If you read my previous post about how to format an external drive for Mac, you know that I bought a 2TB Seagate Expansion external hard drive and managed to create two partitions on the disk — one for Mac backup purposes, and the other for personal use.
In this article, I’m going to show you how to back up your Mac data to an external drive. You should back up your Mac on a regular basis, especially if you’re planning to perform macOS updates.
I did this several weeks ago while preparing my MacBook Pro for a system update. You may also be interested in taking a look at the macOS Catalina slow issues we encountered during that process just in case you also want to upgrade your Mac to the latest operating system.
Please note that the backup tool that I used is Time Machine, a built-in app provided by Apple. If you want to back up your Mac data without using Time Machine, there are also other third-party Mac backup software worth considering.
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Where is Time Machine on Mac?
Time Machine is a built-in app within macOS ever since OS X 10.5. To find it, click on the Apple logo on the top left corner of your screen, then select System Preferences.
In the Preferences Pane, you’ll see the app located between “Date & Time” and “Accessibility”.
What does Time Machine Backup?
Time Machine is the easiest way to back up Mac. Juki pm 1 programming software free download. And the app is created and recommended by Apple. Once you have a timely backup, it’s incredibly easy to restore all or part of your data in case of accidental deletion or a hard drive crash.
So, what kind of data does Time Machine backup? Everything!
Photos, videos, documents, applications, system files, accounts, preferences, messages, you name it. They all can be backed up by Time Machine. You can then restore your data from a Time Machine snapshot. To do so, first open Finder, then Applications, and click on Time Machine Gpsmapedit 1 0 66 7 crack full. to continue.
Be aware that the recovery process can be only be conducted when your Mac can start up normally.
A Step-by-Step Guide to Backing up Mac to an External Hard Drive
Note: the screenshots below are taken based on an older macOS. If your Mac is running Mojave or Catalina, they will look slightly different but the process should be similar.
Step 1: Connect your external hard drive.
First, use the USB cable (or USB-C cable if you’re on the newest Mac model with Thunderbolt 3 ports) that comes with your external drive to connect that drive to your Mac.
Once the disk icon shows up on your desktop (if it doesn’t, open Finder > Preferences > General, and here make sure you’ve checked “External disks” to let them show on the desktop), move on to Step 2.
Note: if your external drive can’t show up on Mac or macOS hints the drive is not supported, you’ll have to re-format it to a Mac-compatible file system before continuing the following steps.
Step 2: Select the disk for backup.
Now open Time Machine (I tell you how above) and select the disk you want to use. I have partitioned my Seagate drive into two new volumes, “Backup” and “Personal Use”, as you see from the screenshot. I chose “Backup”.
Step 3: Confirm backup (optional).
If you have used another disk for backup before, Time Machine will ask you whether you want to stop backing up to the previous disk and use the new one instead. It’s up to you. I selected “Replace”.
Step 4: Wait until the process is complete.
Now Time Machine will start to backup all your data. The progress bar gives you an estimate of how much time is left before the backup is complete. I found it a bit inaccurate: Initially, it said “About 5 hours remaining”, but it only took two hours to finish. It’s worth noting that the remaining time may vary from case to case depending on the write speed of your external hard drive.
After about an hour and a half, it says only 15 minutes remaining
Step 5: Eject your external drive and unplug it.
When the backup procedure is completed, don’t rush to disconnect your device as this could cause potential disk problems. Instead, go back to the main desktop, locate the volume that your external hard drive represents, right-click and select Eject. Then, you can safely unplug the device and put it in a safe place.
Final Words
Like any other hardware device, an external hard drive will fail sooner or later. It’s best to make a copy of the data on your external drive — as they say, a “backup of your backups”!
One good option is to use cloud storage services like iDrive which I’ve been using and I really like the app because it’s super easy to use, and it also allows me to download Facebook photos automatically. Backblaze and Carbonite are also popular options in the market, though I am yet to give them a try.
I hope you find this tutorial helpful. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of data backup these days, especially when my mid-2012 MacBook hard drive died all of a sudden. I’ve also seen cases where my friend’s computer and hard drive failed. You can imagine their desperation. Without a proper backup, it’s really hard to restore data. Although you could try a third-party data recovery program, chances are they won’t get all your lost data back.
Msi gx60 drivers windows 10. Anyway, the main takeaway I want you to have from this article is this: back up your Mac with Time Machine or another app, and create a second or third copy of those backups if you can.
The scenario
Western Digital (WD) hard drives
Western Digital is one of the most popular hard drive manufacturers, and produces hard drives (includes HDDs and SSDs) for laptop and desktop PCs to save data. These hard drives or external hard drives contain My Passport, My Book, WD TV, My Cloud, Elements, ShareSpace, etc. In order to backup your Western Digital Elements hard drive, we will walk you through the solutions to help you out.
WD Backup Software
How To Set Up Wd Elements External Hard Drive For Mac 2020
Remington model 12 22 pump serial numbers. As far as I know, the Western Digital offers different series of hard drive with different WD drive utilities to backup hard drive.
For My Cloud drives, the WD SmartWare backup software is available. Free power geez amharic.
For My Book or My Passport drives, the WD Anywhere, WD SmartWare backup software or the third party backup tool that you can use.
For WD TV drives, you could backup data to a NAS included in that drive.
For WD Elements hard drives (WD Elements Portable/Desktop/SE), there is no any backup software comes with hard drive.
Therefore, if you are planning to backup a WD Elements drive, you might turn to other backup software for help.
Windows Backup Software Comparison
There are several backup solutions that you might pick to backup WD Elements drives. Windows built-in backup software like File History (Windows 8.1, 10), Windows Backup and Restore (Windows 7, 8.1, 10), and the most powerful free WD backup software - AOMEI Backupper will do you a big favor. But, there are some differences according to the following Windows backup software comparison form:
Windows Backup Software Comparison
According to this chart, AOMEI Backupper Standard is more powerful and comprehensive to backup and restore data.
You are allowed to restore individual files if required;
You could set an automatic file or folder sync task in Daily, Weekly, or Monthly mode to keep your data safe.
Thus, to backup WD Elements drives, we will show you how the AOMEI Backupper Standard works in Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10.
Backup WD Elements hard drives easily in Windows 7/8/10
First of all, you have to download the best free WD Elements backup software – AOMEI Backupper Standard, prepare an external hard drive to save all the data from WD Elements hard drive and connect it to your computer. Then use it to backup WD Elements hard drives, the steps are listed below:
Download Freeware
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1. On the main console, choose Backup -> Disk Backup.
2. Enter a proper Task Name for your disk backup task.
3. Click + Add Disk to Choose the WD Elements HDD as the source disk.
4. Select the destination external hard disk to save all the data from WD Elements hard drives.
5. Click Start Backup to backup WD Elements hard disk in Windows 10/8/7.
★Tips: ✍You can backup multiple hard drives simultaneously by re-adding them. ✍Options: you could encrypt (paid), comment, compress, split backup image, enable email or SMS notification, use VSS, pre-command and post-command for you to set up run specified program or script before or after the backup task, etc. Pre-command and post-command are premium features. ✍Scheme: It’s available in AOMEI Backupper Professional or other editions, provided for you to delete old backup image files automatically to free up space while the backups exceed the number you specified. ✍Schedule: Set a schedule backup to perform WD Elements automatic backup, which allows to automatically backup via daily, weekly, monthly, event triggers, USB plug in. Please upgrade to AOMEI Backupper Professional or other advanced editions to enjoy the last two features.
All the above steps could be used to backup data to WD Elements hard drive as well. This software applied to backing up drives in other brands, like Toshiba, Samsung, HP, ADATA, Maxtor, Kingston, HITACHI, Seagate, etc.
After a while, the WD Elements drive will be backed up safely. You have to keep the external hard drive carefully. In some day, you might use the backup image file to restore your hard drive and all the data.
In some cases, you will want to backup external hard drive to another external hard drive, or backup SD card, USB flash drive, CF card, SSD to other location, this freeware will help a lot.
How To Set Up Wd Elements External Hard Drive For Mac Backup
Conclusion
As the best free WD Elements backup software for Windows PCs, AOMEI Backupper Standard provides you many other powerful features to protect your operating system, like partition backup, sector-by-sector backup, create WinPE bootable media, etc.
How To Set Up Wd Elements External Hard Drive For Mac Pro
The advanced edition - Professional offers you encrypt the image backup file, command line backup tool, incremental and differential backup, restore to dissimilar hardware computer, backup in event triggers mode, real-time sync files or folders, etc. Try Server or Technician Plus edition if you are a Server user.