What is the best iMacPro external drive backup method?

If you are storing the backup drive(s) off line and only occasionally updating them, then Carbon Copy Cloner is probably a better choice than Time Machine.

Whether or not a Mac has the ability to boot from a clone, depends on several different senecios.

see > https://bombich.com/kb/ccc6/cloning-macos-system-volumes-apple-software-restore

and > https://bombich.com/kb/ccc6/help-my-clone-wont-boot

FWIW Time Machine has never been bootable and Carbon Copy Cloner is continually working to keep up with the changes that Apple keeps making. Plus you can restore from a Carbon Copy Cloner backup, just as easy and in most cases faster than a Time Machine backup.

In the end, only you can decide what is the best backup strategy to use.

Personally I use three backup drives.

Carbon Copy Cloner for weekly backups.

Carbon Copy Cloner for a monthly backup kept off-site.

Time Machine just incase I need to retrieve something more recent.

I use two methods: 1 - Time Machine as it lets me go back 1 hour or days to get a file that I have accidentally deleted or messed up editing; 2 - a Carbon Copy Cloner clone of the boot drive to an external HD. I then update the backup on a weekly basis. This gives me a bootable drive that I can boot into in the event that my internal boot drive has problems.

I can boot from SuperDuper! using Monterey, I'm on 3.6.2. In addition, I also use Time Machine so I have redundancy. Both systems work perfectly. I ensure both External Hard Disks ( OWC Mercury Elite Pro ) are connected directly to the iMac rather than plugging into a hub of any type. I find this method to be the most reliable.

rkaufmann87 wrote:

I can boot from SuperDuper! using Monterey, I'm on 3.6.2. In addition, I also use Time Machine so I have redundancy. Both systems work perfectly. I ensure both External Hard Disks ( OWC Mercury Elite Pro ) are connected directly to the iMac rather than plugging into a hub of any type. I find this method to be the most reliable.

Thanks for the confirmation.

I use Carbon Copy Cloner; used Time Machine for years.

From a pure security perspective, they are equals, but CCC is far more flexible. With CCC I can use the files directly with Finder, set an enormous number of backup options as to when it runs and what it backs up, it's faster than TM and is wonderfully supported by the developer.

I've migrated data several times using its dataset with the migration assistants and those evolutions were flawless.

Actually, most of us here think that Time Machine is the answer. What is wrong with that?

FWIW, SuperDrive! 3.6.2 claims to be able to create a bootable clone. No idea if that's the case.

"Time Machine has never been bootable "

Actually, at one time I think it was, but it was not a full OS, just enough to do a restore.

It is moot now, of course.