You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
I have just bought a Seagate Backup Plus Hub to use as my external Time Machine backup drive and can't get it to complete the first backup. I have tried reinitialising the drive as APFS and HFS and get the same result. I am using a M1 iMac 24 running OS 11.6.1. My question is whether this drive is simply incompatible and I should stop trying to make it work?
iMac 24″, macOS 11.6
There are may reported issues with USB Hubs on the ASC Forums especially on the Monterey Forums on this very topic.
It all appears to come down to the ChipSet in the Hubs if it will or will not work.
Hopefully with the Big Sur 11.6.2 released Monday Dec 13 and the Monterey also released yesterday - there is some relief.
Point # 11 - Do you have a Rescue Plan In-Place. This comprises having 3 Backups using 2 methods and 1 Off Site incase of Theft, Loss or Natural Disasters. A Time Machine Backup is very useful and can be used to Revert to Previous Working macOS.
Point # 12 - For addition purposes - two Tested Bootable Clones each to separate external drives. This is insurance incase the upgrades goes sideways. At least one Tested Clone and / or Time Machine Backup should be Off - Site
There are may reported issues with USB Hubs on the ASC Forums especially on the Monterey Forums on this very topic.
It all appears to come down to the ChipSet in the Hubs if it will or will not work.
Hopefully with the Big Sur 11.6.2 released Monday Dec 13 and the Monterey also released yesterday - there is some relief.
Point # 11 - Do you have a Rescue Plan In-Place. This comprises having 3 Backups using 2 methods and 1 Off Site incase of Theft, Loss or Natural Disasters. A Time Machine Backup is very useful and can be used to Revert to Previous Working macOS.
Point # 12 - For addition purposes - two Tested Bootable Clones each to separate external drives. This is insurance incase the upgrades goes sideways. At least one Tested Clone and / or Time Machine Backup should be Off - Site
Hey Chris Lannigan,
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities!
We see from your post that you're having trouble backing up with an external drive.
We'd like to help out!
Take a look here and see if these steps help:
If you can't back up or restore your Mac using Time Machine - Apple Support
Cheers!
Hi Danielle. Thanks for your reply but the issue is not about how to use Time Machine but why it isn't working properly. I have since found many other people have the same problem and think that it's specific to Time Machine (not my new drive) and it's interaction with Mac OS Big Sur and Monterey and (maybe) the M1 chip. I'm going to abandon Time Machine and see if a different backup solution works. This is, all-in-all, very unsatisfactory. I've just spent a fortune on a new iMac 24 and the Backup Plus disk to discover online that, apparently, there's a conflict with APFS.
There is additional info here:
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/12/08/time-machine-initial-backup-error/
Thanks for this! The update to Big Sur 11.6.2 appears to have solved the problem and all backups are completing as they should.
Welcome and thank you too.
Was in process of replying when your reply appeared.
Good News
Do come back to the ASC Forums if or when additional questions arise.
Is Seagate Backup Plus Hub compatible with M1 Mac running Big Sur?
