Due to its simplicity as well as the lightness, Mac computer has been regarded as a powerful working tool for quite a long time. You may store some important information like photos, contacts, messages or some other files in your Mac so that you can get them at any time.
However, those files will not be returned once your Mac is lost or damaged. Maybe many of you have experienced that terrible situation. In this case, what can you do to prevent the loss of files? Actually, as long as you have backed up your Mac in advance, the file can be retrieved when there is something wrong with your computer.
You can offload your data from your MacBook's SSD or your iMac's Fusion drive when it fills up, or keep one plugged in 24/7 as a store for any non-performance-critical data. A hard drive is.
Right now, our top pick for best external hard drive is the Western Digital My Passport 4TB, which is a mechanical hard drive. We think it offers creatives the perfect balance of speed, reliability, portability and price for both Mac and PC users.
In this article, we will show you 3 different backup methods for your Mac with or without external hard drive. You can pick the one that works best for you.
Backup Mac
Part 1. How to Backup Mac with External Hard Drive
Backup Mac with Time Machine
How to Backup a Mac to an External Hard Drive Insert your drive and use the Disk Utility app to format it. Open two Finder windows. One should show your internal drive, while.
Mac system has a professional built-in backup tool named 'Time Machine'. You just need to connect an external hard drive to the Mac computer and set up your Time Machine. After those processes completed, your Mac can be backed up automatically with Time Machine.
Here we will show you the concrete instructions step by step:
Step 1 Plug in an external hard drive to your Mac.
Step 2 Launch 'Disk Utility' and make sure your hard drive is properly formatted for macOS
Step 3 Select 'System Preferences' from the Apple menu and choose the 'Time Machine' icon.
Step 4 Turn on 'Time Machine' and select your hard drive
Step 5 Check the 'Back Up Automatically' box in order to automatically back up your Mac to your chosen disks.
After those operations, your Mac will be backed up to your external hard drive automatically. Moreover, next time you connect this hard drive to your Mac, Time Machine will backup your data automatically without any extra settings. If your Mac were damaged or lost, you can restore your Mac data with this hard drive as well as the Time Machine on another computer.
Do not miss here to learn how to restore backup from Time Machine on Mac.
Cons:
1. Your backup data will be lost once your hard drive is destroyed or lost.
2. When your hard disk memory is full, Time Machine will automatically delete the oldest backup files, which will cause the data loss.
3.You cannot choose the backup file species with Time Machine. The whole Mac data will be backed up with this tool.
Part 2. How to Backup Your Mac/Macbook to iCloud
If you don't have the hard drive with enough storage, you can backup your Mac data to iCloud. In this situation, you just need to log into your iCloud account and you can preview and restore the data you want from the iCloud.
The processes are also really simple:
Step 1 Update to the latest version of macOS. Go to Apple menu and choose 'App Store'. See if there's an update available.
Step 2 Go to Apple menu and choose 'System Preferences' > 'iCloud' >Enter your Apple ID. When you sign in, iCloud is turned on automatically.
Step 3 Go to 'System Preferences' and click 'iCloud'. Choose the app like Notes, Photos, and iCloud Drive—that you want to use with iCloud.
After these three steps, your Mac data will be backed up to the iCloud automatically and you just need to keep your Apple ID account on.
With iCloud, you can backup your Mac data like contacts, calendars, emails, and photos across multiple computers and devices easily. Each time you connect your Mac to the internet, it will backup your Mac automatically. Even though your Mac computer has been lost, you can log into your iCloud account on another new computer and restore your relevant data from iCloud selectively.
Cons:
1. Apple iCloud only offers you free storage space for 5GB. That is to say, if you need more saving space, you need to spend money to purchase.
2.The backup data will be saved in iCloud platinum and your data may have the risk of information disclosure.
Part 3. The Best Way to Backup Your Mac/Macbook Data
Aiseesoft Data Recovery for Mac
As for two backup methods above, you can only backup the existing Mac data in advance whether if you need to connect an external hard drive. Besides those two methods, we will introduce you another way to backup your Mac data directly even though your Mac data is damaged or lost.
As powerful Data Recovery for Mac software, Aiseesoft Data Recovery for Mac can help you backup all existing files like photos, audio, documents, e-mails and some other important information in your Mac computer. Here we will show you the simple steps:
Step 1 Download, install and run Aiseesoft Data Recovery for Mac on your computer.
Step 2 Select the lost data type and the disk drive, and then start to scan deleted files. Please notice that you need to choose the system of 'OSX'.
Step 3 Choose the 'Deep Scan' on the top right to scan the existing data
Step 4 Click 'Recover' and you can get all your data backed up.
Three simple steps and you can backup the data from your Mac directly.
Moreover, besides backup, this Data Recovery for Mac can also recover your deleted data from your Mac devices. Data in the hard drive, memory card, digital camera can also be recovered directly with this software. That is to say, with this Data Recovery for Mac, you can retrieve your Mac data even though they have been deleted totally. Sound amazing!
With this software, you have no need to worry about the data loss of your Mac. Just use this software to scan your computer and you can retrieve your files easily.
Backup To External Hard Drive
Moreover, this Data Recovery for Mac enables me you to select the folder to undelete everything in it. You can also preview the content before you recover it.
Pros:
1. You don't need to buy an external hard drive or some other devices. Only software installed on your Mac and you can realize the file protection.
2. Besides Mac desktop, this software can be installed on the MacBook air or some other laptops. Almost all your Mac devices' data can be covered.
3. With this Aiseesoft Data Recovery for Mac, you don't need to save your privacy information on the public cloud disk, which reduce the risk of information disclosure.
4. It can scan your deleted data and recover them in a short time.
Don't miss: How to transfer photos from Mac to external hard drive.
In this article, we have shown you three backup methods of your Mac data. Each way has its own advantages as well as the drawbacks. Which one is your favorite? Please common below.
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September 03, 2018 11:00 / Posted by Nicole Jones to Data Backup
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If you read my previous post about how to format an external drive for Mac, you know that I bought a 2TB Seagate Expansion external hard drive and managed to create two partitions on the disk — one for Mac backup purposes, and the other for personal use.
In this article, I’m going to show you how to back up your Mac data to an external drive. You should back up your Mac on a regular basis, especially if you’re planning to perform macOS updates.
I did this several weeks ago while preparing my MacBook Pro for a system update. You may also be interested in taking a look at the macOS Catalina slow issues we encountered during that process just in case you also want to upgrade your Mac to the latest operating system.
Please note that the backup tool that I used is Time Machine, a built-in app provided by Apple. If you want to back up your Mac data without using Time Machine, there are also other third-party Mac backup software worth considering.
Where is Time Machine on Mac?
Time Machine is a built-in app within macOS ever since OS X 10.5. To find it, click on the Apple logo on the top left corner of your screen, then select System Preferences.
In the Preferences Pane, you’ll see the app located between “Date & Time” and “Accessibility”.
What does Time Machine Backup?
Time Machine is the easiest way to back up Mac. And the app is created and recommended by Apple. Once you have a timely backup, it’s incredibly easy to restore all or part of your data in case of accidental deletion or a hard drive crash.
So, what kind of data does Time Machine backup? Everything!
Photos, videos, documents, applications, system files, accounts, preferences, messages, you name it. They all can be backed up by Time Machine. You can then restore your data from a Time Machine snapshot. To do so, first open Finder, then Applications, and click on Time Machine to continue.
Be aware that the recovery process can be only be conducted when your Mac can start up normally.
A Step-by-Step Guide to Backing up Mac to an External Hard Drive
Note: the screenshots below are taken based on an older macOS. If your Mac is running Mojave or Catalina, they will look slightly different but the process should be similar.
Step 1: Connect your external hard drive.
First, use the USB cable (or USB-C cable if you’re on the newest Mac model with Thunderbolt 3 ports) that comes with your external drive to connect that drive to your Mac.
External Backup Drives For Mac
Once the disk icon shows up on your desktop (if it doesn’t, open Finder > Preferences > General, and here make sure you’ve checked “External disks” to let them show on the desktop), move on to Step 2.
Note: if your external drive can’t show up on Mac or macOS hints the drive is not supported, you’ll have to re-format it to a Mac-compatible file system before continuing the following steps.
Step 2: Select the disk for backup.
Now open Time Machine (I tell you how above) and select the disk you want to use. I have partitioned my Seagate drive into two new volumes, “Backup” and “Personal Use”, as you see from the screenshot. I chose “Backup”.
Step 3: Confirm backup (optional).
If you have used another disk for backup before, Time Machine will ask you whether you want to stop backing up to the previous disk and use the new one instead. It’s up to you. I selected “Replace”.
Step 4: Wait until the process is complete.
Now Time Machine will start to backup all your data. The progress bar gives you an estimate of how much time is left before the backup is complete. I found it a bit inaccurate: Initially, it said “About 5 hours remaining”, but it only took two hours to finish. It’s worth noting that the remaining time may vary from case to case depending on the write speed of your external hard drive.
After about an hour and a half, it says only 15 minutes remaining
Step 5: Eject your external drive and unplug it.
When the backup procedure is completed, don’t rush to disconnect your device as this could cause potential disk problems. Instead, go back to the main desktop, locate the volume that your external hard drive represents, right-click and select Eject. Then, you can safely unplug the device and put it in a safe place.
Final Words
How To Backup Imac On External Hard Drive
Like any other hardware device, an external hard drive will fail sooner or later. It’s best to make a copy of the data on your external drive — as they say, a “backup of your backups”!
One good option is to use cloud storage services like iDrive which I’ve been using and I really like the app because it’s super easy to use, and it also allows me to download Facebook photos automatically. Backblaze and Carbonite are also popular options in the market, though I am yet to give them a try.
I hope you find this tutorial helpful. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of data backup these days, especially when my mid-2012 MacBook hard drive died all of a sudden. I’ve also seen cases where my friend’s computer and hard drive failed. You can imagine their desperation. Without a proper backup, it’s really hard to restore data. Although you could try a third-party data recovery program, chances are they won’t get all your lost data back.
Anyway, the main takeaway I want you to have from this article is this: back up your Mac with Time Machine or another app, and create a second or third copy of those backups if you can.