Do i have to select what i back up onto my external hard drive, or does it back up everything automatically?

do i have to select what i back up onto my external hard drive, or does it back up everything automatically?

It depends on the app you want to use to make backups.
If you are going to use Time Machine (recommended because it's the easiest), you just have to set it up and it will back up the whole OS X partition on the external drive, so don't worry. However, you can exclude items if you want. Read > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427 Also, have a look at Pondini's site > http://pondini.org
Another option are the cloning apps, like Carbon Copy Cloner. These apps also clone the whole hard drive, but you can manually select the things you want to back up. The advantage of the clones is that you can start up your computer from them

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