How should I do my first Time Machine backups?
It is generally recommended to use an external disk or a folder on a shared storage of a server for performing backups of your Mac. Time Machine, an app built into macOS is the recommended solution for creating and restoring backups.

For starters. I'd like to point you to the wonderful web-page setup by Apple for users new to Mac &amp; macOS and learning about backing up:


How to back up your Mac



  should the first backup be kept separate, in case you need to restore to the original condition of your system, and then do another backup which is then used to do hourly/daily backups/whenever backups upon?


You should be fine with a Time Machine backup. However, do ensure that the disk with Time Machine backup is kept secure and backup remains available for restoring.