Your reason to arrive at this article must be the data loss incident that you have recently encountered. If yes, you must have, by now, realized the importance of data backups. For years, experts have encouraged users to have at least one copy of data stored off-site.
With the digital revolution in all the sectors of the world, the need for data backup has surged more than ever. Since most of the tasks are done on the computer, users are dealing with tons of data without realizing its real worth.
Accidental file deletion or sudden disk corruption are not the only reasons that lead to data loss; sometimes, it happens because you have downloaded a file that turned out to be malware.
In this article, we will discuss the reasons that result in data loss and examine the ways to backup data efficiently so that you can restore files on your MacBook.
Let’s first learn your options to backup data when you are using a MacBook.
Best Ways to Back Up a MacBook
A lot of options are available to make a Mac; the cheapest and most efficient is the Time Machine, Apple’s native backup utility.
If you prefer this option, the only investment associated with Time Machine backups is purchasing an external hard drive.
Another challenge is that when you are done with setting up the entire procedure, the time machine says preparing backup, and you have to wait for the utility to turn functional.
Starting with Time Machine, let’s explore all the options in detail.
Option 1: Time Machine Backup
As part of Apple’s proprietary operating system for computers, Time Machine allows for easy backups. Connect the external hard drive that you have purchased exclusively for data backup to avoid low storage space issues with your Mac.
Time Machine creates a versioned backup such as hourly, daily, and weekly backups to allow you to recover the most recent version when needed.
Due to the intact integration of the Time Machine utility with macOS, you can easily transfer your entire data, apps, and settings from one Mac to another.
Steps to Back Up Mac With Time Machine
To make the backup task easy, we have explained the step-by-step procedure to use Time Machine in the following section.
- First of all, plug in the SSD or the hard drive to your Mac computer.
- Mac will prompt if you want to use the external drive with Time Machine, select Use as Backup Disk.
- If the message doesn’t appear, check that the external drive is formatted correctly with the correct options selected as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
- If the alert still doesn’t appear, click on System Preferences, select Time Machine, and tap on Backup Disk.
- Select the storage device you want to set up as a backup drive and click on Use Disk.
Option 2: Move Data to iCloud
If you do not have an external storage media available handy, you can move all your data to iCloud. In addition to this, if your Time Machine backup is stuck and you end up getting nothing, iCloud can be a potential option.
Using iCloud, you can move some of the important items from the Mac, as you only have 5 gigabytes of storage available. When you have stored other items from your iPhone and iPad earlier, you are left with even less storage space.
However, you can upgrade to a paid iCloud subscription that gives you access to up to 2TB of storage space which is sufficient for even business users.
Moving data to the cloud ensures the high availability of data items as you can access it on different Apple devices so long as you have an internet connection available.
Steps to Sync Data to iCloud
- Click on the Apple menu and tap System Preferences.
- Under System Preferences, select iCloud by ticking the checkbox beside it.
- Make sure you sign in to your iCloud account using your Apple ID.
- Click on Options in the iCloud
- Select all the items that you wish to move to the Apple Cloud storage, such as the Desktop folder, System Preferences, or Pages documents.
Why You Should Back Up Your Data
Amongst the many reasons, the most common situations that compel you to backup your data regularly are as follows.
- You accidentally spilled liquid on the MacBook.
- The SSD installed in your Mac turned corrupt or inaccessible.
- You want to ensure that a copy of data is available to you all the time.
- Updating the OS and wanting to securely shield your apps and documents.
- Archiving data is all you need to claim storage space on the internal drive.
- Although you sync everything in iCloud, you need to retain offsite storage.
- You want to copy the entire data to the external hard drive as you need to carry it along.
Your reason for backup data can be different, but the intent is the same, i.e., to gain access to data and restore all items in original format if you ever met with data loss.