What is best backup solution for Apple Mac?

[Clariman]

What is best backup solution for Apple Mac? Asking for a friend. No, really, this one is for a friend. He has an external hard drive that he can use.

Thanks

[Mike4]

What is best backup solution for Apple Mac? Asking for a friend. No, really, this one is for a friend. He has an external hard drive that he can use.

Thanks

And straight away we are into semantics. What does he mean by "best"? What does he want his backup strategy to protect against, exactly?

[Infrasonic]

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201250

[vrdiver]

Mrs VRD uses Apple's "Time Machine". We've had it set up to both a directly connected external drive, and to a NAS. I swap the backup media around so that she has multiple backups, rather than just one, in case of any issues.

Time Machine, in the same house as the Mac, is better than nothing, but still leaves the risk of losing both the main machine and backup should a house disaster strike (burglary, fire, flood etc.) To this end she has a few important files backed up in the cloud.

When she changed her iMac, the Time Machine backup made moving her data across very straightforward, but there is a catch, inasmuch as when the backup disk gets full it can be set to overwrite the oldest backup, which may be things like old photos that you don't want to lose, which not having changes, aren't included in any incremental backups afterwards!

VRD

[formoverfunction]

I back-up using a connected "Time Machine" - a large capacity external SSD - every 15 minutes.
Once a week I back the whole system on a seperate SSD.
I use iCloud for my "Document" folder.
and if that wasn't enough, I also keep a copy of less secure content on a Raspeberry Pi with a connected SSD. I wrote a small script to transfer "stuff" using SSH from the Mac to the Pi. - that stuff ends up on the cloud.
- I happen to find a Pi a perfect tool for using with a Mac or iPad. They are often a much cheaper alternative to replacing cables, kit and buying a solution from Apple! - what shortage of USB ports? LOL
As OSX and Linux aren't that different, in someways, it's easy to get them talking without lots of 3rd party software and there's lots of FOSS solutions out there.
I even use a PI as a bridge between my Mac's and some of the Bluetooth media devices I have around the house. I love the little critters!