"Back Up Your Entire Computer"!

[jparker402]

Been seeing a number of these ads (or maybe the same one repeating) on the internet lately. And it looks to me for all the world to be a thumb drive. But it is advertised to back up everything. Don't think I need one since I have Time Machine going with an external hard drive and I back up at least some things to iCloud. But what is this all about?

 

[MSastre]

Without knowing the ad you are talking about, we can have no clue. Personally I prefer using a cloned system drive, using SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner, over Time Machine, but redundant backups are always recommended and Time Machine works great for many.

 

[jparker402]

smart-backup-usb-absolute-must-have-6 is one of several.

 

[EmmEff]

Those are garbage products. Use a backup app like SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to an external USB drive (even a thumb drive) and be done with it.

 

[Fishrrman]

Like Emm mentioned, if you want backups you can trust, try either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper.

Both are FREE to download and try for 30 days.

SuperDuper will do a "full clone" backup FOREVER "in free mode". But if you want to do "incremental backups" (much faster), you have to register it.

 

[4sallypat]

Why pay for these aftermarket apps.

I use the Apple's native Disk Utility to create a snapshot image of a drive and put the DMG file onto a flash drive....

 

[Fishrrman]

"I use the Apple's native Disk Utility to create a snapshot image of a drive and put the DMG file onto a flash drive...."

OK, great.
Now... what happens if the Mac's internal drive has a problem and you can't get booted to the finder?
What are you going to do with a .dmg "backup"...?

 

[Weaselboy]

OK, great.
Now... what happens if the Mac's internal drive has a problem and you can't get booted to the finder?
What are you going to do with a .dmg "backup"...?

command-option-r boot to Internet recovery then use Disk Util to restore the DMG file to either a new internal or external drive and you are all set.

 

[Bandaman]

SuperDuper!, Carbon Copy Cloner, and Get BackUp Pro, and of course Time Machine are what I can recommend. I mostly use a combination of Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner and it's gotten me out of every terrible data situation I've been in. They say that any data you care about should be backed up at least twice.