Connect an external hard drive to your Mac You'll need a drive that is at least the same size as your Mac's internal drive. With storage quite cheap these days, aim to use a drive that's two to four times the size of the drive you're backing up. Plug in your external hard drive (via USB, FireWire, or Thunderbolt, depending on your drive). How to Backup a Mac to an External Hard Drive Insert your drive and use the Disk Utility app to format it. Open two Finder windows. One should show your internal drive, while the other should show.
Jun 04, 2020 Using Time Machine 1 Connect your Mac to a formatted external hard drive. Connect the drive to your computer using the cable provided (usually USB, Lightning or eSATA). Connect an external hard drive to your Mac. You'll need a drive that is at least the same size as your Mac's internal drive. With storage quite cheap these days, aim to use a drive that's two to four times the size of the drive you're backing up. Plug in your external.
Why is it necessary to backup your Mac to an external hard drive?
Step 1: Connect external hard drive to Mac via USB, FireWire, Thunderbolt or so, and a message will pop up, asking whether you want to use the drive to back up with Time Machine. Click 'Use as Backup Disk'. You can check the box 'Encrypt Backup Disk' and enter password to encrypt the portable hard drive.
It's supposed to be a routine to save a copy of your Mac data, and a system backup image if necessary. So, how did you backup the Mac machine normally? Did you save the backup file to an external storage device? Not yet? Then do it!
Only with a backup in a place out of Mac's internal HDD/SSD, the chances of data loss disaster can be effectively reduced. We sincerely suggest all of you Mac users start right now to keep at least 2 pieces of Mac backup image, one of which has to be on an external storage, such as a WD external hard drive, a Toshiba USB flash drive or even a SanDisk memory card, etc.
How To Backup Mac With Hard Drive Windows 10
What are the disadvantages of using Mac Time Machine backup?
Perhaps Apple Time Machine program will become the first backup option you come up with, but in this post, we're not going to teach you how to use Time Machine to backup your Mac, considering some noticeable disadvantages.
For example, quite a large number of users who use Time Machine complained that Time Machine is very likely to get stuck in preparing backup, and some said that they've encountered the situation that Time Machine backup restore failed because the 'Restore' button grayed out.
How to backup your Mac to an external hard drive for full system & data protection?
After some simple analysis, we think it's good to get to know a third-party Mac backup utility that can perfectly solve the problem raised by Time Machine backup. It's called EaseUS Todo Backup for Mac.
How to backup your Mac to an external hard drive for full system & data protection?
After some simple analysis, we think it's good to get to know a third-party Mac backup utility that can perfectly solve the problem raised by Time Machine backup. It's called EaseUS Todo Backup for Mac.
So, let's download and install the recommended backup software on Mac first, and follow the instruction below to learn the rich features and start to backup your Mac system and data files to a target external hard drive with simple clicks.
✔ Backup: support for scheduled backups; only copy files to a selected location without changing the file size and file format.
✔ Archive: support for full backup, differential bakcup and incremental backup; compress the backup image in order to save disk space.
✔ Disk clone: support cloning disk 1 to disk 2, including personal data and system.
✔ Sync: support for scheduled synchronization.
Guide: how to backup mac to external hard drive with EaseUS Todo Backup for Mac
Step 1. Connect your external hard drive to Mac and let Mac recognize it. Launch the software, click the first Backup tab > Click + button at the left corner of the left pane to create a backup project - name the backup project and click OK.
Step 2. Set up the backup destination where you want to store Mac files as backups, automatically backup frequency etc and click OK.
Step 3. Click File+ to selectively choose files and folders to backup and click the blue start button to backup your Mac to the external device now.
There are multiple reasons for you to backup mac to external hard drives, either for file security, saving space or keeping privacy:
How To Backup Mac With Hard Drive Windows 10
- Taking the file security into consideration, it is always right to keep at least 2 copies of a file. Who knows whether the file will be deleted intentionally or unintentionally on your Mac, or your macOS crash accidently.
- Space on a Mac is limited. Whether you're using MacBook Pro or iMac，instead of buying a Mac with more storage, it is cost-efficient to using external hard drives to back up files from Mac.
- Whether you'll resell, donate or give your Mac away, you must have some important files on the Mac, needing you to back them up for future use. After then, you can delete them from the Mac permanently because the Mac will never belong to you any more.
Sum it up, no matter for what reason, you need to backup your Mac to external hard drives. If you don't know how to do it, follow the guide below:
Part 1. Backup Selected Files from Mac to External Hard Drive
It is much wiser to back up single files from Mac to external hard drive, because whenever you need a file, you can check out it from the external hard drive right away. Basically, you can do it by copying & pasting files one-by-one from Mac to the external hard drive. It is quite easy and simple to copy and paste files from Mac to the external hard drive, but it takes a long time and needs your patient. Most important of all, you need to be clear where the target files are.
Part 2. Backup Mac to External Hard Drive with Time Machine
Time Machine is the built-in feature on Mac for users to backup files hourly for the last 24 hours. The old backup files will be deleted when the storage is full. You can backup Mac to external hard drive with Time Machine if you want to restore your Mac with the backup later. Here are the simple steps:
Step 1. Connect the external hard drive with your Mac firmly, making sure your Mac can detect the external hard drive. Generally, when connected successfully, a pop-up will appear, asking you whether to use the drive to back up with Time Machine or not. Please check 'Encrypt Backup Disk' and select 'Use as Backup Disk'.
Mac programs on windows. If no window like this pop up after connecting the external hard drive with your Mac, please click the Apple logo on the top left side of Mac > System Preferences > click Time Machine. Next, click 'Select Backup Disk, Select Disk, or Add or Remove Backup Disk.' After then, select a backup disk from the list, then click 'Use Disk'.
You have successfully set up using the external hard drive to backup your Mac with Time Machine. After then, it will backup your Mac to the external hard drive automatically. To make sure the success of backing up Mac to the external hard drive with Time Machine, I suggest you do it manually: choose 'Back Up Now from the Time Machine menu', then it begins to back up. For the first backup, it may take longer. It fully depends on the scale of your files on Mac.
If you haven't backed up the important files from Mac to external hard drive and lost them accidently, there is still a chance to recover them with the help of iBeesoft Data Recovery for Mac. It is a professional and trustworthy tool specially developed to help users to get back lost and deleted files. Here are the simple steps for how to use iBeesoft Data Recovery to recover lost and deleted files on Mac.
Step 1. Download and install iBeesoft Data Recovery on your Mac. It is a standalone tool, which is able to work separately, no extra tool is needed at all. Feel free to use it, it is virus-free.
Step 2. Select the file types you want to recover from your Mac to external hard drive. By default, all supported files are checked. You need to ensure the unwanted ones are unchecked. It will save you time for the scanning process. Click 'Start'.
Step 3. Select the partition where your lost files were stored and click 'Scan'.
Step 4. After the scanning process, filter out the wanted files by selecting the file type in the left side with its extension. Select the files you want to retrieve to the external hard drive and click 'Recover', saving them to your Mac or the external hard drive on Mac.
