I want to add two of my external SSDs to the list of backed up items in Time Machine. Though I can see both drives in the exclusion list they are greyed out and I am unable to select them in order to back them up. Is this a formatting problem? They are currently formatted to ExFAT. Any help would be appreciated.
A Mac OS Extended variant which includes journaling, AFPS, or volumes made available over a network.
(212434)
Yes. Time Machine can't back up volumes in some formats.
(212430)
Pay attention to the limits I state here ... Big Sur and Monterey impose limits on the product. CCC technical support can help as well.
I have used CarbonCopyCloner(bombich.com, $40) in the past to both clone system-drive disks and external non-system-drive disks. It detects disk formats and duplicates the formats. Then it copies file-by file. First backup long, later backups move changed/new and archives old copies of changed in the destination backup. It even made bootable clones.
NOW ...
The special system area of the disk is effectively a "sealed encrypted container". CCC does bootable clones very differently. for Big Sur and Monterey.
But new Apple system-drive configuration did not limit CCC copying non-system-sealed data so should be able to do as you want ... clone external data to a backup of the external data.
THanks Niel. Any Idea if there is a list of time machine compatible formats?
backing up an external hard drive with time machine
