That doesn’t mean that iCloud can’t be used to back up some of what’s on your Mac though. If you were hoping that you could back up your Mac to Apple’s iCloud instead of a external hard drive prepare to be disappointed though: you can’t back up your whole Mac to iCloud and iCloud doesn’t work with Time Machine. We’d recommend using a drive with at least four times as much space as you have on your Mac. You’ll also need a lot of storage available because Time Machine backups take up more space than all the data on you Mac, because of those incremental backups. The only real disadvantages of Time Machine are that you need to remember to plug in your hard drive otherwise nothing will be backed up, although you could set up Time Machine on a NAS drive for a wireless backup, but that might be a bit slower. A Time Machine backup makes it especially easy to transfer all your data, settings, and apps from one Mac to another. Other benefits of Time Machine include its tight integration with macOS.

Having a versioned backup is a benefit because not only does it protect you if something goes wrong with your Mac, it also protects you from user error (saving over a document for example).ĬhronoSync ($49.99/£36.00 at Econ Technologies) can also make versioned backups too.

Some things, like photos, are impossible to replace or recreate so make sure they are stored safely.

It means you could access your data from another Mac if necessary.

If you get a new Mac you can easily recover all your data onto it and carry on as if it was the same Mac.

It makes it really easy to set up a new Mac.

You might think that there is nothing on your Mac that needs to be backed up – perhaps you sync everything in iCloud – but we guarantee there is something you will miss if you wipe your Mac and expect to get everything back to the way it was.

You will be able to access old documents and versions of documents that predate edits.

You should back up your Mac before installing a major update to macOS in case something stops working and so you can revert to the old version of the OS.

Mac malware is rare, but if you get hit a back up will enable you to recover your data from before the infection.

Because you could lose your Mac or someone might steal your Mac.

Because your drive could fail and it can be particularly challenging to recover data from SSDs.Because you (or someone else) might spill a drink on your Mac.We’re probably preaching to the converted here, but we’ll quickly run through the reasons why you really ought to be backing up your Mac, in no particular order: Ten reasons why you should back up your Mac Ways to recover your data from your damaged drive.īest backup software. If you have just lost everything on your Mac due to a damaged drive then have a look at this article for some ideas on

Restore mac from backup