Apple enthusiasts love the sleek design and easy user interface of the company's devices. Yet setting up a backup of your Mac can be frustrating since most external hard drives must be formatted before being used. As you’ll see, however, knowing how to back up a Mac to an external hard drive doesn’t have to be intimidating.

The first step in creating a backup for your Mac is choosing an external drive that enables the best data recovery option. Choosing between an SSD or HDD means taking a look at the pros and cons of each.

Pros: Storage capacity, price point

Cons: Physical damage, physical size, speed

If you're looking to store a lot of data, then a traditional HDD might be the best option because larger capacities drives are more reasonably priced. HDDs use spinning disks to write data, however, which creates two different problems. First, the spinning disks are more likely to break down if dropped or handled roughly. Second, if you choose to fragment the information to protect your data recovery, the backup takes time.

Pros: Speed, size, malfunction rates, lifespan

Cons: Price point, storage size

If you're looking to store 2 TB of data or less, an SSD offers tremendous value, boasting high speed, small size, and long lifespan. SSDs use flash memory which writes data to memory chips rather than spinning disks. While this technology makes them less likely to suffer physical damage, it also makes storing large amounts of data expensive. Additionally, although they are expected to have longer lifespans than HDDs, they are relatively new which means projections of their lifespan potential remains conjecture.

Copying the files from your Mac to an external drive allows you to save data on your own terms. Since most external hard drives are formatted for PCs, before the backup of your Mac begins you need to format the hard drive for macOS.

Your Mac comes with Time Machine, Apple's built-in backup feature. Learning how to use Time Machine's features can help you create a backup for data recovery.

To set up Time Machine, you need to start by buying an external storage solution such as:

Time Machine will automatically suggest that you encrypt your backup when you connect the external drive.

Time Machine should suggest a backup disk when you connect the drive to your Mac. However, if it does not do this automatically you can easily choose the disk.

Once you have opened System Preferences, you can click "Select Backup Disk", "Select Disk," or "Add or Remove Backup Disk."

Select a backup disk from the list and then click "Use Disk."

If you want to choose multiple disks for security or convenience, you can keep repeating these steps to add more disks such as one for home, work, or any other location necessary.

After setting up Time Machine, the program automatically makes backups for you. These include continuous hourly backups over a 24-hour period. The program saves daily backups for a month and weekly backups for previous months. Once the disk is full, Time Machine automatically deletes the oldest backups.

Time Machine offers several ways for you to personalize your backups.

AirPort Time Capsule allows you to create automatic wireless backups without attaching an external backup drive. The setup assistant is built into iOS and the AirPort Utility for OS X, and once you set up Time Capsule, the backup disk will show up automatically in your Time Machine preferences.

Important: Apple announced in 2018 that it was discontinuing the AirPort series but would continue to support them for the next five years. With Apple's cancellation of the AirPort router/NAS product line, finding a long-term data backup cloud solution is at the front of most Mac owners' minds – and Acronis has the best alternative backup for Macs.

Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office enables a full Mac backup in just a few quick clicks.

Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office, formerly known as Acronis True Image, makes it easy to back up your entire Mac — allowing you to create a full-image backup in just two clicks while delivering several powerful tools that Time Machine doesn’t.

When it comes to Mac backup, clearly Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office beats Time Machine. You can also perform a full-image Windows backup on your PC or Laptop.

As the novel coronavirus/COVID-19 continues to spread, impacting individuals, organizations, and communities across the globe, we want to share how Acronis is responding to the pandemic.

Working from home has become a critical part of containing the virus, but for small to mid-size businesses tackling remote work for the first time, there are security considerations to keep in mind.

With the coronavirus on the verge of being declared a global pandemic and thousands dead in its wake, there are sick attempts by criminals to scam unsuspected victims to profit from the illness.

Travel may be restricted and conferences canceled, but this crisis will eventually pass. To give us something to look forward to, let’s look at the session tracks for the 2020 Acronis Global Cyber Summit.

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