Best backup method for MacBook: iCloud Drive, external drive, or a mix

Back up your files with Time Machine on Mac - Apple Support

Any backup is better than none, but one and only one backup is very approximately equal to none.

Use any inexpensive, external directly connected hard disk drive. USB hard disk drives are inexpensive enough to have more than one. Three or more, ideally, with at least one of them kept geographically separate from the others at all times.

iCloud Drive is merely another means of accomplishing general purpose file storage. It is not a backup system nor was it ever intended to be.

Back it up to an external drive. Apple's iCloud isn't intended for Mac backups.

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