Re: Time Machine configuration...?

[Bruce Johnson]

On Jan 17, 2021, at 8:39 AM, Bill Spencer 
mailto:wspen...@jhu.edu>> wrote:

Thank you both for this information. Unfortunately I am not in a position to 
buy another external HD so I will have to manage with what I have. In reading 
through your comments, I realized that there's no need for the iTunes backup to 
be in a separate partition (at least, I think this is so); I have no idea why I 
set things up that way originally. (I continue to refer to "iTunes" even though 
it's not called that anymore...one cannot usually teach old dogs new tricks.) 
Here's what I think I'll do, subject to your better advice:

  1.  Reformat the backup drive to APFS without a partition
  2.  Set up Time Machine to back up the main HD to the newly-formatted 
external HD
  3.  Copy the contents of the current iTunes drive to the newly-formatted 
backup drive.
  4.  Reformat the current iTunes drive to the new format
  5.  Copy the backed-up iTunes material back to the newly-reformatted external 
iTunes drive
  6.  Set up Time Machine to back up the external iTunes drive to the 
newly-formatted external HD

Will this approach work? Or, what do I need to change in that proposal? Again, 
my thanks for your input. Bill

To re-aquaint myself with the original problem: you have your iTunes stuff on 
an external drive by itself, and a backup drive that was used by CCC to back up 
the iTunes volume and internal HD’s as separate volumes? You never actually 
specified what was on each external volume.

if it’s like this:
external Disk 1: iTunes
external Disk 2:Partition 1  existing CCC internal backup, partition 2 existing 
CCC itunes backup

1) reformat backup drive as a single partition. I do not know if the OS lets 
you format hard drives as APFS, but it will be offered as an option if so. 
(Remember, drive reformats like this are done at the Physical disk level in 
Disk Utility the one named Seagate or WD something something, not the Volume 
level)

2) Set this newly formatted volume as your Time Machine volume and point both 
the internal HD and external iTunes **folder** to it for backing up.

No need to be copying back and forth like you were planning.

OTOH if the partition drive is your internal backup and your ‘live’ iTunes 
volume, I’d reformat the remaining one copy the live iTunes to it and then 
reformat the whole new backup drive as a single volume and then point the 
internal HD and the iTunes folder on the (now) external iTunes volume to Time 
Machine.

Time machine isn’t picky about the drive formatting it’s backing up, just the 
formatting of it’s drive.

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

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs


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Re: Time Machine configuration...?

[Bill Spencer]

Thank you both for this information. Unfortunately I am not in a position 
to buy another external HD so I will have to manage with what I have. In 
reading through your comments, I realized that there's no need for the 
iTunes backup to be in a separate partition (at least, I think this is so); 
I have no idea why I set things up that way originally. (I continue to 
refer to "iTunes" even though it's not called that anymore...one cannot 
usually teach old dogs new tricks.) Here's what I think I'll do, subject to 
your better advice:

   1. Reformat the backup drive to APFS without a partition
   2. Set up Time Machine to back up the main HD to the newly-formatted 
   external HD
   3. Copy the contents of the current iTunes drive to the newly-formatted 
   backup drive.
   4. Reformat the current iTunes drive to the new format
   5. Copy the backed-up iTunes material back to the newly-reformatted 
   external iTunes drive
   6. Set up Time Machine to back up the external iTunes drive to the 
   newly-formatted external HD

Will this approach work? Or, what do I need to change in that proposal? 
Again, my thanks for your input. Bill

On Friday, January 1, 2021 at 9:39:07 PM UTC-5 Centrisman wrote:

> 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