Time Machine affords a robust steady archiving device for recordsdata in your Mac. By design, Apple retains it easy: it lets you choose only a single set of volumes (and excluded volumes, folders, and recordsdata) in your Mac for all Time Machine backups, Time Machine can again up robotically solely in one in every of three intervals (hourly, each day, or weekly), and at any time when Time Machine volumes are plugged in, macOS rotates amongst them throughout the desired interval. (For example, if in case you have Time Machine Quantity A and Quantity B and are set to hourly backups, macOS backs as much as Quantity A at 3 p.m., Quantity B at 4 p.m., Quantity A at 5 p.m., and so forth.)
Nevertheless, you may achieve some management by mounting and unmounting volumes. For example, say you have got a 1TB inner drive and a 4TB exterior drive. You solely mount the exterior drive now and again. For backups, you have got a 1TB SSD and a 6TB onerous disk drive (HDD). You may’t again up 5GB to a 1TB drive.
The answer includes slightly dance everytime you need to again up the 4TB drive.
To begin with, arrange your Time Machine backup to incorporate each your inner drive and your 4TB exterior pictures/knowledge drive and eject the 4TB drive. You’ll have to ensure Time Machine isn’t in the midst of a backup, and you could have to disable Time Machine momentarily to eject it with out error. In Monterey or earlier, go to System Preferences > Time Machine; in Ventura or later, go to System Settings > Common > Time Machine.
Now, let regular Time Machine backups happen in your 1TB Time Machine drive. Everytime you need to again up the 4TB drive, as an alternative of merely plugging it in, first eject the 1TB Time Machine quantity.
Then mount the 4TB knowledge drive and the 6TB Time Machine quantity. Time Machine will again up each the interior quantity and the 4TB knowledge drive to the 6TB Time Machine quantity. When the backup is full, you may unmount the 6TB Time Machine quantity.
Given the situation, you might additionally add a third-party utility: have Time Machine solely again up your 1 TB inner drive and use Carbon Copy Cloner or Econ Applied sciences’ ChronoSync to handle archiving or cloning the 4TB drive to an exterior quantity of the identical or bigger measurement.
This Mac 911 article is in response to a query submitted by Macworld reader Mark.
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