I am new to Macs and was wondering how to create a restore partition (which I read about in one of the answers) in order to do my first backup.
Also, 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? Thank you for your help.
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 & macOS and learning about backing up:
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.
...how to create a restore partition...in order to do my first backup...Also, should the first backup be kept separate, in case you need to restore to the original condition of your system,
You don't need to. A recovery partition is automatically created when macOS is installed; no matter if purchased new from Apple or second hand. Additionally, newer Mac models don't need a recovery partition per se; they can use Internet Recovery to restore your Mac to its original (factory fresh) state.
...then do another backup which is then used to do hourly/daily backups/whenever backups upon?
You've got the right idea. Your first backup is the critical one - it establishes the base for your future backups. As your backup progresses, it will only backup changed files. This is good because if you leave your Mac plugged in (with the external drive attached) overnight, it will "wake" to perform backup tasks.
If you get into the habit of leaving it connected like this overnight, you will wake to a backed up machine that's fully charged (assuming it's a portable).
Finally, make sure your data is in more than one place. I keep my documents on OneDrive, but you can use iCloud. This means any one document is in 3 places at once: my machine, my cloud storage, and my Time Machine. If you were to (heaven forbid) lose your Mac, you can still access your documents in either the cloud or Time Machine. If your backup drive fails, you still have your data accessible in two alternate locations.
Take a look at this article from Apple Support → How to use Time Machine to backup and restore your Mac
Also, 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?
Well the more backups the better, but this is a bit unnecessary. You can always restore the original factory system by reformatting and reinstalling macOS.
Depending on what type of computer I would suggested the following schedule
Since you are new to Mac, assuming that you are coming from Windows, take a look at this article it will really help with the transition.
