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May 06, 2023 171 likes •304 views

Backing Up Your Mac A Joe ON Tech Guide Backup Basics Your Mac contains valuable and perhaps irreplaceable files. Good backups protect your data from loss due to theft, fire, natural disaster, hard drive crashes, and other malfunctions

SLIDE 1

Backing Up  Your Mac

A Joe ON Tech Guide

SLIDE 2

Backup Basics

Your Mac contains valuable and perhaps irreplaceable

files. Good backups protect your data from loss due to

theft, fire, natural disaster, hard drive crashes, and other malfunctions (not to mention user error). Don’t rely on manual copying. A complete backup strategy provides much better protection.

SLIDE 3

Your Backup Plan

A good backup plan includes:

Versioned Backups: Multiple versions of your backed-

up files, plus deleted files.

Bootable Duplicate: An exact copy (or “clone”) of your

startup volume that you can run your Mac from.

Offsite Storage: An extra copy of your backups stored

safely away from your Mac.

SLIDE 4

Backup Hardware

External hard drives are best for most users.
You’ll need enough space for both versioned backups

and bootable duplicates…but, you can partition a large disk so that one volume holds duplicates and the

ther holds versioned backups.
Be sure to leave room for your backups to grow!
Thunderbolt & USB 3.x drives are best; avoid USB 2.0.

SLIDE 5

Backup Software

Versioned backups: Time Machine (free and easy to

use but not always reliable), ChronoSync, CrashPlan, DollyDrive, Prosoft Data Backup, Retrospect, QRecall, and many others.

Bootable duplicates: The best choices are Carbon

Copy Cloner and SuperDuper!

See more options at alt.cc/ba.

SLIDE 6

Time Machine

Start with a freshly formatted external disk. You may

need to use Disk Utility to partition the disk using the GUID Partition Map option.

Go to System Preferences → Time Machine, click

Select Backup Disk, and select that disk.

Time Machine runs every hour.

SLIDE 7

Other Versioned Backups

If you choose an app other than Time Machine:

Be sure the app is backing up all your essential files.
Many backup apps run automatically (say, once an

hour, or whenever files change).

If your app requires a fixed schedule, make sure it

runs at least once a day.

SLIDE 8

Bootable Duplicates

Use a disk or partition (not a folder) as a destination.
Use an app such as Carbon Copy Cloner or

SuperDuper! that knows how to handle clones (many, including Time Machine & CrashPlan, don’t).

Schedule updates your duplicate to occur at least
nce a week—more often is better.

SLIDE 9

Offsite Storage

Keep an extra copy of your backups (at least versioned backups) in another location as protection against theft, fire, and other disasters.

Option 1: Use a cloud backup service (such as

CrashPlan or Backblaze).

Option 2: Use two hard drives for backup.

Periodically swap drives and move one offsite.

SLIDE 10

Testing Backups

Don’t assume your backups are working properly—test

them regularly to be sure.

Try restoring a few files every Friday the 13th.
To test versioned backups, restore a few random files to

your desktop.

To test a bootable duplicate, hold down Option while

rebooting and select the disk.

SLIDE 11

Restoring Lost Data

Don’t panic!
If you lost just a file (or a few), restore from your

versioned backup.

If your entire disk is kaput, boot from your duplicate.

Then replace the bad disk and (when time permits) re-clone the duplicate back to the new disk.

SLIDE 12

Learn More

Backing Up Your Mac

A Joe On Tech Guide  by Joe Kissell

Available in PDF, EPUB,

and Kindle (Mobipocket) formats plus paperback

alt.cc/buym