Using TIme Machine to Backup Multiple Machines on one Drive

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Using TIme Machine to Backup Multiple Machines on one Drive

Surely this must be a common issue. We have an iMac and several MacBooks in the house. I'd like to back up each using Time Machine to the same hard drive (or 2 duplicates for redundancy, likely one attached to the iMac and one portable mostly used with the MBs).

I've been very confused by what I've been reading... Should I create separate partitions on the external drive for each machine's backup or just let TM create separate backups for each device? Views differed at at thread 250295693 . Can't this just be done by TM if I'm willing to manually attached the drive to the MBs periodically for backups?

Some articles discuss using file sharing to backup laptops to a Mac over a shared network

Would that work to backup the laptops to an external drive connected to the iMac without the complexity of an NAS sytem, or does that only work to backup the laptops to the the iMac's internal hard drive?

Or is there an easier, better way to do this? Even if it isn't practical to wirelessly and continuously backup to a single drive, I'd still like to backup all the machines on 2 drives for redundancy, with one offsite.

Thanks

MacBook Air (2020 or later)

Posted on Jul 30, 2021 10:38 PM

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Answer 1

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Barney-15E

Level 10

122,942 points

Jul 31, 2021 5:17 AM in response to IZeep

Simplest would be to backup over WiFi to a drive connected to the iMac.

I create a Sharing Only user on the iMac and use that for connecting from the laptops.

In File Sharing, add the drive and give the sharing only user read/write. Ctrl-click on the drive in sharing to set it as a Time Machine destination.

If you want to use a direct connected drive for both, add a APFS volume for each Mac.

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Answer 2

tbirdvet

Level 6

17,337 points

Jul 31, 2021 5:30 AM in response to IZeep

You can move TM between machines and TM will remember which is what automatically. No need to partition the drive. Connect the drive to Mac #1 and select backup now or let it do it automatically then remove the drive and do the same on Mac #2, etc.

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Answer 3

IZeep Author

Level 1

9 points

Jul 31, 2021 6:12 AM in response to Barney-15E

Thank you Barney. This is very helpful When I first mount and use a new external drive as a TM backup drive, wold I do that that through the "main user" on the iMac, or the new dummy shared user? I realize that WiFi TM backups will be slower, but perhaps I'll use WiFi to backup to a shared drive and then once a month or so do a separate backup to a portable drive manually connected to each device.

How do you decide how large to make the APFS volume for each machine when you don't know what will be stored to each machine in the future?

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Answer 4

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,942 points

Jul 31, 2021 8:28 AM in response to IZeep

The main user. A sharing only user doesn’t have a GUI login.

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Using TIme Machine to Backup Multiple Machines on one Drive

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