

(Obviously, you’re going to need a hard drive dedicated for this. Moreover, there are some advantages to having a bootable backup of your Mac. It’s an excellent way to diversify your backups beyond Time Machine. The best way to make bootable backups of your Mac is Carbon Copy Cloner. Simply plug in the drive, boot your Mac with the option key held down, and boom - you’re off to the races. Bootable backups can be great for quick turn-arounds in the case of a failed or replaced disk.

Primarily, a Time Machine drive cannot be plugged in and booted from. The utility’s archiving ability is extremely useful, but on the recovery end of things, Time Machine isn’t as flexible as power users may require their backup solution be. MacOS’ built-in Time Machine is a fantastic way to easily back up a Mac, but it has its limitations.
