How to Clone Mac Data to LaCie External Hard Drive?

Coco Lin
Written byCoco LinUpdated on Jun 22, 2024
Gerhard Chou
Approved byGerhard Chou

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How to clone Mac HDD/SSD to a LaCie external hard drive? Ensuring a reliable backup can prevent you from losing important files like photos you love, papers you need, or work files you need to complete. Cloning your Mac's files to a LaCie external hard drive is one of the best ways to do this.

LaCie drives are known for being reliable and long-lasting, and they can protect your info well. This guide covers getting your Mac ready, selecting the appropriate LaCie drive, creating the copy, and ensuring it works. There you have it - a full, usable copy of all the data on your Mac.

It will give you peace of mind and make it easy to return to normal if something goes wrong. This guide will help you safely clone your data, no matter how much experience you have with Macs or how new you are to the process.

clone Mac data to LaCie external hard drive

Why Clone Your Mac to A LaCie External HDD or SSD?

Making a copy of your Mac on a LaCie HDD/SSD is a smart move that will protect your info and make it easy to access. Here are some important reasons to think about this:

  • Data Backup and Security

When you clone, an exact copy of your whole system is made, including your files, operating system, and apps. This full backup keeps you from losing data because of broken hardware, deletions by mistake, or malware attacks. If you have a clone, you can quickly get your system back to how it was when you made the copy.

  • System Recovery

If your Mac's hard drive fails or gets damaged, you can return to work immediately with a cloned SSD. You can start up directly from the LaCie SSD, which cuts down on downtime and saves you the trouble of restarting macOS and all your apps.

  • Effortless System Migration

When moving to a new Mac, a cloned SSD makes the process easier. You don't have to move files and settings by hand when you can clone your old Mac's drive to the LaCie SSD and back to the new Mac. This way, you can make the move without losing any data.

  • Performance Boost

SSDs from LaCie are known for being very fast. An SSD clone can make your system much faster and more responsive, especially if you're moving from an older, slower hard drive.

What Is Cloning A Mac Hard Drive?

When you clone a Mac hard drive, you make an exact copy of your Mac's full storage system, bit by bit. This process makes a copy of everything, including your files and data, the operating system, all of your apps, and your settings. The result is an exact copy of your original hard drive that works and is saved on a different drive, like an external LaCie SSD.

How It Works:

When you clone your Mac hard drive, clone software copies every part of your present drive onto the target drive. This includes all personal files, the macOS operating system, system preferences, and any loaded apps. Since the clone is an exact copy, everything will work the same on it as on the original drive if you need to use it.

Uses and Benefits:

The main purpose of cloning is to make a solid backup. If your Mac's hard drive fails, you can keep working because you can boot from the cloned drive. Cloning is also helpful when switching to a new Mac or getting a faster or bigger drive. By cloning your old drive to the new one, you can escape the time-consuming task of reinstalling the operating system, your programs, and your settings.

Clone Mac Data to LaCie External Hard Drive Using Disk Utility

Disk Utility is a macOS tool that lets you handle disks and volumes. It also makes it easy to copy the hard drive on your Mac to an external drive, like a LaCie SSD. You can use Disk Utility to copy your Mac hard drive. Here are the steps you need to take.

Step 1: Prepare Your LaCie External Drive.

Connect your LaCie SSD to your Mac before you begin. Make sure the order is correct. To do this:

  • Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility to open Disk Utility.
  • From the list on the left, pick out the LaCie drive.
  • Press the "Erase" button at the very top.
  • Name a choice (APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled)).
  • To erase the drive, click "Erase."

Prepare Your LaCie External Drive

Step 2: Restore from Mac Hard Drive.

You can copy data from your Mac to the LaCie external hard drive by using Restore feature in Disk Utility.

  • In Disk Utility, select the LaCie external hard drive and click on the "Restore" button.

    Restore from Mac Hard Drive

  • Choose Restore from Macintosh HD.

    Choose Restore from Macintosh HD

  • To start, click Restore. It will erase everything that is already on the LaCie SSD. Then copy data from your Mac internal drive to the LaCie external hard drive.

Step 3: Verify the Clone.

Once the restoration is done, it's important to make sure the clone can start:

  • Turn your Mac back on and hold down the Option key while it starts up (for Intel Mac).
  • From the list of drives that can start up, choose the LaCie external hard drive.
  • Your cloned system should show up when your Mac starts from the LaCie external hard drive.

Clone your Mac's hard drive with Disk Utility, which uses built-in macOS tools and is safe. It makes it easy to make a full backup of your system. By doing this, you can be sure that your data is safely copied and can be quickly restored if something goes wrong with your original hard drive.

Clone Mac Disk to LaCie External Hard Drive with Donemax Disk Clone

Donemax Disk Clone for Mac is a reliable Mac disk cloning program. It can help you clone Intel-based Mac/Apple T2 Security Mac/Apple silicon Mac to a LaCie external hard drive and create a full bootable clone backup.

Donemax Disk Clone for Mac

  • Clone all data from your Mac to the LaCie external hard drive.
  • Create bootable clone for Macs.
  • Create disk image backup for Macs.

Step 1. Open Donemax Disk Clone for Mac, then choose OS Clone mode. This mode will clone all data from your Mac to the LaCie external hard drive and create a full bootable clone backup.

Step 2. Select the LaCie external hard drive as the destination drive, click on Clone Now button to clone Mac operating system, all apps, user files, settings and other data from the internal disk to the LaCie external hard drive.

Select the LaCie external hard drive as the destination drive

Once the cloning process gets finished, you can set the LaCie external hard drive as the new startup disk. Just go to System Settings > General > Startup Disk, then select the LaCie external hard drive as the startup disk, click Restart to restart the Mac.

set the LaCie external hard drive as the new startup disk

Conclusion:

It is important to back up your Mac data on a LaCie portable hard drive so that your data is safe and your system works well. Clone protecting against data loss, getting ready for system migration, or wanting to improve speed is all that cloning can do.

The built-in Disk Utility in macOS makes it easy to make a copy of your hard drive to start up your Mac. This process ensures that your digital life is safe and that you can quickly return to normal if something goes wrong. You can do it and know that your important files will be safe.

If you want to make a full bootable clone backup for your Mac, just try disk cloning software. Donemax Disk Clone for Mac can clone all data including operating system, apps, settings, user files from the Mac disk to the LaCie external hard drive, creating a full bootable clone backup.

Coco Lin
Contributing Writer

Coco Lin

Coco has been a writer and a chief programmer at Donemax software since 2018. Over 10 years of experience of writing troubleshooting articles in the software industry, she is passionate about programming and loves to providing solutions to Windows and Mac users. Also she enjoys music and palying tennis in her free time.

Gerhard Chou
Editor in chief

Gerhard Chou

In order to effectively solve the problems for our customers, every article and troubleshooting solution published on our website has been strictly tested and practiced. Our editors love researching and using computers and testing software, and are willing to help computer users with their problems