Lacie Toolkit vs Time Machine

Lacie Toolkit & Time Machine are not really comparable utilities.

• Lacie Toolkit is mostly designed to mirror/sync specific user-designated folders.
• Time Machine is mostly designed to backup your entire drive, not individual folders.

If you only have a few folders you want to mirror/sync to an external drive then Lacie Toolkit does the job. But keep in mind that it's a file sync process, not really a backup process. For backup, I myself would not use Lacie Toolkit.

IMHO Carbon Copy Cloner is a much more capable backup solution. Among other things, it has a feature called Safety Net that provides protection for previously backed up files that have been modified or deleted from the source disk or folder. This is similar to Time Machine's ability to "go back" to previous versions of files including previous versions of deleted files but doesn't necessitate backing up the entire drive.

Also, if LaCie includes any software for managing the drive DO NOT use it. It only interferes with the systems drive management. Also before using the LaCie drive reformat it to APFS (if an SSD) or if an HDD Mac OS Extended (journaled).

In addition to Carbon Copy Cloner take a look at SuperDuper! which does the same thing as Carbon Copy Cloner. One isn't better than the other, they basically both do the same thing however there are some feature diferences you should reseach.

Many experienced do redundant backups meaning they use a clone app (Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!) AND they also use Time Machine on a total seperate External Hard Disk. Why, because when it comes to backing up your computer redundancy is a very good thing and it backups EHDs always fail when you need them the most. In addition EHD's are relatively inexpensive these days so cost simply should not be a factor when save guarding your data!!!! The drive many experienced user use is the https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-mercury-elite-pro due to it's high reliability, ease of use, it ability to change out the HD when it eventually dies and the cost of course.

Finally, NEVER EVER use a backup drive for other uses such as the other backup or storing other data. This is a very shortsighted and foolish strategy!!!

Another vote for CCC.:)