Stethoscope on a laptop keyboard

Backing Up

Backing up is one of the most important tasks that all of us (including me) has or may have neglected to do. Backing up can be simple or complex as your needs facilitate. Simple would be getting an external hard drive and using Time Machine in Mac OS X 10.5 or later. Simply connect an external hard drive to your Mac and Time Machine will ask you if you want to use it as a Time Machine drive.

An extra level of backup security would be a combination of Time Machine for local backup along with Backblaze for offsite/online backup. This gives you the redundancy if a catastrophe strikes that destroys your computer and local backup (like a fire). You’ll still have your offsite backup available too.

For the even more paranoid… err cautious. A double backup of 2 hard drives being swapped out daily along with 2 different sources of offline backup would do the trick. The 2 drives would be swapped out daily. The 2 hard drive approach works well with the smaller 2.5 inch external hard drives. As these drives make it easy to take one with you either to work (if you’re backing up your home Mac) or home (if you’re backing up your work Mac). This way, no 2 hard drives are in the same location at the same time, greatly reducing your risk of data loss.

Don’t let the time you wish you had a backup, be the time it’s too late.

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