The best Thunderbolt 3 SSD and hard drives for your MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Mac mini, or iMac. $200 savings over the TB3 version it was like getting a free hard drive. It works great as a. What is the BEST way to backup your Mac? The best solution for you 5 years ago may not be the best method today! The BEST backup solution must be able to wit.
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.
Keynote alternative for mac. 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.
Backup Hard Drives For Mac
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.
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
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”!
Best Backup Hard Drive For Mac 2017 Full
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.
Mac os catalina and office 365. 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.
Moving’ On Up
Once you start working with digital files (Bible Journaling digitally or digital scrapbook kits) you need to make back ups. My limited storage Mac could not handle my 1.5 Terabyte so I rigged up a way to hold my external drive using Velcro and a command hook. The word still would catch and pull the thing out of my computer (really bad thing to do to external hard drives without ejecting properly.)
I went looking for another solution. I have lost FIVE external hard drives! This time I did my research I got the best back up available. The new Apple AirPort Time Capsule. Peace of mind is worth a few extra $. Plus now I don’t have to carry the hard drive box and cords every time I move my laptop.
AirPort Time Capsule gives you a super-fast Wi‑Fi base station and an easy-to-use backup device all in one. And backing up your data couldn’t be simpler. Just set it up once and AirPort Time Capsule does the rest. It works with Time Machine in OS X to back up your Mac automatically and wirelessly, so you never have to worry about losing anything important again. Every photo. Every file. Every song.
![Best backup hard drive for mac 2017 download Best backup hard drive for mac 2017 download](https://www.imore.com/sites/imore.com/files/styles/xlarge/public/field/image/2017/01/seagate-backup-plus-portable-external-hard-drive-01.jpg?itok=XwAx3gMR)
![Backup Backup](https://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Best-Backup-Hard-Drives.jpg)
A few years agoI bought an external drive from Radio Shack. $150 lost in one week. It broke, lost all my stuff and Radio Shack would not accept a return. No wonder radio Shack ended in Bankruptcy. Shame on me for not doing my homework.
Why You Get Faster Wifi
You never get what the speed the WiFi carrier advertises because most people use a router.
AirPort Time Capsule is also a full-featured Wi‑Fi base station with the latest three-stream 802.11ac technology. Now you can reach data rates of up to 1.3 Gbps3 — triple the previous 802.11n standard. Which means up to three times faster Wi‑Fi.4 You also get double the channel bandwidth, with 80MHz-wide channels providing more room for more data to flow faster than ever. And if you have 802.11a/b/g/n devices, AirPort Time Capsule maximizes that connection as well. I am one happy camper.
Best Backup Hard Drive For Mac 2017 Mac
AirPort Extreme
If you don’t need the storage but want the speed AirPort Extreme Base Station gives you up to 3x faster Wi-Fi. But if you need storage with automatic wireless backup of up to 3TB of data, choose AirPort Time Capsule.
Amazon Cloud FREE Backup with Prime
I do not rely on an external drive. I back up all my files on Amazon Cloud. As much as I trust Apple there will be unforeseen accidents (my teenage boys playing football in the house or spilling a sugary drink on my external drive, Murphy’s Law). BTW, this Apple device needs to remain upright.
I have friend thats loves DropBox. I don’t. I have a lot of files and I am guilty of the big NO-NO in back ups, I back up images without filing into folders (horrors!) . So when I get time to do some filing I need to be able to EASILY move images to folder. Dropbox is horrible for moving images. Amazon Cloud is super easy and I can do it from my iPad and its free with you have Amazon Prime.
Amazon Prime membership now includes Prime Photos: free storage in Amazon Cloud Drive for your entire photo collection. It’s like having a virtual album of every one of your photos that you can access at any time, no matter which device you use.