How do i back up my macbook pro to an external hard drive?

how do i back up my macbook pro to an external hard drive?

schmunzelmonster, greetings;  Your suggestion is a good one.  CCC does create a boot drive which as you point out can be most useful at times. Time Machine does not have that capability but it retains a history of activities and transactions that CCC does not.  CCC only retains information as of the last update.
Neither individually is the 'perfect' backup solution individually, but if both are utilized it becomes that.  There is no harm in backup redundancy.
My only complaint about CCC is that is is very slow in performing updates compared with Time Machine.  Just a nit on my part.
Ciao.

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