Backing up the data on your Mac on a regular basis is essential to ensure you do not lose any information should the device become damaged, lost or corrupted.
There are a number of options, listed and detailed below on how to achieve this listed in the order of ease and simplicity
- Time Machine backup to an External HDD or USB Thumb Drive
- Time Machine backup to Apple Airport Time Capsule
- Time Machine Backup to a Server, NAS Drive or Networked Storage
- Cloud Backup over the Internet
Time Machine is Apple’s built-in program for backup and restoring data and it is very easy to use.
How to use Apple Time Machine to backup to an external storage device
Time Machine backup to an External HDD or USB Thumb Drive
Connect a USB storage or flash-drive to a spare USB port and setup Time Machine to use that for backups. This maybe applicable for Mac‘s that only have small internal HDD or SSD of 128 or 256GB. Other wise use an External HDD which come in sizes up to 4 or 6 TB.
Connect an External HDD to a spare USB port with the supplied wire and setup Time Machine to use that for backups. A 1 TB external HDD drive will be suitable for most backup needs. The IT Guys can supply these for $99 and help you setup the backup.
Time Machine backup to Apple Airport Time Capsule
Time Machine Backup to a Server, NAS Drive or Networked Storage
Backups can be made to any other device, computer or server that are visible over the network.
When setting up the destination of the backup, any available network locations will appear.
If they do not show up, they may require some technical help in settting up the source computer, drive or NAS. Contact the IT Guys for help.
Cloud Backup over the Internet
The IT Guys recommend having two forms of backup, onsite (local, as above) and offsite (in the cloud)
There are many cloud backup services available for $20 – $50 per month depending on the amount of data you require backing up.
We use CrashPlan Pro and can set it up and have it automatically running in the background for an ongoing fee of $20 per month per device.
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