Too Old for Backup

[Ethalfrida]

My 2009 High Sierra iMac is not available to backup and can’t be found by Time Machine.
And the Apple Chat Rep they could not recommend a new external due to the ones they sold would not work with it.

Prior to this I used online backup decided to try Apple opions.

Giving it further thought, would backing up the information from the old iMac to the new iMac be a good option? If so, how do I do it?

Old iMac
1 TB Storage
600 GB available

New iMac
1 TB Storage
800 GB available

 

[Slartibart]

You want to migrate the data completely? Is the new iMac a M1 one?

You can use the Migration Assistant. If the new one is a M1 Mac you should go to all programs and update to the newest versions with Apple Silicon support.

 

[Ethalfrida]

Thanks for the information. Unfortunately my "newer" computer is 3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5.
Sorry, my question wasn't too clear ... I don't want to migrate all of the information over, just use the newer computer as a backup for the older one and continue to use both for regular work.

 

[MarkC426]

Do you mean a Time Capsule....?
Your Mac should be 'finding' the TM drive, not the other way around.

Almost any external HDD/SSD will work as a Time Machine drive.
You just need to select it from your Mac.

Back up your Mac with Time Machine – Apple Support (UK)

If you have a USB drive or other external storage device, you can use Time Machine to automatically back up your files, including your apps, music, photos, emails and documents.

support.apple.com