Best way to back up your mac?

[jmebbk]

Costly? That depends how we each value things?
The price ($40, 38€) does not seem unreasonable to me for the peace of mind and seemingly reliable protection CCC offers.

So just CCC will be enough....?
No time machine?
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Easy to use. You can schedule automatic backups.

So if your Mac gets destroyed how will it work with CCC? Like how would you get your Mac to what it was like before?

 

[Apple_Robert]

So just CCC will be enough....?
No time machine?
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So if your Mac gets destroyed how will it work with CCC? Like how would you get your Mac to what it was like before?

Take a look at the CCC website. It will answers many of your questions.

 

[Klaatu63]

Is CCC hard to use? Like I just leave my external drive plugged in?

CCC is very easy to use, just set a time for the backup - or you can set it up to backup when you attach the drive.

 

[AlanShutko]

I sync my home directory between my two primary machines (iMac and laptop) using Unison. This lets me walk to a different machine and work on things if my laptop falls into lava.

I backup all my machines via Time Machine to a Synology NAS. Time Machine lets me keep a backup history and retrieve files in a one-off fashion if I need to. I can also do a system restore from Time Machine if I need to.

I also backup my home directory and certain other important locations to the cloud using Arq Backup. This includes certain directories that are stored on my NAS (photos, archived documents, etc). This helps protect against NAS failure and fire/theft/etc. (For example, when my old Drobo stopped recognizing its drives and Drobo Support was useless, I could give up on it and restore important things from the cloud.)

I use CCC to backup my server Mac nightly so I can reboot into the clone immediately. I don't usually use CCC on my laptop or iMac, because I keep the files across multiple machines, and because my MBP is almost never at a desk or somewhere that I would plug in an external drive. I do use CCC when I'm doing OS upgrades or taking a machine in for service.

Combined, this gives me good confidence that I can recover from various forms of failures.

 

[iBrooker]

Time machine - on multiple external 1TB HDs - they are cheap enough these days.

 

[jmebbk]

CCC is very easy to use, just set a time for the backup - or you can set it up to backup when you attach the drive.

So when I'm backing up my Mac I should select the macintosh HD right to back up?

 

[CoastalOR]

So when I'm backing up my Mac I should select the macintosh HD right to back up?

Select "macintosh HD" (or whatever your internal drive is named) for the Source. Select the external drive as the Destination. Hint: you can also drag and drop the drives to Source and Destination sections of the CCC app.

Here is a pdf of the CCC Manual (check out the "Using CCC" section)
http://bombich.scdn1.secure.raxcdn.com/sites/default/files/bulk_pdf/ccc4-documentation-en.pdf