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If you worry about data care, you ought to back up your data regularly. Backup ensures you could restore your data in case of any data loss disaster. Most of you back up your Mac SSD or HDD using Time Machine but forget to back up an external hard drive, which may have your photos, videos, documents, and other files without any copy stored elsewhere. This may become a problem if you erase that external hard drive with Disk Utility accidentally, delete files from it unintentionally, or if the drive turns corrupt unexpectedly. In such a situation, you may suffer severe data loss. Read the next sections to learn how to back up your external hard drive to prevent future data loss. 1. Back Up Your Mac External Hard Drive ManuallyWhen you’ve stored your essential files solely on the external hard drive, you can manually back up the drive to another external hard drive to avoid data loss. The backup steps are as follows:
Image: Use Command + C and Command + V Also, follow a 3-2-1 backup principle. The principal requires you to perform the following:
2. Back Up Your External Hard Drive Using Time MachineBy default, Time Machine excludes external hard drives from backup. But you can back up your external hard drive via Time Machine using the following steps:
Image: Select & Remove backup disk
Image: Add folder to exclude from the backup items From now on, Time Machine will back up the external hard drive as well, provided it is connected to your Mac at the time of automatic backup, or you manually back up using the Back Up Now option. 3. Back Up Your External Hard Drive Using Disk UtilityCloning creates a replica of the source storage medium to the destination storage medium. The clone drive helps you restore data if the original drive fails, turns corrupt, or you accidentally delete data from the drive. The process of cloning your external hard drive is as follows: Warning: Cloning performed with ‘Erase’ option selected will format the destination drive. If the destination drive contains any crucial data, save it before cloning to avoid data loss.
Image: Restore external hard drive Now the destination drive becomes the clone or backup of the source drive. Use either of the two drives to recoup from any data loss disaster. 4. Back Up Your External Hard Drive Using a Cloning SoftwareYou can find several third-party software online that offer disk cloning functionality on Mac. The necessary steps to clone (or backup) an external hard drive are as follows:
Image: Clone your drive
5. Back Up Your External Hard Drive to iCloudIf you have an iCloud drive with sufficient storage capacity, you can easily back up your external hard drive to the iCloud drive. The backup steps are as follows:
Image: Copy and paste in iCloud drive 6. Recover External Hard Drive Data Using Free Mac Data Recovery SoftwarePossibly, you don’t have a backup of your external drive. In that case, follow the data recovery steps shared next to recover lost, deleted, or missing files from the external drive.
Watch the video to execute free data recovery on Mac conveniently. *Stellar Data Recovery Free Edition for Mac is appropriate to free scan your external hard drive, free preview recoverable files, and free recover up to 1 GB of data. And to recover unlimited data, upgrade the software—either to Professional or Premium edition. ConclusionThis article focused on backing up an external hard drive to avoid permanent data loss events from such a storage medium. You learned how to:
How do I backup my entire Mac to an external hard drive Disk Utility?Back up your Mac with Time Machine. Connect an external storage device, such as a USB or Thunderbolt drive. ... . Open Time Machine preferences from the Time Machine menu in the menu bar. ... . Click Select Backup Disk.. Select the name of your disk, then click Use Disk.. How do I backup my entire computer Mac?Open System Preferences, click Time Machine, then select Back Up Automatically. Select the drive you want to use for backup, and you're all set. Back up with iCloud. Files in iCloud Drive and photos in iCloud Photos are automatically stored in iCloud and don't need to be part of your Time Machine backup.
How do I backup my Mac to an external hard drive without Time Machine?How do I backup my Mac without a Time Machine?. Launch Disk Drill on your Mac.. Select “Byte-to-byte Backup” from the left panel.. Choose the drive or partition you want to back up.. Click the “Create backup” button and select a target location where the data will be stored.. Allow the process to complete.. Can I use Disk Utility to clone Mac hard drive?Plug the external hard drive into your Mac, and launch Disk Utility. Go to the Utilities folder in Applications and double-click on Disk Utility to open it. To clone Mac hard drive Disk Utility is Apple's built-in solution.
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