HT201250: Use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac

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ColAbe
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Q: Recommendations force external backup drive to use with iMac?

I'm new to Mac, moving from PC which I back up to 2 1TB USB external drives. 

Want to set up new Mac with best backup setup--any recommendations?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Dec 29, 2013 5:49 AM

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ColAbe

Q: Recommendations force external backup drive to use with iMac?

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  • by mende1,

    mende1 mende1 Dec 29, 2013 5:53 AM in response to ColAbe
    Level 10 (93,329 points)
    Desktops
    Dec 29, 2013 5:53 AM in response to ColAbe

    Welcome to Apple Support Communities

     

    What you can do is to keep your PC files on the external drive or transfer your files to your Mac.

     

    If you choose to keep the files on the external drive, get another external drive and use it to make backups of your Mac. There are different applications you can use, but as you are new to Mac, the easiest one is Time Machine, which comes with Time Machine > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427

     

    If you transfer your external drive files to the Mac, you can use that external drive to make backups, so connect the external drive and set up Time Machine by using the link above. Open System Preferences > Time Machine > Select Disk, and choose the external drive.

     

    Another popular application is Carbon Copy Cloner, that makes clones of the hard drive instead. The advantage of clones is that you can start up your Mac from them, thing that Time Machine does not allow you to do. See > http://pondini.org/TM/Clones.html