The only way to ensure no important files get lost is to create a backup of your hard disk; using an external hard drive for backup is one of the best protective measures one can take to secure their data.
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- Best Software For Backup To External Hard Drive
How to Back Up a Mac HD to a USB Memory Key. If you keep important files on your Mac's hard drive, it's prudent to assume that eventually the hard drive will fail, or that you will accidentally delete a file. You can avoid losing data by backing up files on a regular basis. For added safety, you can back up. Back Up Your Mac with External Hard Drives By Joe Hutsko, Barbara Boyd To prevent the loss of all your data if your Mac’s hard drive should suddenly bite the dust, you can connect an external hard drive to your Mac’s USB or Thunderbolt port with a cable that’s typically included with the hard drive. To see the size of a specific file or folder, click it once and then press Command-I. To see storage information about your Mac, click the Apple menu in the top-left of your screen. Choose About This Mac and click the Storage tab. For Time Machine backups, it's good to use a drive that has at least twice the storage capacity of your Mac.
Have you ever suffered data loss due to a virus or system failure? If so, you’re not alone. Losing important files is a frustrating experience, to say the least.
Personally, I’ve lost count of the number of times my system had to be reset because an update didn’t install correctly or hardware failed. There was a loss of documents and precious photos. To say that it was annoying is an understatement.
How Does It Work?
To create a backup of your files, simply connect an external hard drive to the computer by plugging it into a USB port. At this point, drag and drop the files you wish to protect or utilize a backup software utility. After the transfer is complete, just disconnect the drive and store it in a safe location.
We recommend that files be backed up daily so that copies are up to date. Using a software program such as CrashPlan or NovaBackup can help you with that, and limit the duplication of information; making the whole process flow smoothly.
Pros & Cons of External Hard Drive for Backup
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Pros:
- No ongoing costs
- Relatively fast
- Inexpensive
- Large storage space
Cons:
- It will eventually fail
- Has to be constantly connected
- Can be easily lost
- Generally insecure
Difference Between Storage & Backup
A backup is slightly different than simply using external disk storage. With storage, you are able, and expected, to access and modify data regularly. Users interested in freeing up space on their internal HDDs turn to external disk storage as a solution.
A backup, however, is not usually accessed regularly. Sometimes, depending on the type of program utilized, such as cold storage, files are kept in a read-only state; making it impossible for users to edit them on the backup drive.
The primary purpose of a backup is to provide you with a copy of files in the event of a total system failure, sort of like a library archive. With an external storage drive, you can manually or automatically relocate data to it.
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Though backups are performed manually, they’re often left on auto-pilot; with the transfer software running in the background. The advantage of using software to backup data from a PC lies in scheduling; you can tell the software when to backup, down to the hour and minute.
The software takes care of backing up only the files which have experienced recent change, a process called incremental backup. Also, some programs create a boot-able clone of the entire operating system, which speeds up the restoration process in case of a hard disk meltdown.
Incremental Backups
When using an external hard drive for backup, you typically create incrementally updated copies. Which means, once the initial full backup is complete (and it can take time), only files that have been changed or newly created (since the last run), are going to be saved.
By choosing to do an incremental backup, you save time and can set a schedule to transfer copies when the system is not in use. If you wish to create a backup of every single change made to every file, a continuous backup is possible.
For this, however, you need software that runs in the background constantly and the external drive has to be connected at all times.This can hog system resources making it run slower.
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Bootable Clone
Having files backed is a good plan, it’s also a brilliant idea to have a boot-able clone (YouTube link) of your internal HDD. This particular backup copies all system files and has a boot sector. In the event of a catastrophic system failure, plug this hard drive in and continue working.
You can use this drive to restore all files, including the operating system, to the new hard drive. Additionally, in a pinch, this drive can be used as a working drive until new hardware is installed.
As with regular backups, a boot-able clone is only as good as its most recent creation. If you do not update the external hard drive regularly, files may be missing from recovery. It is important that you run an update at least weekly to ensure all data is retained.
![Best software for backing up external drives mac os Best software for backing up external drives mac os](/uploads/1/2/6/3/126335943/799031081.jpg)
Drive Size Matters
The size of your external hard drive should depend on the type of backup created and how much information needs to be stored. Apparently, if there are several hundred or thousand files scheduled for backup, a relatively large drive is required.
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If you’d prefer a boot-able disk, just make sure its size is equivalent or greater than the current one. External hard drives are relatively inexpensive, a 1TB hard drive costs less than $100 and it offers enough space for the average user to store thousands of photos or documents.
For those concerned about fire or flood damage to a drive, there are waterproof and fireproof ones available, these do cost more but are worth the price, especially if you live in a high flood area or any dangerous environment.
Disadvantages
While having an external hard drive is a good idea, there are a few downsides. An external drive is still hardware which means one day it will fail or get into a tough accident. In order to access files on the device, it has to be with you at all times.
Additionally, the person responsible for keeping it secure is you, to a tech savvy person this is a straightforward process — for the not so tech savvy, it’s not that easy. Finally, to ensure the device is up-to-date, it has to be plugged into a computer.
That means each time an update is necessary; the drive has to be retrieved and slotted into the USB port (or left attached at all times).
Conclusion
Should an external hard disk drive be used for backup? Absolutely yes, it’s an easy and cost-effective way to save all kinds of data. It offers peace of mind in the event of a system breakdown; ensuring nothing is lost forever. Of course, external hard drives should be used in conjunction with other methods of backup, such as an online backup service.
Which will help ensure all your files are protected, in the event of a cataclysmic occurrence or external drive corruption. If you have any questions, tips and tricks on how external hard drive for backup can work in a unique situation, please leave a comment below.
To prevent the loss of all your data if your Mac’s hard drive should suddenly bite the dust, you can connect an external hard drive to your Mac’s USB or Thunderbolt port with a cable that’s typically included with the hard drive.
USB and Thunderbolt ports connect peripherals to a computer. USB ports commonly connect a mouse, printer, or digital camera. Thunderbolt connects a display or storage device. The main advantage of using external hard drives is that copying large files is much faster and more convenient than copying the same files to CDs or DVDs.
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Additionally, external hard drives are easy to unplug from one Mac and plug into another Mac; plus, only one of the newest Mac models even has an optical disc drive.
You can also put an external hard drive on your network. For example, Apple’s Time Capsule provides external storage and functions as a Wi-Fi hub so multiple computers can back up to the Time Capsule. (There are 2TB and 3TB (terabyte) versions, so you probably won’t have to worry about storage space.) Any networked drive must use Apple File Protocol (AFP) file sharing.
Perhaps the biggest drawback of using external hard drives is that they can’t protect against a catastrophe near your computer, such as a fire burning down your house or a flood soaking your computer desk and office. If a disaster wipes out the entire area around your computer, your external hard drive may be wiped out in the catastrophe as well.
You can treat an external hard drive as just another place to copy your files, but for greater convenience, you should use a special backup application, such as Time Machine. Backup applications can be set to run according to a schedule (for example, to back up your files every night at 6 p.m.)
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If the files haven’t changed since the last time you backed them up, the backup application saves time by skipping over those files rather than copying the same files to the external hard drive again.
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To retrieve files, you could just copy the files from your external hard drive back to your original hard drive — but be careful! If you changed a file on your original hard drive, copying the backup copy can wipe out the most recent changes and restore an old file to your hard drive, which probably isn’t what you want.
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To keep you from accidentally wiping out new files with older versions of that same file, backup applications always compare the time and date a file was last modified to make sure that you always have copies of the latest file.