Hard Disc Backup

Time Machine is an automated process. Just plug in your new, external hard drive and when the Mac offers to use it for Time Machine, just click yes. Everything from then on is done automatically. The following instructions apply to making an alternative (or preferably an additional) backup to Time Machine.

A backup can be just a copy of all the files you've created or it can include all the files on your hard disc which is known as a clone. The advantage of making a clone on an external drive is that if your normal hard drive fails, you can start your Mac from the external clone.

Note that you cannot make a clone just by dragging all the files across from your hard disc to the external disc as some files are hidden so we don't "mess" with them!. You need software to do this for you.

Alternative procedures

• You can clone your hard drive every time, allowing the new clone to overwrite the old one.
• You can make an 'incremental' clone - i.e. the software will only copy the files which have changed since the last backup. Saves a lot of time.

Partitions

Your external drive can be split into partitions which act as if they were separate drives

• You can have one partition and overwrite it with each successive backup.
• You could have two or more partitions (if the drive is large enough) and alternate them so that you have a recent and an older version of your files available.