Backup Mac OS X. Forget Time Machine. Setting up a reliable backup of your Mac Make a backup of your entire macbook system

In order not to lose a configuration dear to your heart Mac settings OS X and a set of installed and correctly configured programs, you need to make backup copies of your operating system from time to time.

Despite the reliability and stability, MAC OS X may still “fall” due to incorrect user actions. And at the most inopportune moment. But no one wants to lose their personal, so dear to their hearts configuration of settings and a set of installed and correctly configured programs...

To avoid ending up in this situation, it is imperative to make backup copies of your operating system from time to time.

Unlike the numerous difficulties and prohibitions associated with cloning living beings, no one bothers you to create an exact copy of your Mac OS X on another piece of hardware.

Cloning animals is difficult, time-consuming and illegal, but OS- simple, fast and, in a sense, even necessary

So, let's create our “apple” sheep Dolly.

Time Machine

There are many ways. The first option for backing up your system is built into MAC OS X itself, starting with version 10.5 and later. This Time Machine.

Time Machine in automatic mode creates backup copies of the system and all important files on an external hard drive and must “go back in time” to restore system files in its original form at the moment when you need it. If you enable Time Machine in System Preferences, it will offer to create “backups” (spare copies) and ask for a directory to save them.

But Time Machine has a couple of drawbacks. The first of them is that it eats up disk space very quickly. Although not completely. After the first backup is created, Time Machine continues to save only the changed files.

The second problem is that automatic copying interferes with normal operation, starting on its own.

To at least somehow level this out, let’s turn to an additional application that allows you to configure Time Machine itself.

This is TimeMachineEditor. You can download it. TimeMachineEditor will allow you to more flexibly customize the schedule of your procedures. For example, hourly on Mondays, daily after work, and so on.

Using this utility, we increase the intervals of “time jumps”, “curbing the appetite” of Time Machine itself, and adjust its backup sessions to a schedule convenient for us.

Thus, Time Machine has the ability to backup your system during various failures and “roll back” back, but it is cumbersome and not very convenient for this purpose. Including the “backup” disk is not bootable and requires starting from the Mac Os X installation disk to restore.

Disk Utility

Another way to “grow” your “clone sheep” is to use a standard disk utility. By default, it is located in the Applications/Utilites folder.

We launch this application and select the name of your system drive in the menu on the left, for example, X. Now drag the icon of your startup disk (X) into the “Source” line window, and drag the disk icon into the “Destination” line. which will save your clone, for example, Backup. This can be an external FireWire or USB disk, as well as an internal HDD or a flash drive of sufficient capacity.

If you need to pre-format this directory, switch to Erase. For external media, the format does not matter (as a rule, this is Mac OS Extended Journaled), but for hard drive on mac with Intel processor, it is preferable to select “GUID Partition Table”.

Now click “Restore” and enter your password. Go.

After some time, another “Dolly the Sheep” will appear - an absolute copy of your system disk.

Now, if your Mac OS X crashes fatally, and no “cure” will help, you can repeat this procedure in reverse, replacing the damaged system with your saved copy.

To do this, you need to “start” from the backup system itself: turn on your Mac while holding down the option key, then select the disk with the ready-made clone as bootable (in our example, Backup) and perform the recovery procedure in reverse order.

But before you do this, you must definitely try to “cure” the damaged system with the same “Disk Utility”.

Select the “damaged” disk in the left menu (in our example it is X and in the “First Aid” section do the following procedures: “Verify Disk Permission” and, if necessary, do “Restore access rights” ( Repair Disk Permission) and, accordingly, “Verify Disk” - “Repair Disk”.

The familiar OnyX program can also provide irreplaceable help here.

Despite the ease of cloning using Disk Utility, this method has one drawback. Absolutely all information, without exception, is copied. What if we are talking about a small spare disk, or even a flash drive? The files may simply not fit on them.

What is the choice?

There are many options for cloning your Dolly the Sheep. Up to use command line according to instructions from Apple itself. “Mere mortals” may find other utilities more accessible, such as SuperDuper!, Clone X, Tri-BACKUP or MacTuneUp. In my opinion, the most advanced among them, convenient and at the same time absolutely free, is called Carbon Copy Cloner.

Carbon Copy Cloner is produced by Bombich Software. You can download it. Voluntary donations to developers (Donate) are welcome.

Mike Bombich, the creator of this wonderful program, in an interview with a popular American site, especially noted the “highlights” of his brainchild: the speed of the cloning process, the ability to selectively transfer data and additional protection against accidental actions in the form of a special list of all possible candidate disks with a request their ID (Unique Identifier).

Carbon Copy Cloner allows you to create a full or partial clone of your system, moving it to another disk or saving it as a .dmg (disk image). IN latest versions Carbon Copy Cloner, targeting the Snow Leopard system, supports compression in file system HFS+, displaying the sizes of folders and drives in the decimal system has become noticeably more convenient, copying speed has increased, and Time Machine databases are ignored if they have already been created.

Carbon Copy Cloner can be very useful when upgrading a system disk and replacing it with a more capacious one. It is enough to transfer the previously rejected system to a new disk.

Before you start creating a backup copy of your system, it would be a good idea to first clean out all the “garbage” that has accumulated on the system using the OnyX utility and put it in order.

Install Carbon Copy Cloner and launch it. If necessary during operation, enter your usual password and unlock the “lock” at the bottom left.

At the top left in the Source Disk menu, select the one from which your system will be cloned (in our example, this is drive X).

Top right Target Disk ( Target drive) select the one on which the “twin” of your MAC OS X will be saved. (In our case - X2. It is important to note that this utility has the ability to record the system in .dmg format and even to remote computer over the network.

Now let's take a look at another feature of Carbon Copy Cloner: create special filters that allow you to exclude some files from the clone based on their extension, for example .mkv or .avi, and then movies of this format will not be cloned. This will help save space.

In order not to complicate your life, let's try to manually do some preliminary procedures to make the spare system easier and speed up the cloning process.

It is not necessary to save your entire media library to a system backup: digital photos, music, films, supporting documentation, and so on. And also work files that can weigh more than one gigabyte. You can also refuse "heavy programs" if there is not enough space on the backup disk.

Find Items to be copied in the left window and look carefully, unchecking some of the checkboxes opposite unnecessary files. If they are not stored haphazardly on your disk, then most likely they will be in the Users/macuser (your username) directories. For example, in this configuration we disable the Calibrie Library and the books it contains. After all, they are already recorded on a separate DVD.

Then in the section on the right Cloning options (Clone mode) select Incremental backups of selected items (incremental “backup” of selected items) this dynamic mode will allow you to transfer only the changed data the next time you update the version of the spare system. The checkbox below Delete items that don’t exist on the source in synchronization mode will not “take with you” old programs and other files that you have not used for a long time.

Protect root-level items on the target will keep you in superuser mode if you are one. And finally, Archive modified and deleted items will allow you to create a separate archive of modified and deleted files. In my opinion, it is better to disable this so as not to waste time.

If Carbon Copy Cloner “gives the go-ahead” - This volume will be bootable, - which means there is enough space on the spare disk or flash drive, and this volume will become bootable, you can start.

All made by you presets will be saved if you click Save Task if you are going to clone your drive on a specific schedule, like in Time Machine. But this is hardly useful for creating a backup Mac OS X.

Click Clone.

How many files are stored on your system drive? It turns out tens of thousands. so the process may take some time: from fifteen minutes to an hour or two. It depends on the amount of information.

And so it ended. Now we have two “Dolly sheep” - mirrored Mac OS X. And you can be sure that you will not be left with nothing at the most inopportune moment.

The problem of data loss was relevant 10 years ago, it is now and will be in the future. Lose everything necessary information can be done in various ways: by damaging the media due to virus infection or by accidentally deleting them. There are not many ways to restore information, and restoring from a backup is considered the most reliable. What's the point - you protect yourself and make a backup copy of the necessary data, when everything is in order with it, but when an unexpected problem occurs, you simply restore it from the backup copy. There is no need to think that creation backups it's heavy handmade, not at all, today there are quite a lot of programs that will do everything for you; once you set up such a program, you can forget about it and remember only when you need to restore something. Mac OS already has a similar program built into it for backing up data and it’s called Time Machine.

In order to perform a backup (also called backup) using Time Machine, you need OS X 10.5 Leopard or higher + external media where the backup will be performed (this can be external HDD, connected via USB, Thunderbolt or FireWire, network drive, AirPort Time Capsule or other similar Apple devices). Next, you need to decide on the size of the external media, the calculation is as follows: The occupied space on the MAC OS hard drive multiplied by two, i.e. If you have 50 GB of disk space, then you only need to allocate 100 GB of space for backup. To see how much space you have on your hard drive, click “Finder” - “Programs” - “Utilities”.

Then select Disk Utility.

Select your main disk and below you will see information about how much disk space is occupied.

In my case, about 60 GB will be needed for backup. The backup process will look like this, the first backup will be “Full”, i.e. the entire OS along with the data and will take up the same amount of space as occupied by MAC OS; all subsequent backups will only back up changed data and will require significantly less space. Time Machine stores:
- Hourly copies for the last 24 hours;
- Daily backups for the last month;
- Weekly backups for all other months of work.

As soon as there is not enough space on the external storage device, the old data will be overwritten by new ones.

From theory, I propose to move on to practice, connect the media on which you will make a backup, go to “Finder” - “Programs” - “Time Machine”.

In the window that opens, select "Select backup disk."

Select the media to back up to. If you wish, you can password-protect the backup; to do this, check the “Encrypt copies” checkbox. This procedure is optional and is only needed to protect your backup from outsiders.

If there is any information on this media, it must be transferred, since Time Machine will delete all information on it and format the media in Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

If necessary, you can exclude some folders from the backup; to do this, click the "Options" button, click on the "plus" and indicate those folders that do not need to be backed up.

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Warranty and responsibility

A guarantee must be given for any repairs. Everything is described on the website and in the documents. The guarantee is self-confidence and respect for you. A 3-6 month warranty is good and sufficient. It is needed to check quality and hidden defects that cannot be detected immediately. You see honest and realistic terms (not 3 years), you can be sure that they will help you.

Half the success in Apple repair is the quality and reliability of spare parts, so a good service works directly with suppliers, there are always several reliable channels and your own warehouse with proven spare parts for current models, so you don’t have to waste extra time.

Free diagnostics

This is very important and has already become a rule of good manners for service center. Diagnostics is the most difficult and important part of the repair, but you don't have to pay a penny for it, even if you don't repair the device based on its results.

Service repairs and delivery

Good service We value your time, which is why we offer free shipping. And for the same reason, repairs are carried out only in the workshop of a service center: they can be done correctly and according to technology only in a prepared place.

Convenient schedule

If the Service works for you, and not for itself, then it is always open! absolutely. The schedule should be convenient to fit in before and after work. Good service works on weekends and holidays. We are waiting for you and working on your devices every day: 9:00 - 21:00

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If there are always several engineers waiting for you for each type of equipment, you can be sure:
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Using macOS backup, you can avoid problems such as data loss due to drive failure or system problems that cannot be fixed.

Anything can happen - unsuccessful system update, disk damage, software and system errors, or there will be a need for a previously configured and saved system. In this guide, you will learn how to create backup copies of macOS, protecting yourself from the loss of important data and other problems.

Creating a Backup Using Time Machine

To create a backup in Time Machine you need external drive connected to the computer, for example a USB flash drive of sufficient capacity.

Time Machine automatically performs hourly backups for the last 24 hours, daily, monthly, and weekly for all past months. As the disk becomes full, previously created copies will be replaced.

Connect the external drive to your Mac, go to System Preferences and open " Time Machine".

Click " Select backup disk".

Select the external drive, check the box " Encrypt copies" (to ensure backup security) and click the " button Use disk".

Create a password that will be used to encrypt your drive.

Important . If you forget your password, restoring your backups will be impossible.

If the drive is not properly formatted, you will be prompted to erase it.

After which, Time Machine will begin periodically creating backup copies of your system.

If you need to disable automatic backups, simply uncheck the " Create backups automatically".

If necessary, you can start the backup manually by selecting " Create a backup now".

And also, view the backup status, stop the backup, enter Time Machine and open settings.

Backup to iCloud

Open " System Settings "and come in" iCloud".

Mark the data for which you need to create a backup copy.

Don't forget to look into " Options".

Now you can protect your data from loss and restore it when necessary.

The problem of data loss was relevant 10 years ago, it is now and will be in the future. You can lose all the necessary information in various ways: by damaging the media, due to infection with viruses, or by accidentally deleting them. There are not many ways to restore information, and restoring from a backup is considered the most reliable. What's the point - you protect yourself and make a backup copy of the necessary data, when everything is in order with it, but when an unexpected problem occurs, you simply restore it from the backup copy. You don’t need to think that creating backup copies is hard manual work, not at all, today there are quite a lot of programs that will do everything for you, once you set up such a program, you can forget about it and remember only when you need something restore. Mac OS already has a similar program built into it for backing up data and it’s called Time Machine.

In order to perform a backup (also called backup) using Time Machine, you need OS X 10.5 Leopard or higher + external media where the backup will be performed (this can be an external HDD connected via USB, Thunderbolt or FireWire, network drive, AirPort Time Capsule or other similar Apple devices). Next, you need to decide on the size of the external media, the calculation is as follows: The occupied space on the MAC OS hard drive multiplied by two, i.e. If you have 50 GB of disk space, then you only need to allocate 100 GB of space for backup. To see how much space you have on your hard drive, click “Finder” - “Programs” - “Utilities”.

Then select Disk Utility.

Select your main disk and below you will see information about how much disk space is occupied.

As soon as there is not enough space on the external storage device, the old data will be overwritten by new ones.

From theory, I propose to move on to practice, connect the media on which you will make a backup, go to “Finder” - “Programs” - “Time Machine”.

In the window that opens, select "Select backup disk."

If there is any information on this media, it must be transferred, since Time Machine will delete all information on it and format the media in Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

If necessary, you can exclude some folders from the backup; to do this, click the "Options" button, click on the "plus" and indicate those folders that do not need to be backed up.