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How shall i set up a new external drive for Time Machine backup?

After much difficulty with an older external drive I had been using for Time Machine, I decided it was time for a new one. Now I am leery of setting up the new one because of the APFS v. HFS incompatibility I have read about but don’t quite understand.

I have a MacBook Pro, mid 2010, running High Sierra. I regularly back up the entire system to another external drive using Carbon Copy Cloner.

Any suggestions and direction from experienced users are appreciated.

Thanks.

MacBook Pro

Posted on Jul 17, 2019 2:48 PM

Top-ranking reply

Old Toad

Level 10

210,597 points

Posted on Jul 17, 2019 2:57 PM

Format it OS X Extended (journaled) with a GUID Partition Map.

The following is from this Apple document: Types of disks you can use with Time Machine on Mac - Apple Support

Important: You can back up from an HFS+ or APFS-formatted disk to an HFS+ disk; however, Time Machine can’t back up to an APFS-formatted disk. If you select a back up disk formatted as APFS, Time Machine offers to reformat it as HFS+.

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How shall i set up a new external drive for Time Machine backup?

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