I just talked about purchasing a new My Book Studio Western Digital Hard Drive for backing up my MacBook Pro and how I am initially using WD Backup Anywhere for backing up my hard drive before trying Time Machine-
and wouldn't you know that Apple comes out with a video the next day that provides a tip on how to exclude certain folders / files from being backed up by Time Machine here. Sweet. Good to know.
WD Backup Anywhere uses the opposite approach to Apple Time Machine. With Apple Time Machine it will back up everything on your hard drive and you choose what to exclude. Western Digital's WD Backup Anywhere does not back up the entire hard drive. Instead you choose what folders and files you want to include in the back up and also have the option of excluding certain folders and files within parent folders.
I don't see a wrong or right here. I think it depends on how you look at a backup. Are you just trying to backup important files or are you trying to backup the entire hard drive? If on a hard disk failure you want to retrieve a snapshot of your entire hard drive, Time Machine is probably your best choice. If instead you only care about retrieving certain folders and files, you might be better of with WD Backup Anywhere or a similar backup application that focuses on folders and files.
I don't really care about backing up the entire hard drive, but in about two weeks I will probably switch from WD Backup Anywhere to Time Machine so I can get a feel for both.
Check out the Apple Time Machine Tip as well as a whole bunch of other tips at the Apple Theatre.
