backing up mac external hard drive time machine

Otherwise, any hard drive that connects via USB, Thunderbolt or FireWire and uses a Mac filesystem format will do the job.īear in mind that the initial backup takes time, so you may want to set up Time Machine in the evening and leave your Mac on overnight for the process to complete. You can also use an external drive connected over a network, so long as it supports Apple File Protocol (AFP) file sharing. If you're using a Mac notebook running OS X Lion or later and you move away from the backup disk, Time Machine will save daily backups to your Mac's startup disk and even manage these local snapshots to ensure you still have storage space available.Īpple's AirPort Time Capsule (from $299) is a Wi-Fi base station with a built-in backup disk, making it an ideal wireless solution for Time Machine since it avoids the need to keep an external hard drive physically connected to your Mac. Likewise, the same backup volume can be used by Apple's Migration Assistant during an OS X installation to quickly transfer your applications, files and settings from an old Mac to a new one. This creates a layered snapshot system that's reflected in Time Machine's navigable timeline and makes the recovery of individual files and folders a simple affair.Īnother big plus with Apple's solution is that a Time Machine backup can be used in Recovery Mode to restore your Mac to its original state if the worst happens and your drive fails. Hourly backups, daily backups and weekly backups occur automatically, while the oldest backups are overwritten with new ones as the external backup disk reaches full capacity. The application achieves this by making an initial full backup of your Mac's system disk and then stacking subsequent changes to the volume in a chronological hierarchy. Time Machine has won over many Mac users due to its automated scheduling and intuitive recovery process, along with its ability to run in the background without affecting overall system performance. This article explains the benefits of using Time Machine and runs you through the setup and restore process. With the arrival of OS X 10.5 Leopard, Apple changed that preconception by introducing its native backup solution, called Time Machine. Finding a reliable backup solution for the Mac that runs in the background and isn't a drain on system resources was once considered a challenging prospect.

Backing up mac external hard drive time machine