Time Machine carbon

[SkinnyMoose]

MacOS Sonoma.
Disk 1 256GB internal NVMe
Disk 2 256GB external GPT APFS Time Machine
Disk 3 256GB external GPT ExFat

How to copy the time machine file from Disk 2 to disk 3?
When I try to copy the backup file, it says I cannot.
Today I erased Disk 2, and created 1 new time machine backup.
I want to copy the 1 time machine file, not the individual files beneath it, I can already do that, and I don't want to copy individual files or folders.
The Mac and 2 disks are new and owned by me, they have not had any other owners or users.
I only want to use Exfat on destination disk 3, I do not want to use any other filesystem, thank you.

 

[gilby101]

How to copy the time machine file from Disk 2 to disk 3?

What do you mean by "the Time Machine file"?

You might mean everything on the volume (all the snapshots), one snapshot, or something within a snapshot.

You should be able, with Finder, to drag-n-drop top level folders within a snapshot to any disk. You will lose permissions and other stuff, of course, when copying to an exFAT disk.

We might be able to assist better if you were to say why you want to do this.

 

[SkinnyMoose]

Today I erased Disk 2, and created 1 new time machine backup.
"What do you mean by "the Time Machine file"?"
The disk root shows 1 green file, I was clear in my post I can already copy individual files, but I have no interest in doing that here. I want to copy the 1 green file in the root, thank you.

 

[gilby101]

I want to copy the 1 green file in the root, thank you.

If I understand you correctly, you mean the thing with the greenish disk icon with a TM symbol within it. Like this (pictures save many words):

In that case, you can't. Even if these is only 1 backup.

It is an APFS volume with potentially many snapshots (one for each backup you have made). You can only copy the contents of individual snapshots.

You don't need to copy individual files, but you can copy folders and all their contents (including subfolders) in one drag-n-drop.

I hope you do understand that a copied TM backup is only useful for accessing individual files and folders. It can't be used to recover a whole system.

Until you explain why you want to do this copy, I don't think I can help you further.

 

[meson]

Just because your Mac can read/write to both APFS and ExFat filesystems does not mean that every file produced by every application on a Mac is compatible with both file systems. As mentioned, Time Machine requires a journaled filesystem like APFS. It will not work with ExFat, even as an archive.

If what you want is to have a backup of critical files with revisions similar to what Time Machine does, but on an ExFat drive so that you can access them on a PC in the future, then maybe an application like Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) may work for you. While CCC won't make a full bootable Mac system on an ExFat drive, it will back up files, keep revisions, etc. Something like this or a similar third party app may be what you are after.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

And if #5 is not the goal (and ExFAT) is not important, the better option is to simply let TM reformat Disk 3 and then do a full backup to it too. TM will easily backup to MANY external TM discs if you had a reason to want many... and there is a very good reason to have AT LEAST TWO: so that one can be stored offsite to protect against fire/flood/theft scenarios that could take out both Mac and backup stored at the same location, which then also means regularly rotating #2 with #3 to keep the offsite one pretty up to date (for an effective worst-case recovery scenario).

In short, you can let TM do the proper job of backing everything up TWICE... just not on ExFAT.

Bonus: if you leave both connected for a while, TM will start alternating backups on the hour between 2 drives. I essentially use a 3-drive strategy: 2 HDDs like you plus a Synology NAS... and my TM backups are alternating between the Synology and the local HDD (the other HDD recently TM-backed up and stored offsite, ready to swap with the local HDD about every 30 days).

If the goal is getting Mac Files on ExFAT drive for access by a PC too, use other tools for that. A good one that I really like is Choronsync, which can make it easy to copy only what you would like to copy to that ExFAT drive.

Lastly, if the goal is to have backups exactly as you want- one on APFS and another on ExFAT, you probably need to choose an option other than TM.

 

[dai-leung]

Bonus: if you leave both connected for a while, TM will start alternating backups on the hour between 2 drives. I essentially use a 3-drive strategy: 2 HDDs like you plus a Synology NAS... and my TM backups are alternating between the Synology and the local HDD (the other HDD recently TM-backed up and stored offsite, ready to swap with the local HDD about every 30 days).

Time Machine backup to 2 external drives

I have Sonoma 14.7, Time Machine does not allow me to add a second external drive for backup. I tired many times but failed. Also how do you let TM backup alternateLu between the 2 drives? I can do that with carbon copy cloner but not with TM. Help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

I'm on Sonoma 14.6.1 and TM still allows adding a second drive for backup: click the plus symbol and choose drive #2. For me, that's 1 to Synology NAS and 1 to DAS HDD. No problem at all and hopefully that doesn't change in 14.7. Here's the step-by-step in a Macworld article from some years ago. There are other tutorials online too: just search for "Apple Time Machine multiple drives" and similar. Apple doesn't imply anything has changed in Sonoma.

I do nothing to alternate between the 2 drives. TM seems to just "know" to alternate. Basically, first get both in your list of TM drives and then just wait the 2 hours for 2 backups. It should automatically alternate.

Note that if you are setting up a new drive, obviously it will NOT be able to start switching on the hour as the first backup can take MANY hours. So you'll need to wait out the full TM backup to the newly-added drive and then check for the backups on the hours after the first backup to see it happening automatically... OR choose "back up now" to manually trigger a backup to one of them. When that is complete, do it again to trigger a backup to the other. After that you can just ignore things because the automatic backups will switch back & forth automatically.

If you heed the very good advice for using a SECOND HDD for recently backed up OFFSITE storage, it's a simple matter to substitute DAS HDD #2 for DAS HDD#1 on your switch day making the former the local one and the latter now your "last resort" offsite backup. After whatever period of time you've chosen to switch them again, reverse that and carry on.

Get 2 local and 1 offsite (but relatively fresh files backup) and it would take a big catastrophe to take out ALL of them. Without the offsite, you only need an event at the main location of the computer: fire, flood or theft are common ones. Such events would likely eliminate access to the computer (original files) the NAS TM backup and the DAS HDD TM backup... all burned, flooded or stolen. To also lose the offsite- assuming the offsite is a reasonable distance from the main ones- you need a sizable geographic event: meteor, town/city-destroying event, etc. If you can worry about such possibilities, consider TWO offsite backups stored further away from each other and your main files.

 

[dai-leung]

I'm on Sonoma 14.6.1 and TM still allows adding a second drive for backup…

Prrhaps, Sonoma 14.7 does not allow, but 14.6.1 does allow adding another external TM backup drives. I will try re-install 14.6.1 which should work because it works for you.

I sincerely appreciate your effort and time to write a detailed reply to solve my problem, sharing your experience and knowledge!

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Keep at it. Once you get it working, it all “just works”… and there's great peace of mind knowing you’ve set up enough redundancy to cover just about all scenarios.

 

[HDFan]

Get 2 local and 1 offsite

That's the recommended 3-3-1 backup plan. Only 1 of the backups should be TM due to its tendency to fail.

 

[dai-leung]

Thanks! But what does 331 mean? Have time to explain?

 

[dai-leung]

I'm on Sonoma 14.6.1 and TM still allows adding a second drive for backup: click the plus symbol and choose drive #2......

Thank you so much for your detailed and helpful post which I appreciate very much!

I did install 14.6.1 and compare the result with 14.7 of what are the local drives after hitting the "+" sign to add a local drive. I found that the local drive list only lists the first ( and sometimes also the second) volume in the first container or partition of an external drive. The second, third, ... container and their volumes or partitions are not listed. After I created a TM backup volume in the first container and as the first volume, I could now see the TM backup volume of all external drives, thus now can do TM backup to 2 different external drives. Thank you for your help!