Issue with Time Machine

Question

Issue with Time Machine

Using Big Sur. Imac 2017

Mindful of the need for back-up - especially since the move to Monterey is imminent for me, I decided to review my back-up routine and now have 2 disks alternating using Time machine.

I noticed that the set up shows all my external disks on the “exclude these items from back-up” page are greyed out amounting to +2TB yet the estimated size of the full back-up is 169GB. I understand that you can't back up a backup disk but shouldn't the disks that are to be excluded should be in "Bold" type rather than greyed out. I want to include my "Photos. documents and accounts" disk amounting to just under 900GB. I thought I could invoke some action by getting it highlighted as to be excluded, then minusing but I can't add because the save button when selecting it using the time machine process is greyed out

The external drives are all G drives set up for Mac - APFS which I gather is correct.

Not being tech minded or competent I wonder if someone could review and explain to a silver haired pensioner if I’m doing something wrong or if TM isn’t working effectively.

I attach set up images. - Note - the 2 disks involved in my set up are titled disk 1 and disc 2 which can't be seen in this image.

Thanks Archie

Posted on Nov 9, 2021 2:53 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 10, 2021 1:14 AM in response to den.thed

Thanks for your info and time spent reviewing my issue

Checking the Mac formatting process (Support.apple.com) I came across this........

"File system formats available in Disk Utility on Mac

Disk Utility on Mac supports several file system formats:

Apple File System (APFS): The file system used by macOS 10.13 or later.
Mac OS Extended: The file system used by macOS 10.12 or earlier."

My previous back up disk disk was formatted Mac os Extended.

I presume that the new APFS is the cause of my problem

I am investigating whether I can reformat to Mac os Extended with Big sur - and when i pluck up courage - Monterey

I do note that near the bottom of Get Info on the "to Oct back up disk there is text "You can only read"

It's all getting a bit too confusing for my aging brain

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Answer 2

den.thed

Level 10

82,444 points

Nov 9, 2021 7:54 AM in response to Archibaldthegrim

Hmm... you tried restarting the Mac?

If that doesn't help, try ejecting and disconnecting the smaller TM backup drive.

Then see if you can "Include" the Photos Doc. & Acc. drive onto the larger TM backup drive.

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Answer 3

den.thed

Level 10

82,444 points

Nov 9, 2021 11:01 AM in response to Archibaldthegrim

Hmm… the only thing that I can glean at this point, is that your Time Machine backup drives are setup Case-sensitive and Read Only.

Problem is….. I’m not really sure if that is why other drives can be included into them or not.

I can say that my Time Machine drives (yes I have two as well) are formatted Mac OS Extended and other Mac OS Extended and APFS drives, can be included into those for backup.

So… sorry, but at this point I can only suggest reformat one of the Time Machine Backup drives and the see if you can include the other drive.

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Answer 4

Nov 10, 2021 2:17 AM in response to Archibaldthegrim

A bit of progress.

I reformated one of my external drives - Disk 2

I wasn't given the option of changing to mac os extended ......

the same greyed out disks showed grey out. so I couldnt + or -

However. (and i hadn't tried this before so perhaps it was always available)

I could exclude a folder on my hard drive.so presumably TM assumes that I want all my external disks backed up.

The issue is - how do i know whether my

Photos documents and Accounts are actually backed up.?

Are you getting bored with this????

Kind regards

Archie

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Answer 5

den.thed

Level 10

82,444 points

Nov 10, 2021 8:02 PM in response to Archibaldthegrim

No not bored, just really busy today and couldn't find time to spend here in the ASC.

It's hard to tell with all of those different drives, why that drive can not be included. Plus what's up with "To Oct Time Machine Backup and how does that fit into this.

If you are really concerned about backing up that "Photos Doc. & Acc." drive, then I suggest cloning "Photos Doc. & Acc." to another external drive using software like CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper and forget about Time Machine except to backup your current Mac's drive. Another option is to partition the 3T Time Machine backup drive into to two 1.5T partitions and then clone the "Photos Doc. & Acc." drive on to the second 1.5T partition of it.

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