I use portable hard drives for direct backups. They are SSD drives with 4 terabytes of space. Mostly Seagate, but there are a couple Lacie drives kicking around (and one that says Porsche Design on it?!?) I’ve heard of WD but don’t currently have any in the stack.
Any drive with a USB connector should be compatible. Most are pre-formatted one system or the other. The ones you are seeing with newer Mac OS, just check if the connector is compatible. If you get a PC drive, plug it in, open Disk Utility on your Mac, select the drive (be sure you select the correct drive!) and erase and reformat to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and you should be good to go.
I always erase and reformat new drives regardless, right out of the box, either Mac or PC. Gets rid of all the factory crap files that take up a few hundred megabytes. No idea what theose are, but the new disk always has more space after an erase and re-format. On occassion, I’ll swap out backup drives, especially if I get a message they are starting to delete old copies. I’ll save it for about 6 months, in case I have to go back to it, then erase/reformat and put it back in the stack. Eventually I should invest in a device checker to make sure the SSD system isn’t failing. If anyone knows a good one, would save me the trouble of researching that.
I have a seagate that works well with both my Dell XPS and MacBook air (high sierra)
the drive is formatted for both platforms, 1tb and has software that i downloaded instead of having to format the HD to read both operating systems.
I have a toshiba hd drive that does the same thing without installing any software.
High sierra really improved since the program was launched. Safari is faster and the OSX improves the battery life if you have a MacBook. Your programs need to be 64bit, I run CS4 on high sierra with no problems, although In Design will not launch.
High Sierra is pre-Mojave, and both are Pre-Catalina.
If you udpate to Catalina, then your 32 bit software won’t run. You can check what software that is by going to the Apple menu >about this mac>System Report>Software>Applications and looking at the column 64-bit yes-or-no (you may have to shrink the width of other columns for it to be visible.)
Anything that says no, you can’t run on Catalina.
You can run a PC-formatted drive on a Mac. You can’t run a Mac-formatted drive on a PC.
I believe the Mac Utilities still offers the option of formatting for PC so you can cross-platform if you need to do that. But I always format my Time Machine backup device as Mac.
This has been so helpful, thanks.
I got my portable drive and I’m excited to get this thing started. I want to just do a regular back up, no time machine for now. But I’m wondering, if I back up all my files, and then successfully update to a more recent OS, will that mean I have to reregister and redownload all my Adobe software? Or will everything look pretty much the same and be in its usual place?
I already backed up all my files onto an external hard drive, but I’m thinking about getting another external HD for Time Machine. So if anything goes wrong it’ll bring everything back to my Macbook Pro like it was? Including the old OS? Would I need to get an external hard drive with more than 1TB?
And Catalina, the latest OS is the one I have to watch out for, so I should eventually just update to the one before it, right?
rather than explaining how these Time machines back up work,
what i have is a time machine back up of these OSXs on two xHD drive
Snow Leopard, updated 2019 45gb
Mountain Lion updated 2019 120 GB
El Capitan updated 2018 35 GB
High Sierra 2020 current
on 1 HD with a ciopy of important art work i manually update.
i don’t know why i have these OSX ready but since we can do this, I did!
High Sierra isn’t current.
Mojave is.
Mojave is just before Catalina.
I don’t know if you can still download and load Mojave.
If so, it’ll be buried deep on Apple’s website.
I just keep Time Machine up to date to cover a current crash.
When I download a new system update, I burn a boot drive onto a thumbnail drive. That way I have the OS down the road even if Apple decides to hide it. And, I can use the current boot drive if I need to do a diagnostic of my hard drive.
You’ll have to look up online how to format a boot drive.
Time Machine will reload your entire system from the data file you select. It does a complete overwrite if you have to go backwards. So be aware that if you did some work in the new OS before deciding to go back to the old OS that you make a copy of that work. A reformat from Time Machine will erase anything after the data file date you select. Including emails.
A Time Machine reformat should only be used when all else fails. Exhaust all other options before pushing that button.
I have a total of 500 GB with a little over 300 GB of it used. So I ordered another external HD of 1 TB, the same as the one I just got, solely for time machine. That way I don’t have to reinstall Adobe and my other apps.
Sorry to be dense, but making a back up using Time Machine and an external hard drive isn’t the same as burning a boot drive to a thumbnail drive?
I have two external hard drives right now. One as a regular back up of all my files, and the other which I made using the Time Machine option.
But I should also burn the current OS I’m using to a flash drive, correct? Because if I updated to say, Mojave right now, and something bad happened, Time Machine alone wouldn’t bring me back to Yosemite?
I’ve already looked up on YouTube how to do that. Just find the OS that I’m currently using in the App Store, and download it to my Macbook, find it in Applications, etc etc. But I just want to make sure I understand all this.
Time Machine and a boot drive aren’t the same thing. They are used differently.
If you decide to step back to an older OS, Time Machine will do you fine.
When I do an upgrade to the next kittycat/mountain/desert/island, I also create a Boot Disk to archive the latest OS. Once the next upgrade comes out, you have a hard time finding older versions on Apple’s website, should you need one.
The good thing about the boot drive is you can select it as a hard drive if you can’t start your computer from your regular internal drive. Yes, your computer will run from an OS on a flash drive, though it won’t be at all peppy. On start up, just hold the option key until it gives you a choice of startup drives (if it doesn’t even do that, you better bring it to a “genius.”) Using the boot drive allows you to diagnose major issues on your internal drive to see if they are repairable. And since your internal hard drive is not mounted, more of the utility sequences are available to run on it to fix it.
I was about to bite the bullet right now and upgrade to Mojave but I just wanted to double check compatibility with CC 2017, the latest version I have, and apparently there’s some issues with it. If I want to upgrade and be able to use CC with no problems then I’ll have to update all my CC apps presumably.
Ok, I clicked “continue ->” and it’s grayed out but nothing’s happening. ??
So…in the mean time I’m looking up security software apps. If I can’t get my OS updated, maybe I should get something like MalwareBytes?
What OS are you running now (too lazy to go back through the thread.)
If you are too far back, you might not be able to go directly from whatever to Mojave. You may have to do an Apple patch first, so look it up. WhateverOS to Mojave.
You want that time machine backup. That would be how you restore your system. A boot disk just has the minimal software on it to load a new OS, but all your programs might be toast depending on how you do that. The Time Machine backup is a direct mirror of your machine and will restore it to that particular moment in time. I tend to do the TM archive, then eject the TM drive just in case something dumb happens during the system upgrade. In the distant past there was an update or two that erased or corrupted external attached drives.
A simple OS update should mean all of your working software still works (except for the Catalina killing 32-bit, those won’t work.) Since you must have a CC subscription, it’s simple enough to update your Adobecrap. Takes about 5 minutes (or more depending on your internet connection.)
I’m running on Yosemite. I guess upgrading to the next OS, El Capitan is the best approach. I’ll look up how to an “Apple patch.”
I have two external hard drives, one with all my files copy and pasted, and the other that has the Time Machine back up. So I just have to make sure that if I want to get the latest back via Time Machine, do it, but make sure I eject it before proceeding to update my OS.
So all my software will work after the OS update. Would that also mean that I don’t need to sign in again? It’ll be running just like before, I’ll still be signed in, but the only thing I’ll need to do is update the individual apps (Ps, Ai, Id, etc)?
No one will ever tell you your software will all work. Every update carries some risk that you will have to update software and drivers. That’s why at work we still only have one machine on Catalina. Waiting for peripheral software to catch up before doing the other 3 work stations.
And with Catalina, if it isn’t 64-bit, no it will not run.
As for the “apple patch” I mentioned, just do a search for “can I upgrade from (your version) to Mojave.” Or sometimes just attempting to do the upgrade will trigger apple to offer an upgrade patch or other suggestions for success all on it’s own. It may or may not exist.
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