How to Backup before installing mountain Lion

Everybody is eager to install and use new version of Mac OS X, Mountain Lion, by Apple. Suppose, you are installing new Mac version and suddenly power goes off or the system crashes and you lose all your important data. How will you handle this situation? Every user should keep backup before doing any changes in his Mac because this drastic situation can happen anytime and anywhere.Without a backup, your data might be gone forever. Before you install Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store and begin the process of upgrading, make sure you back up your Mac.

Backup means “keeping another copy of data for future use”. Mac users can create backup by following methods:-

1.Time Machine

2.Using Third party tool

1.Time Machine – It is an Apple's inbuilt utility introduced with Leopard (OS X 10.5) in 2007. When you plug-in a Mac-formatted external drive to your Mac, it will ask you - if you want to use it as a backup with Time Machine. Time Machine creates incremental backups which is very useful to find deleted files.

By default, Time Machine save backups hourly but you can change it as per requirements on weekly or monthly. Rest space of Time Machine backup device can be used to save another data files. But, the problem is, Time machine can not make bootable backup or clone. And Time Machine doesn't enable you to back up over the internet , you can use it with local network.

2. Third Party tool – Stellar Drive Clone, Super Duper, CCC etc. are famous third party tool among Mac users. Bootable DVD can be made easily by using cloning tool of Stellar. It helps you to create either clone or image of Mac data. It is based on highly reliable techniques which ensures you for your data safty. You can create either clone of entire Mac or a particular volume. You can easily restore data in its original form using this clone.

These are the secure methods of keeping backup. Disk Utility also allows you to keep backup. But, backup with disk utility is not bootable ,it keep in the form of image. It is in compressed form and takes less space in drive. Following steps will help you to create backup via Disk Utility:-

1.Open Disk Utility (in Applications>Utilities).

2.Click the 'Restore' tab

3.Drag your main hard drive into the 'Source' white field.

4.Drag your external FireWire drive into the 'Destination' white field (make sure any other data on your FireWire drive is not the same name as anything on your main OSX drive)

5. Click 'Restore' and it will copy all data across to your FireWire drive

Keeping backup is a good option to reduce the chances of data loss. Every Mac user should keep Backup. You can enjoy every features or experiment on Mountain Lion , if you have kept backup already.