Time Machine: how to restore to a brand new HD (not the original drive)?

[petalino]

Hello.

I am backing up my external drives using Time Machine on my Imac 10.7.5.

Now I need to restore backups of my my 2 external USB harddrives (each one has 1TB) onto a brand new 3TB USB drive.

I cannot just copy from the original drives, because some files have been accidentally deleted in the past few months. I need to do a full restore of backups made 6 months ago. Do not feel like spending hours trying to figure out which files are missing. It seems easier just to do a full restore.

Is there an option in the restore process that allows you to restore to a different drive than the original drive and to merge the contents of 2 backed up drives onto a larger new one?

Also: how long does it take to restore 1TB of data? Is it hours or days perhaps?
I would like to know this before i even start.

Thanks in advance for any info.

 

[Bear]

Time Machine allows you to select where you would like your data restored to.

There are various factors that affect how long the restore will take, mostly around the number of files. Lots of small files will take longer than fewer large files.

Based on your drives (Time Machine and destination disk) both being directly connected to your Mac, it will be hours.