How To Backup Your Mac

One of the reasons that you should pick an SSD over a regular HDD is that SSDs have less moving parts. This isn’t to say that SSDs are invulnerable to failure or breaking down, but it does have a slightly less chance. However, this doesn’t mean that we should be prudent about ensuring that our files are constantly kept backed up just to be safe.

So, if you own a Mac and would like to learn how to backup your computer, there are actually a couple of different ways, and here’s how you can do it.

How To Backup Your Mac With Time Machine

If you don’t think you can trust companies and their cloud storage with your (potentially) sensitive and private data, then backing up to an external hard drive is the next best thing. Apple actually bundles a backup tool called Time Machine within macOS that will help you do just that.

1. Connect your hard drive to your Mac
2. Launch Time Machine, select the drive you want to backup to
3. Check “Back Up Automatically”

As long as your external hard drive is connected to your Mac, it will keep it backed up automatically. You will need to have a hard drive that’s formatted for Mac and ensure that it has as much storage, if not more, than your Mac’s hard drive. The initial setup process of Time Machine can take a while as it is new, but once that’s done, backing up will take place in the background and you won’t really be able to feel it.

The best part is that once the initial backup is complete, future backups are more about just adding to whatever’s already there, instead of doing full and complete backups.

Backup To The Cloud

Backing up to the cloud is probably one of the more reliable forms of backup. This is because companies that offer cloud storage services like Dropbox, Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft have invested heavily into cloud computing and servers, which means that there is a good chance that their backups are going to be more reliable than a regular consumer grade hard drive.

The downside is that cloud storage usually comes with a monthly subscription that could get pretty expensive depending on your needs, and you will need an internet connection to access your files, which might not always be possible depending on your situation. However, if you think that cloud storage is a good choice, why not look into the default cloud storage option that comes with Apple devices – iCloud?

How To Backup Your Mac To iCloud

1. Go to Apple menu > System Preferences > iCloud
2. Sign-in if you haven’t done so already
3. Tick the box next to iCloud Drive
4. Click Options and select what you want to be stored on iCloud

If you’re not a fan of iCloud, you could always use Dropbox or Google Drive. However, those cloud services typically act as more of a way to share files with other people rather than doing full computer backups. This isn’t to say that you can’t, but it will be a bit more labor intensive and you will need to manually update them to ensure that they are kept up to date.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Computers
Tags: icloud, macOS