Figuring Out the Best Backup Guidelines for Your Mac

Backing up your data is always a good practice to overcome data loss and some of us even follow this golden rule.

However, have you ever thought if you are using the proper tool or following the right approach to back up the data? Is the method for backing up the invaluable files and folders efficient enough to prevent us from devastating situations of machine crash or accidental deletion of data?

Well, to some extent, but anything that is performed with proper planning and guidelines is more helpful. Keeping this in mind, let us figure out some guidelines for backing up Mac so that we can make sure; we will not face data loss in any case:

• ORGANIZE what you want to backup: With time, your Mac hard drive gets cluttered with data, some of which is crucial, while some useless. Therefore, before backing up a hard drive partition or even an entire hard drive, it is essential to make sure whether that data is useful or not. Useless data must be discarded from being backed up; as it unnecessarily eats up the space and even increases the size of your backup.
• Select the accurate STORAGE MEDIUM: Gone are the days of CDs and DVDs, especially for using them as your backup data storage medium. It is recommended to use portable drives like external hard drives or pen drives for maintaining your backup. Also, ensure that your storage medium should have storage capacity greater than your need.
• If using optical media for backup, then REPLACE them REGULARLY: Since optical data storage devices like CDs, DVDs, etc get corrupt with time, it is suggested not to use them. However, if in case you are using them, then it is recommended to replace them on regular basis. That means; replace your optical media with a new disk after taking old disk’s backup on it at least after 6 months.
• Experts say that you should have MORE than ONE COPY of your BACKUP: People generally think that by creating one backup copy of their data, they have safeguarded themselves from data loss, which is not true! Experts say that even backup drive too can fail. Therefore, they suggest maintaining more than one copy of backup and that too on different drives.
• Maintain REGULAR BACKUP: Taking backup of your precious data only for one time is not efficient enough for preventing data loss; instead it is suggested to take backups on regular basis. You should be diligent in taking backups; like take it daily or weekly at least.
• Keep the understanding of BACKUP OPTIONS available for you: Before taking back up, it is suggested to know what backup options are available for you. If you are using Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and later, then you have an in-built option i.e. ‘Time Machine’ for backup. With ‘Time Machine’ all you need to do is to attach an external drive to your Mac and tell TM to use this drive and it will automatically backup everything even including system files. However, if you have earlier versions of Mac OS X that do not have Time Machine, then you can use a professional drive clone tool. A non-Apple drive clone utility creates the bootable backup of your hard drive that can easily be used in various situations of data loss including unbootable Mac.