Best Time Machine Drive For Mac
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Tomorrow is World Backup Day, which is an effort to spread the word about the importance of backing up your computer. As anyone who regularly uses computers ought to know, backing up is a vital step for the safety of your files, especially when troubleshooting problems with your system where you may update software, change configurations, or need to reinstall the OS.
There are many ways to back up your files, including using external hard disks, Internet-based storage, or CDs and DVDs, so the approaches you choose for backing up are up to you; however, whichever route you choose, one important thing about backing up is that you do so regularly.
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If you do not already have a backup plan for your Mac, then perhaps in light of World Backup Day you might take a look at making one.
In OS X Apple's Time Machine feature offers a convenient backup option, which once activated will automatically keep hourly backups of your entire system, including the operating system and user accounts so you can easily restore individual files or your whole OS X installation, if needed.
While you can use Time Machine to back up to network devices such as Apple's Time Capsule, and OS X Server, or other network devices, if you are just starting to use Time Machine then the basics of setting up a quick backup can be done in a simple two-step process:
- Get a hard drive
Purchase or obtain a USB or Firewire hard drive that is at least the size of your internal hard drive (or at the very minimum the same size as the data on your drive). To look this up, go to the Finder's Go menu, choose the Computer option, and then right-click your hard drive (called Macintosh HD by default) and get information on it.In the information window check the Capacity field to see what the size of the drive is (or the Used field to see the exact amount of data you have), and then purchase a drive that is at least this size. If you need guidance on which drives might be best for your setup, you can check out CNET editor Dong Ngo's recent look at his top 5 external drive recommendations.
- Plug it into your Mac
If Time Machine is not already configured on your Mac, then when you plug in your external drive, the system will show a prompt asking you whether you would like to use the drive for Time Machine backups. Confirming this action in the prompt will have the system format the drive and immediately start using it for backing up your system.If the system does not issue this prompt then you can go to the Time Machine system preferences, ensure it is enabled by dragging the slider to the On position, and then clicking Select Disk to choose a device to use for your backups. In this window you can select your attached hard drive, or choose another device such as a Time Capsule, if you have one.
Once Time Machine is set up, it will create a full backup of your system, and then will continue to update the backups every hour as long as the drive is attached to your system. If you choose to use a network device such as an Apple Time Capsule, then the system will back up whenever the device is available on the network, and may be a more convenient option for people with laptops.
Best External Hard Drive For Mac Time Machine Backup
While Time Machine is intended to be a background process, you can check the option in the Time Machine preferences to show its status in the menu bar. This menu extra adds a little more interaction with Time Machine, allowing you to see when the system is backing up (the menu bar icon will rotate), and offering the options for manually updating the backups and invoking Time Machine for browsing your backups.
If you find you have lost a file and wish to restore it from backup, go to the location on your drive where the file ought to be and then invoke Time Machine from the menu, followed by navigating through the backups using the arrows until you find your lost file. To restore the file, simply select it and click Restore, and it will be copied from the backups to your system.
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You can use Time Machine, the built-in backup feature of your Mac, to automatically back up all of your files, including apps, music, photos, email, documents, and system files. When you have a backup, you can restore files from your backup if the original files are ever deleted from your Mac, or the hard disk (or SSD) in your Mac is erased or replaced.
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Create a Time Machine backup
To create backups with Time Machine, all you need is an external storage device. After you connect the device and select it as your backup disk, Time Machine automatically makes hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for all previous months. The oldest backups are deleted when your backup disk is full.
Connect an external storage device
Connect one of the following external storage devices, sold separately. Learn more about backup disks that you can use with Time Machine.
- External drive connected to your Mac, such as a USB, Thunderbolt, or FireWire drive
- External drive connected to an AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11ac model) or AirPort Time Capsule
- AirPort Time Capsule
- Mac shared as a Time Machine backup destination
- Network-attached storage (NAS) device that supports Time Machine over SMB
Select your storage device as the backup disk
When you connect an external drive directly to your Mac, you might be asked if you want to use the drive to back up with Time Machine. Select Encrypt Backup Disk (recommended), then click Use as Backup Disk.
An encrypted backup is accessible only to users with the password. Learn more about keeping your backup disk secure.
If Time Machine doesn't ask to use your drive, follow these steps to add it manually:
- Open Time Machine preferences from the Time Machine menu in the menu bar. Or choose Apple () menu > System Preferences, then click Time Machine.
- Click Select Backup Disk (or Select Disk, or Add or Remove Backup Disk):
- Select your external drive from the list of available disks. Then select ”Encrypt backups” (recommended) and click Use Disk:
If the disk you selected isn't formatted as required by Time Machine, you're prompted to erase the disk first. Click Erase to proceed. This erases all information on the backup disk.
Enjoy the convenience of automatic backups
After you select a backup disk, Time Machine immediately begins making periodic backups—automatically and without further action by you. The first backup may take a long time, depending on how many files you have, but you can continue using your Mac while a backup is underway. Time Machine backs up only the files that changed since the previous backup, so future backups will be faster.
To start a backup manually, choose Back Up Now from the Time Machine menu in the menu bar. Use the same menu to check the status of a backup or skip a backup in progress.
Learn more
Best Time Machine Drive For Mac
- If you back up to multiple disks, you can switch disks before entering Time Machine. Press and hold the Option key, then choose Browse Other Backup Disks from the Time Machine menu.
- To exclude items from your backup, open Time Machine preferences, click Options, then click the Add (+) button to add an item to be excluded. To stop excluding an item, such as an external hard drive, select the item and click the Remove (–) button.
- If using Time Machine to back up to a network disk, you can verify those backups to make sure they're in good condition. Press and hold Option, then choose Verify Backups from the Time Machine menu.
- In OS X Lion v10.7.3 or later, you can start up from your Time Machine disk, if necessary. Press and hold Option as your Mac starts up. When you see the Startup Manager screen, choose “EFI Boot” as the startup disk.