The drive will almost certainly need reformatting. Once your hard drive has been purchased, connect it to your computer using the required interface and power it up. As for maximum size - there is no maximum size! Get the largest drive you are willing to purchase. It is listed as a "240 GB Solid State SATA Drive." In this case, a 500 GB hard drive should be the minimum considered for a bootable backup. In the above screenshot, there is only one hard drive on the system. Your system drive should be the first one listed. Choose the "Storage" tab and all connected hard drives will appear. To determine the size of your system drive, select "About this Mac" from the Apple menu at the top left of your screen. For example, if your system drive is 500 GB, the minimum size for your external should be 1 TB. As with Thunderbolt, FireWire drives are generally more "professional grade." If you have both a USB-2 and FireWire interface available to you, we definitely recommend choosing a FireWire drive over USB-2, provided you don't find the extra cost prohibitive.Īs for storage capacity, the minimum size should be twice that of your internal system drive. If this is the case, FireWire will offer much better performance but at a higher price. If you have older hardware with a FireWire interface, you will most likely have USB-2 as your only alternative. ![]() They are more expensive and typically considered "professional grade." Most consumers generally don't need Thunderbolt performance - they will be perfectly happy with a USB-3 drive.įireWire is less relevant these days. They will offer much higher performance than USB-3. Thunderbolt hard drives are considered the current top of the line. Thunderbolt is a modern, high performance interface. USB-2 (and older) drives don't offer the same level of performance but may be your only option if you have a Mac more than a few years old. USB-3 provides very good performance at a very affordable price. It should only be a concern if purchasing older hardware. This is less of an issue these days because purchasing a USB drive that does not have a USB-3 interface is very difficult. If you have a USB-3 interface, you should take advantage of it by purchasing a USB-3 drive. In general, you can expect to pay from $50 to $200 for a consumer grade drive or $150 - $500 for a professional grade drive that is capable of performing as a bootable backup for any modern Mac.Īll Macs made in the past decade support USB, thus any USB drive would work. Other factors that will influence the decision are whether you want a consumer or professional grade device and, of course, price. There are two primary considerations when making the choice: storage capacity and hardware interface. For most Macs, this requires purchasing an external hard drive. ![]() To create a bootable backup you will need an extra hard drive where the backup data will be placed. One level of redundancy is not enough - the moment you lose your primary data, your backup IS your primary and you no longer have redundancy! You cannot be too cautious when it comes to backup. It should be combined with other backup strategies to create multiple levels of redundancy. ![]() It should not be your only form of backup. This guide presents the concept of a bootable backup and how it can be used to create a redundant, bootable system. Important Note: There is no one-size-fits-all backup strategy. Lastly, it will explain how to use your bootable backup should a recovery become necessary. It will then explain some variations to the standard setup that you may want to consider. It will take you through the entire process from hard drive selection to configuring ChronoSync to perform the bootable backup. ![]() This guide explains how to clone your hard drive and make a bootable backup onto a locally attached external hard drive. If something were to happen to your primary system drive, you could easily reboot your computer from your backup drive and be up and running as if nothing ever happened. The user configuration and all data files are the same, too. It has the same operating system and application programs as your system drive. STANDARD BOOTABLE BACKUP STRATEGIES Ī bootable backup is a redundant copy of the system drive inside your computer.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |