Big Sur Changes Time Machine External Hard Drive to APFS and Read Only

Question

Big Sur Changes Time Machine External Hard Drive to APFS and Read Only

Can't find info on this anywhere, wondering what I could be doing wrong.

I have two external hard drives (one brand new) that I use for redundant back-ups via Time Machine, and also to store other files. Both Seagate 10TB drives.

With the upgrade to Big Sur, the older external drive formatted for Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is a-ok, and I can manually drop other files there.

I formatted the new drive to be the same, dropped files in, no problem.

BUT, when I set it as a backup for Time Machine, it changes it to APFS, and then after the back-up, becomes "read only" and I can't drop files in.

Posted on Dec 16, 2020 7:34 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Glenn Leblanc

Level 6

12,521 points

Dec 16, 2020 12:16 PM in response to Bill_Defective Mac Book

As Barney says, TM will use the whole drive. However, open Disk Utility and select the Container. Click on the + sign to create a new volume. You can then drop the files to that volume. It will be APFS volume. If you would want Mac OS Extended Journaled, then you would have to partition the drive and format each partition as you want.

https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/add-erase-or-delete-apfs-volumes-dskua9e6a110/mac

https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/partition-a-physical-disk-dskutl14027/mac

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Answer 2

Dec 16, 2020 7:01 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

AMAZING GLENN! Did the new volume and boom, I'm good. I left it APFS... is there any reason why I'd want Extended Journaled? I don't access these files, they're just emergency-emergency backups.

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Answer 3

Barney-15E

Level 10

116,236 points

Dec 16, 2020 11:51 AM in response to Bill_Defective Mac Book

Time Machine has always wanted a drive to itself and I think Big Sur is enforcing that, now.

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Answer 4

Dec 16, 2020 7:15 PM in response to Bill_Defective Mac Book

You should be fine with APFS.. And you can use the volume just as with any other external drive. It's so much easier to create and delete volumes with APFS rather than partitioning.

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Answer 5

Dec 16, 2020 7:36 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

Thank you again! I really appreciate it. I was searching this read-only issue and it was driving me nuts. Didn't have the time to sit and wait for tech support.

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Answer 6

Dec 16, 2020 8:11 PM in response to Bill_Defective Mac Book

You're Welcome.

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Big Sur Changes Time Machine External Hard Drive to APFS and Read Only

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