backup format + drive

prime26 wrote:

I had read that I could back up Mac book to an external drive formatted as exfat. Now I read that Apple has changed its mind and you need its specific format not exfat. This is with Time Machine.

With Apple, being that the whole drive is formatted, instead of using one of my more expensive external drives, Is it possible to use a flash drive with 128 GB capacity?

Is there a way to backup all of MacBook to an external drive without formatting the whole drive with a backup and be able to retrieve that drive in case of problems with the MacBook? The drive has one partition but more could be created.

Is the easiest way to backup the Macbook to dedicate a drive to Mac, using Time Machine with Apple's format, Can I put more than one full backup on the same drive?

possible yes, recommend not necesarily— "USB flash drives" are not as reliable/stable as an external; more appropriate for short term data transfer...

? more than one full backup on the same drive...No

If you value your user data

3-2-1 Backup Strategy: three copies of your data, two different methods, and one offsite.

More than one device, more than one backup methodology.

Back up your Mac Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support

Time machine requires the entire drive in Mac-native format.

But Time Machine Creates a backup database on the backup drive. Time Machine provides FAR MORE than one full backup copy. Incremental changes are added to the Time machine backup database and can be used to re-create the saved stage as of any date&time still saved in its backup database.

Time machine works quietly and automatically in the background, without interrupting your regular work, and only saves the incremental changes (after the first full backup). Time machine backs up every connected drive that is in a Mac compatible format. it can not back up Windows format drives.

Time Machine's "claim to fame" is that it is the backup that gets done, because it does not ruin performance of the rest of the computer while doing its backup operations. You do not have to set aside a "Special Time" when you only do backups. When you need it, your Time machine Backup is much more likely to be there.

Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support

prime26 wrote:

I am used to backing up or imaging with Macrium Reflect my entire operating system on one drive more than once.

You say to employee the 321 method, but I’m having trouble with even one.

Would one of them be to use the time machine method with an external drive formatted per apple?

If so, what would two and three be and if not, what would I do instead.

I am new with Mac but tired of Window’s erratic behavior. Could you please be specific?

Macrium Reflect is a backup utility for Microsoft Windows ...?

Macrium Support

Contact us - Macrium

if in doubt search the developers website or contact their: Support/Help/FAQ/Known issues/compatibility/updates/uninstaller

Contact a third-party vendor - Apple Suppor

Contact a third-party vendor - Apple Support

third party—

ref: Back up Windows with Time Machine - Parallels Support

My opinion is flash drive are easily lost and unreliable.

The only use I make of them is bootable drives for system recovery purposes and I have six of them set up for that. I believe in redundancy here because I've learned that hard way about cards and flash drives being a [personal] bad idea.

Obviously it's your Mac and your call.

Macrium Reflect is a Windows app. Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper! are Mac apps. There are others too.

Bootable clones are becoming VERY difficult to maintain. Increasing security measures built into MacOS make is very hard to boot to arbitrary drive.

[In my opinion] because re-installing MacOS is a common debugging technique anyway, I use a fresh install of MacOS on a different drive as the initial step of recovery after a problem. I do not create clones or rely on clones after a disaster.

Restore is available with Time machine.app:

the stacked folders can be used to show the saved state of any folder, receding back, back, back in time.