Acronis True Image Vs Time Machine

To many of us, backing up a Mac ways setting up Time Motorcar to make incremental backups and signing upwards to various iCloud services and then that we can keep copies of photos, music, files and more in the cloud.

Simply, while Time Machine and iCloud are great resources, they aren't perfect, and relying on them solitary to continue your data safety is a mistake that could have disastrous consequences.

An ideal strategy consists of at least two split up backup schedules, with at least 1 of those backing up to a bulldoze that'southward stored offsite. At the very least, if you use Time Machine to back up to an external difficult bulldoze or network device, you should also have another tool running regular backups to a different bulldoze.

That means buying a backup awarding and using it, before yous lose information. At that place are a number of different options when information technology comes to choosing backup software.

Regular backups

Many options are focused solely on making backing up your Mac regularly as easy as as possible. Apple's own Time Car, which is included with macOS, is an instance of this kind of solution.

Clones

Some apps are focused on creating clones of your hard drive and offer incremental backup as an extra feature.

However, over the last few versions of macOS Apple tree has been making changes to make it more secure. One of the consequences of those changes is that is harder for third-party applications that need deep access to the system to work. I example of this is the introduction of the Signed Organization Volume in Big Sur. Copies of the Signed Organisation Volume are non bootable without a cryptographic seal applied by Apple. That means that the old way of creating bootable clones no longer works and developers have had to notice ways to work with and around Apple's new fashion of doing things.

The cyberspace upshot is that, depending on which version of macOS you're running and whether you lot have an Intel or Apple silicon Mac, bootable clones don't always work. Equally one developer told us, "it'south a bit hit and miss". There is no single solution to the problem, currently. Our reviews of tools hither that create bootable clones should be read in that context.

Synchronize

A third category, represented in our round-up by ChronoSync, allows you to synchronise folders on your Mac with another drive or computer on a regular basis. Some FTP management applications also let you to synchronise folders with FTP or WebDAV servers.

Backup offsite

Finally, there are online services that will store your data on their servers, providing a secure offsite backup. When you initially sign upward for an online service, the first backup will take a while, maybe several days.

Just once you've completed that, each subsequent run only copies files that have changes and so volition have much less fourth dimension and bandwidth. Almost of these services too permit you to control how much bandwidth they apply so you should never detect that they get in the way of you working.

Best way to support a Mac

Of the apps and services we expect at hither, Go Backup Pro is a unproblematic and inexpensive fill-in tool, while ChronoSync, Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper allow you to run incremental backups, through they're each focused on other tasks. The 3 online fill-in tools, Backblaze, Carbonite and IDrive all have merits and of those iii, Backblaze edges it.

Nonetheless, overall, for a combination of ease of utilise, features and the ability to combine local backups with fill-in to the cloud, the outstanding option is Acronis Cyber Protect Home Role.

Best backup software for Mac

Acronis Cyber Protect Home Part

Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office

Acronis is a name well known in the Windows world, only less so to Mac users.

Cyber Protect Domicile Office is the new name for Acronis True Image and is its personal backup solution. It supports bankroll upwardly your data to a local disk, Acronis' ain cloud-based service, or a network-attached storage device. The latter makes it good option for anyone with a NAS that doesn't back up Apple's Time Motorcar.

Yous'll demand to set up an account with Acronis to apply its, simply you can requite Cyber Protect Home Function a spin without signing upwards for its paid-for service or fifty-fifty providing payment details, by using the gratis trial to back up to a local bulldoze or network disk.

The main reason for the proper name change from True Prototype, which was called to show that the fill-in tool creates a 'truthful paradigm' of the disk it's backing up, is that it now goes across just backing upwardly your disk. If backing up files is one role of the data protection equation, then the other is protecting those files, wherever they reside, from cyber-assault, and that's what Cyber Protect Home Office is designed to do. It will scan existing data for malware, monitor files yous interact with online, detect ransomware and cryptojacking attacks, and perform assessments of the vulnerability of your data to being compromised.

In addition to the security features, Cyber Protect Abode Office now allows you to backup Office 365 files to Acronis Cloud, clone your startup disk (either a bootable clone or a compressed image), and synchronise files locally or with cloud storage. It also allows you to create what it calls a Survival Kit – a bootable disk with all your system, or a segmentation, and file backup.

Cyber Protect Home Office is very straightforward to utilise. Its interface is about as straightforward and friendly as they come. The first fourth dimension you open it, your Mac is selected as the source. Click the Destination button to choose whether to back upwardly to Acronis Cloud, a local bulldoze or a NAS box.

If yous don't want to create an image of your entire Mac, click on the source box to choose files and folders to back up. From hither, you can also dorsum up external disks, a mobile device to your Mac, or your social media accounts to Acronis Cloud.

Click on the settings icon and you tin schedule regular backups, exclude files, encrypt backups or delete old backups.

Pricing starts at £34.99/$49.99 per year per reckoner, but that doesn't include cloud storage. If you want to use Acronis Deject, you'll pay a yearly subscription ranging from £62.99/$89.99 for one computer and 500 GB of cloud storage to £149.99/$209.99 for five computers and 1TB storage. Additional storage costs around £30/$30/yr/TB.

Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office combines the best of local and online backup tools and offers lots of other features, such as protection from malware and other online threats. It'south not cheap, and the removal of the one-off payment choice makes it more expensive to become started. However, information technology'southward comprehensive, like shooting fish in a barrel to apply and well-worth considering.

Get Backup Pro (v3.6)

Get Backup Pro's main allure is its flexibility.

It tin back up your entire hard bulldoze or only the folders you specify. Y'all use information technology to create bootable clones of your Mac's startup drive, and to synchronise files and folders on different drives. Backups tin can be compressed to save space and y'all tin choose whether to back up to a disk paradigm or on a per file basis.

Scheduled backups take identify in the background and Get Backup Pro shuts itself down once information technology's finished. And if the worst happens and you can't restart your Mac subsequently a crash, yous can restore to any Mac, fifty-fifty if it doesn't have Get Backup Pro installed.

Get Backup Pro doesn't have its own cloud service, so if you lot want to fill-in online besides every bit locally, you'll demand to practise that with a third-party tool. It will, however, back up to network volumes. Y'all can choose to automatically mountain network volumes when a backup schedule starts, but y'all tin can't specify files and folders to back up to a network disk: you must support everything.

Mayhap Get Fill-in Pro's greatest strength is its simplicity. Press the + in the sidebar to create a new project, then as soon equally you've named it the settings window opens. Once you chosen options from there and confirmed them, all that's left to do is add files.

You lot tin can do that by dragging folders into the application's main window, by pressing a push labelled files+, or by choosing a template. It's all very intuitive. If you demand to offset a backup manually, there's a large playhead button at the lesser of the main window; click it and the selected backup will start.

There'south a free trial. A single license is $nineteen.99 (approx £15) or you tin can get a family pack for up to 5 Macs for $35.99 (approx £28).

ChronoSync

Don't be fooled by its proper name. While ChronoSync has its roots in file synchronisation and still focuses on that, it's a robust, characteristic-filled and highly configurable fill-in tool too.

As yous'd await, you can manually run backups or schedule them and yous can dorsum upward to a local difficult drive or NAS box. ChronoSync also supports backing upward to Google Cloud and Amazon S3 storage.

You can use it to support ane remote location to another using SFTP and even fix the location to exist an iPhone or iPad using the optional InterConneX app. If you desire to back up files and folders to another Mac, you can do that also.

Backups are incremental, but ChronoSync doesn't just bank check the contents of a file for changes. If metadata has altered since the final backup, that will be reflected too. And backed-up files are copied to a temporary file and checked for integrity before the file on the destination volume is replaced with the new version.

ChronoSync can create two types of bootable clone: standard and mirrored. The former creates a bootable arrangement on the destination volume, leaving other files on the volume intact. Mirror replaces the unabridged contents of the destination book with files from the source.

ChronoSync's interface is clogged of options and that in itself may be plenty to put you off if all you want it is a simple backup tool: Get Backup Pro or Acronis True Paradigm are more straightforward options. However, if you need both synchronisation across multiple Macs and backup, it'southward worth persevering.

ChronoSync costs $49.99 (approx £38). There is a 15 solar day fully functional trial or you could purchase ChronoSync Limited $24.99 (approx £xix), a cut price version of the complete ChronoSync software, which allows you to sync and backup files locally, merely doesn't back up deject backup or cloning your Mac's boot bulldoze. You can download ChronoSync Express from the App Shop hither.

Backblaze

Backblaze is an online service that allows yous to back up your Mac to its servers automatically or according to a schedule you lot set.

In one case you create an account and select your program (there's a xxx-day free trial, too), you download the Mac app and go started. Backblaze is focused on simplicity, so it automatically chooses what to back upwards. That includes the contents of your Documents, Pictures, Movies and Music folders, just excludes your Applications binder. Backblaze besides excludes some file types from being backed up, including .dmg disk images – that restriction tin be switched off, however.

Backups are kept for 30 days, so you tin can restore from whatever that ran during that time. And, as you would expect, backups are incremental and so simply files that have changed since information technology last ran are copied. Data is encrypted and yous can optionally add together a six-digit passcode to provide an additional layer of security.

When it comes to restoring your information, you have 3 options: you lot can restore via Backblaze's web interface or y'all can have files sent to you on a USB stick or hard drive for an additional fee. And there's a 100% refund if you return the USB stick or hard bulldoze within 30 days, though you lot'll have to pay shipping and taxes.

Y'all can view private files and choose which ones to download. And you tin can view and share backed upwards files on an iPhone or iPad with the Backblaze mobile app.

The Locate your Computer service tracks your Mac's location to assist you find it if it'south stolen and, if it'southward still running backups, tell you its electric current IP address and show you recently backed-up data.

Backblaze's user interface comprises a menu bar item and a Arrangement Preferences pane. However, that pane is more like a fully fledged application, with options to exclude files, add folders and disks to the backup, and throttle bandwidth. It's simple and very Mac-similar.

If you only demand to back up one Mac, and specially if you want to back up external disks, Backblaze's simplicity and price give it the edge over Carbonite and IDrive.

With Backblaze you lot can back up your Mac for $7 (approx £v) a month or $lxx/yr (approx £53), data is stored in secure data centres and two-gene hallmark adds an extra level of security.

IDrive

lDrive is some other online fill-in service. Yet, information technology differs from both Backblaze and Carbonite in a number of ways.

Firstly, it has a gratis tier – you can back up 5GB without paying anything. After that, though, information technology's more expensive than either of its competitors featured here.

Currently, the annual charge for the Personal tier is $59.62 (approx £46) for the first year and $79.fifty/year (approx £61) after that, only that just allows yous to backup 5TB of data, while Backblaze and Carbonite allow unlimited data. Nevertheless, that 5TB can be spread across multiple computers, whereas Backblaze and Carbonite limit you to ane computer.

Also, if you prefer to restore by having information physically shipped to you, lDrive provides that for free for the start restore each year – though if you lot're outside the U.s. you'll have to pay for the aircraft.

Like Backblaze, lDrive also allows you to back up external difficult drives. Fifty-fifty with external drives backing up, information technology'southward unlikely most people will alienation the 5TB limit – begetting in mind that you're non backing upwardly applications or system files.

Features like Rewind and Snapshots allow you to restore from before versions of files or snapshots of the complete information set. And all data is encrypted, with the option to set your ain private encryption primal.

lDrive'south user interface makes using it very straightforward. Your Desktop, Documents, Music and Pictures folders are automatically selected for backup, along with the contents of ~/Library/Mail.

To add together other folders, click 'Change' at the lesser of the window – that's not exactly intuitive. You can add videos to the fill-in, but locating them in lDrive'south interface takes a great bargain of doing.

Both scheduling and restoring are straightforward, all the same. As is choosing a local bulldoze every bit the destination for a backup in place of lDrive's servers.

lDrive's free tier and the power to spread your data allocation in the paid tiers across multiple computers makes it attractive. Overall, though, it'due south expensive for a single auto.

Carbon Copy Cloner vi

Carbon Copy Cloner 6

Carbon Copy Cloner is primarily a tool for creating bootable clones of your Mac'south startup drive, hence its name. All the same, it has evolved to become a great deal more that and at present offers features that are a match for the best backup tools. In that location's also a new progress indicator and a watch folder tool that allows you to specify a folder to be watched so that equally presently every bit its contents inverse, it's backed up.

You lot can back upwards your Mac, or files and folders on information technology, to a local drive or one on a network. Backups tin can be scheduled to run at set times or triggered by events, such as plugging in a drive. And, as yous would wait, backups are incremental, replacing only the files on the destination that accept changed on the source since the last time.

Version vi added a bunch of new features including a new snapshot navigator, a new and faster file copier, the ability to break backups and an improved dashboard for the menu bar item.

Backup sets are managed using what Carbon Copy Cloner calls Tasks. A task could be cloning your unabridged difficult drive or, for instance, backing upwards your iTunes library or Documents binder.

Tasks can be scheduled individually or grouped and run simultaneously. You can even easy concatenation tasks to create a sophisticated backup routine. Tasks can exist viewed in the Task History window and y'all can filter past task proper name, source, destination or run appointment.

Carbon Re-create Cloner is, for the most part, very easy to use, and if the hand holding becomes an irritant, you can switch off the tips feature. When it comes to restoring individual files and folders, however, it'south less obvious than some of its competitors. The quickest manner to restore is to mount the cloned volume and drag and drop files in the Finder. You lot can besides create a task to copy files.

As a tool for both cloning disks and backing up data, Carbon Copy Cloner is first rate. For pure backup, however, Acronis True Image is a improve bet.

Carbon Copy Cloner has a 30-day free trial and costs $39.99/£31.05 after that.

Carbonite Rubber

Carbonite Safe

Carbonite is very like to Backblaze in that it allows you to dorsum up your Mac to remote servers and recover files when you need to. Like Backblaze, you sign up for an business relationship and download a Mac application, and information technology automatically selects files to download.

Too like Backblaze, Carbonite doesn't back up applications or system files. 1 key divergence is that Carbonite's basic programme doesn't automatically back up the contents of your Movies folder either – although y'all can select videos manually to be backed upwards. Neither does Carbonite back up the contents of external drives.

Files are protected with 128-chip encryption, but there's no option to add together your own password.

Restoring information is done online, using the Carbonite application – the option to transport media containing your data is merely available within the United states. And you tin restore from any backup run inside the last xxx days, allowing you to roll back to before versions of files.

The Carbonite mobile app allows you to view and download files to an iPhone or iPad.

Carbonite is very simple to utilise. In fact, it about feels too elementary. Download the app, install it and launch it, and Carbonite starts backing upwardly your Documents and Pictures folders directly away.

In the left-hand sidebar, there's a listing of volumes and the main user folders (Desktop, Documents, Pictures, Movies and Music). By clicking on those you tin can select files to exist backed up or excluded.

Restoring files is only as piece of cake. If you want to restore a complete backup, click the Restore pick in the sidebar and choose whether to download files to a folder or put them dorsum where they were originally.

To restore private files and folders, navigate to them using the folders in the sidebar and choose the download option.

Carbonite, at the time of writing starts at $71.99 (approx £55) per year for a single computer. If y'all desire to back up external drives and back up videos automatically, that jumps to $111.99 (approx £86). That makes it expensive compared to its nearest competitors.

MSP360 CloudBerry Backup

CloudBerry Backup is a remote backup tool designed for home users and minor business. It's fabricated by the same company that makes the MSP360 managed backup service that is aimed at larger business organisation and enterprises.

The Mac version of CloudBerry Fill-in is available in ii versions: free and paid. The free version has most of the features of the paid version, with the exception of the power to compress and encrypt backups. For those features, it costs $29.99 (approx £22.99) for a perpetual license for one machine. If you want to use the pro version on more than one Mac, you lot'll need to buy additional licenses.

Possibly the virtually significant thing to say about CloudBerry Backup is that it's designed as a remote backup tool. This isn't the application to apply if you want to backup to a local deejay or to make a bootable clone. That said, you can as well set a NAS box on your local network as the destination for a backup.

NAS boxes bated, you'll need your own online storage business relationship to use CloudBerry Backup. It supports several, including Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Backblaze S2. Y'all tin can also support to an SFTP server. For the purposes of testing, we used Amazon S3.

CloudBerry Backup's interface is annihilation but intuitive. There'south no unproblematic option to choose a source and destination and set a schedule hither. Those options do exist, it's but that they are not immediately obvious. At that place's enough of help available in the documentation on MP360's website, but again, it's not easy to find.

The offset matter to be washed is to configure the service you're going to employ as a destination for your backup. That's straightforward enough: click Settings on the main window, then cull the Storage tab and the name of the service you want to utilise (or File System if yous want to use a NAS). Once you've configured the storage service with your account settings, things get much easier thanks to the assistant that steps in and walks yous through the process of choosing which files to back up (yous can choose them manually or based on parameters y'all specify) and how oft to dorsum them up. That becomes your start backup plan. You tin can gear up up more than, with different files and schedules.

To restore data, you demand to set up another programme, and there'due south an banana to help with that, too.

CloudBerry Backup does a skillful task and is particularly useful if you already have a storage plan with a remote provider. Once you get over the unfamiliarity of the interface, it'southward piece of cake to use. Just remember to factor in the cost of your storage plan when you make up one's mind whether it's correct for y'all.

SuperDuper! v3.5

Similar Carbon Copy Cloner, SuperDuper allows yous to make bootable clones of your Mac's difficult drive to an external disk or deejay image.

If you use Fourth dimension Machine for regular backups, SuperDuper can clone and Smart Update Time Machine backups. You can't easily choose which files and folders to support – the bachelor choices in SuperDuper'due south menus are all files or all user files. However, yous can dig deeper into its options and build your own backup scripts past pointing and clicking.

The latest version of SuperDuper adds support for creating bootable clones on Big Sur and Monterey Macs and is Apple tree silicon native. It besides adds support for Notification Center and has a feature that allows you lot to copy files from a Finder extension. SuperDuper can besides create and re-create from snapshots on APFS drives.

SuperDuper's Restore department allows you to access those snapshots at the click of a carte and recover your Mac to whichever recent snapshot you cull. And if you apply an APFS volume as the destination for your clone, you lot tin can use snapshots on the clone, besides. That means, for case, if yous install an update then Smart Update runs and updates the clone to reverberate the software install, yous can coil the clone back to just before it updated, if something goes wrong.

SuperDuper is a good selection if you already use Time Auto to run regular backups. If you run SuperDuper alongside it, you have a 'chugalug and braces' fill-in strategy. If yous need to recover private files, you can use Time Machine, simply if disaster strikes and your hard drive is unusable, you accept an up-to-date clone ready to kick from, thanks to SuperDuper.

In use, SuperDuper isn't as user-friendly equally Carbon Re-create Cloner – information technology doesn't, for instance, guide y'all footstep past footstep. However, it makes keeping an up-to-engagement clone of your system reasonably straightforward and does a expert job. If you similar the idea of the snapshots characteristic and are comfy with its interface, this is a good choice.

SuperDuper tin be downloaded and used for gratuitous. However, for £26.24/$27.95, you can unlock features like scheduling, Smart Update, and scripting.

MacBackup Guru

Mac Backup Guru's prime function its to create bootable clones of your Mac's startup disk. However, it tin can as well synchronise backed upwards versions of your disk, or even of only a folder, with the electric current version. And it can create snapshots, just like Time Machine does. And then, for example, if you gear up information technology to take a snapshot on a regular schedule, you tin can then revert to whichever snapshot you choose.

You can besides choose which folders to backup and to where, rather than having to backup a whole disk to your Time Machines disk so designate folders to exclude. There'due south more control over scheduling that Fourth dimension Machine offers, and, of course, Apple's utility doesn't offer the ability to synchronise folders or create bootable clones.

While the snapshots feature is similar to Fourth dimension Automobile, Mac Fill-in Guru offers more command. You tin can, for example, scan snapshots in the Finder, rather than having to apply the Fourth dimension Machine utility to restore files.

It supports APFS formatted disks, though if you want clones to be bootable you should format them as HFS+.

Mac Backup Guru's interface is elementary, and will be familiar if you've used some of the other tools listed hither. However, some of the menu buttons, notably those for choosing source and destination, seemed modest and cramped to u.s.. We'd have liked those menus and the options contained within them too have been a piddling bigger to brand them easier to select from.

Once you've chosen a source, which can exist a whole volume or a specific folder, and a destination, y'all tin elect to exclude folders within that from being backed upwardly. You can also schedule automatic backups. The scheduling is adequately basic, but that means it'south too like shooting fish in a barrel to configure. Just click the days on which y'all want the fill-in to run and the time you want information technology to run. It's worth noting that while you tin can run the backup on which ever twenty-four hours yous choose, y'all have to run it at the same time each twenty-four hour period. Y'all tin can besides run ad-hoc backups by pressing the 'Backup' push on the main window.

The final selection is to choose how many snapshots to proceed. Once y'all reach the specified number, Mac Fill-in Guru volition start deleting the oldest snapshot every time a new i is created.

Mac Backup Guru is an easy to use backup tool that keeps options and settings to a minimum while offering several useful features. It'southward also good value – at the time of writing it was on offer for less than £vii.xvi/$9, a significant discount on its usual £23.05/$29 price.