Re: Time Machine configuration...?

[Bruce Rubin]

I hope these two articles from Seagate and Apple helps. BTW, TM is for
backups not archiving.

Formatting a drive to be used with Time Machine:

macOS requires that a drive be formatted with a specific file system to be
used with Time Machine

   - For Big Sur use Apple File System (APFS) when setting up a new backup
   - For macOS versions for 10.6 (Snow Leopard) to 10.15 (Catalina) use Mac
   OS Extended (Journaled) also referred to as HFS+ when setting up a new
   backup

Backup disks you can use with Time Machine

Time Machine can back up certain external storage devices connected to your
Mac or available on your network.

To use Time Machine to make a backup of your Mac, you need one of these
types of storage devices:

   - External USB, Thunderbolt, or FireWire drive connected to your Mac
   

   - Network-attached storage (NAS) device that supports Time Machine over
   SMB
   

   - Mac shared as a Time Machine backup destination
   

   - External drive connected to an AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11ac)
   or AirPort Time Capsule
   

   - AirPort Time Capsule
   


--
External drive connected to your Mac

Time Machine can back up to an external drive connected to a USB,
Thunderbolt, or FireWire port on your Mac. If the disk isn't using the
correct format, Time Machine will prompt you to erase it.
--
Network-attached storage (NAS) device that supports Time Machine over SMB

Many third-party NAS devices support Time Machine over SMB. For details,
check the documentation for your NAS device.
--
Mac shared as a Time Machine backup destination

To use another Mac on your network as a Time Machine backup destination,
complete these steps on the other Mac:

   1. Choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, then click Sharing.
   2. From the list of services on the left, select File Sharing.
   3. From the Shared Folders list on the right, click the add button (+),
   then choose a folder to use for Time Machine backups.
   4. Control-click the folder that you added, then choose Advanced Options
   from the shortcuts menu that appears.
   [image: macOS Sharing System Preferences Shared Folders options]
   5. From the Advanced Options dialog, select “Share as a Time Machine
   backup destination.”

When setting up Time Machine on your other Mac computers, you should now be
able to select the shared folder as a backup disk.
--
External drive connected to an AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11ac) or
AirPort Time Capsule

Time Machine can back up to an external USB drive connected to an AirPort
Extreme Base Station (802.11ac model) or AirPort Time Capsule.

   1. Connect the drive directly to your Mac, then use Disk Utility to
   erase it
   

   .
   2. Connect the drive to a USB port on your AirPort base station, then
   turn it on.
   3. Open AirPort Utility, then select your base station and click Edit to
   view its settings.
   4. Click the Disks tab in the settings window.
   5. Select your backup disk from the list of partitions, then select
   “Enable file sharing”:
   [image: AirPort Utility window Disks tab with "Enable file sharing"
   turned on]
   6. If more than one user on your network will back up to this disk with
   Time Machine, you can use the Secure Shared Disks pop-up menu to make sure
   that they can view only their own backups, not yours. Choose “With
   accounts” from the menu, then click the add button (+) to add users.
   7. Click Update to restart your base station and apply the settings.

--
AirPort Time Capsule

Time Machine can back up to the built-in hard disk of an AirPort Time
Capsule on your network.


--
Learn more

   - How to back up your Mac with Time Machine
   
   - Time Machine can't back up to a disk formatted for Windows, or to an
   iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Published Date: November 12, 2020

On Fri, Jan 1, 2021 at 4:59 PM Bruce Johnson 
wrote:

> On Jan 1, 2021, at 12:57 PM, William Spencer  wrote:
>
>
> Hi there: I’ve got Big Sur installed now, and I’m hoping to be able to use
> Time Machine to do my backing up rather than Carbon Copy Cloner, which is
> what I’ve been using for quite a while now. But I can’t see how to
> configure TM to do what I need. Here’s the setup:
>
>- I have three physical HDs, one internal to the Mini and two 

Re: Time Machine configuration...?

[Bruce Johnson]

On Jan 1, 2021, at 12:57 PM, William Spencer 
mailto:wspence...@gmail.com>> wrote:

Hi there: I’ve got Big Sur installed now, and I’m hoping to be able to use Time 
Machine to do my backing up rather than Carbon Copy Cloner, which is what I’ve 
been using for quite a while now. But I can’t see how to configure TM to do 
what I need. Here’s the setup:

  *   I have three physical HDs, one internal to the Mini and two external.
  *   One of the externals is partitioned, so the system actually thinks I have 
four HDs.
  *   The idea is to back up the internal to one partition and the standalone 
external to the other partition.

 Time Machine is a real ‘fire and forget’ backup system…you turn it on and you 
don’t have to fuss with it ever again.

Time machine backs up the booted volume (plus any mounted external volume, 
optionally, see link below)

IS the standalone external another bootable drive? Then, unfortunately what I 
would do is back it up with CCC (or it’s own Time Machine Configuration while 
booted) That way you can do the back up internal to one partition, the external 
to another. and be able to recover them both as bootable drives; you cannot use 
a bootable volume backed up as a mounted external drive in Migration Assistant 
(which is how you restore an entire volume from Time Machine)

  *   TM isn’t showing me one of the (partitioned) HDs as a possible 
destination for a backup.

Likely it is because it’s not the correct format (see below)


  *   It also isn’t showing me the internal HD as a source.

You don’t select a source in Time Machine. It backs up the currently booted 
volume. By default it excludes external drives but you can undo that in the 
preferences: 
https://www.macworld.com/article/3153995/how-to-make-sure-time-machine-backs-up-external-drives.html
 (you can also exclude items on the boot drive that way as well. My email 
folders, for example are excluded, because all my email “lives” on the server, 
so restoring my email is merely a matter gdropping the account, re-adding it 
and re-synching the folders.

This doesn’t work if you use POP or have local non-synched folder (they show as 
‘On my Mac’ in the list in Mail)

  *   The two it's showing (which are for what used to be called iTunes, one 
the source and the other the destination) are formatted as Mac OS Extended 
(Journaled); the two it isn’t showing (for the HD itself, ditto) are formatted 
as APFS.

I”m not sure why, Big Sur is supposed to use APFS fro Time Machine, at least 
per the Ars Techhnica Big Review: 
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/11/macos-11-0-big-sur-the-ars-technica-review/9/#h1


  *   Is that difference in format a (or the) issue?
  *   If I reformat anything I will lose all that data, as you know.
  *   How can I proceed?

Honestly, what I would do is purchase a new larger external HDD (mine is a 4TB 
one I got at Costco for ~$80-$90 I think, on sale) and set it up as one or two 
time machine volumes. (depending on why you want those two drives backed up to 
different partitions)

Time Machine is a multi-point backup/restore system (It’s been a very long time 
since I've used CCC for this purpose) It maintains a database of changed files 
and folders and only backs up the changes as it goes. So you want to have (imo) 
at a minimum 2X your backed up data as free space, 3X is closer to optimal.

So I’d look at how much you have to back up to start, and size it from there.

--
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs


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Time Machine configuration...?

[William Spencer]

Hi there: I’ve got Big Sur installed now, and I’m hoping to be able to use Time 
Machine to do my backing up rather than Carbon Copy Cloner, which is what I’ve 
been using for quite a while now. But I can’t see how to configure TM to do 
what I need. Here’s the setup:
I have three physical HDs, one internal to the Mini and two external.
One of the externals is partitioned, so the system actually thinks I have four 
HDs. 
The idea is to back up the internal to one partition and the standalone 
external to the other partition.
TM isn’t showing me one of the (partitioned) HDs as a possible destination for 
a backup.
It also isn’t showing me the internal HD as a source.
The two it's showing (which are for what used to be called iTunes, one the 
source and the other the destination) are formatted as Mac OS Extended 
(Journaled); the two it isn’t showing (for the HD itself, ditto) are formatted 
as APFS.
Is that difference in format a (or the) issue?
If I reformat anything I will lose all that data, as you know.
How can I proceed?
Thanks for any insight, and happy new year!


***

Bill Spencer in Maryland
Mac Mini 2.6 GHz i5/11.1

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