 3-2-1 strategy completely, but I think it’s ok with my data replicated over different cloud services.
Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner are excellent ways of doing local backups. Super Duper even works well with Time Machine.
Mikah uses Backblaze for his off-site backup and I’ve heard many others recommend it. But, as you say, you kind of already have off-site for the stuff you care about. I think the idea of having a massive cloud backup might be a little old school these days.
Will Backblaze backup cloud files syncing to my Mac (like if I installed Google drive for desktop for example). Due to space limitations, I think I’d have to redirect the syncing files to an external hard drive.
I’m a teacher. Unfortunately some schools I work at say we need to be a Google school. Some say we need to be a Microsoft school. Some say we need to be an iCloud school. That’s why I have so much in different cloud accounts.
Backblaze does a living backup of your Mac. It doesn’t sync anything to the Mac, it syncs the whole Mac to a n encrypted cloud backup, so that if the Mac SSD is corrupted, the Mac destroyed etc. you can recover everything - the apps, settings, all your data and files etc.
Poorly worded question on my part I guess.
Will Backblaze backup attached external drives as well as my Mac mini’s internal drive?
If so, I guess it just comes down to a cost analysis. Backblaze cost versus cloud storage costs.
