BackUp of 10.6.8

1. It means that or to use a program such as the Disk Utility, Carbon Copy Cloner, or SuperDuper to create a bootable clone. You can do either or both as you prefer.

2. Unless told not to, yes.

(119634)

Basic Backup

For some people Time Machine will be more than adequate. Time Machine is part of OS X. There are two components:

1. A Time Machine preferences panel as part of System Preferences;

2. A Time Machine application located in the Applications folder. It is

used to manage backups and to restore backups. Time Machine

requires a backup drive that is at least twice the capacity of the

drive being backed up.

3. Time Machine requires a backup drive that is at least double the

capacity of the drive(s) it backs up.

Alternatively, get an external drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):

1. Carbon Copy Cloner

2. Get Backup

3. Deja Vu

4. SuperDuper!

5. Synk Pro

6. Tri-Backup

Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files. For help with using Time Machine visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.

Although you can buy a complete external drive system, you can also put one together if you are so inclined. It's relatively easy and only requires a Phillips head screwdriver (typically.) You can purchase hard drives separately. This gives you an opportunity to shop for the best prices on a hard drive of your choice. Reliable brands include Seagate, Hitachi, Western Digital, Toshiba, and Fujitsu. You can find reviews and benchmarks on many drives at Storage Review.

Enclosures for FireWire and USB are readily available. You can find only FireWire enclosures, only USB enclosures, and enclosures that feature multiple ports. I would stress getting enclosures that use the Oxford chipsets especially for Firewire drives (911, 921, 922, for example.) You can find enclosures at places such as;

1. Cool Drives

2. OWC

3. WiebeTech

4. Firewire Direct

5. California Drives

6. NewEgg

All you need do is remove a case cover, mount the hard drive in the enclosure and connect the cables, then re-attach the case cover. Usually the only tool required is a small or medium Phillips screwdriver.

hotisland wrote:

Backup of snow lep 10.6.8
when upgrade instructions from OSx 10.6 to Yosemite say "backup your Mac". Does it mean to run Time Machine? Will that do a complete BackUp of disk and OS ?

They are making sure that - if for any reason the upgrade goes wrong - you have a backup to restore to, the way it was before you upgraded.

Yes, Time Machine backs up everything on your computer (except caches) unless you've purposely excluded certain things from it. However, do be clear that although it backs up some system files, you can't actually do an install of Snow Leopard from it - you have to use a Snow Leopard installer and then Time Machine when the installer prompts you.

Hopefully though, all will go smoothly and you won't need your backup.