efficient backup of iphone backups stored on mac (Big Sur)
I'd like to keep the most recent copy of an iphone backup both on my mac
and on an external drive (and also prevent iphone backups of my mac to
include iphone backups it stores). Is there a way to do this and have
confidence that should the need arise, would be able to restore my
iphone from an external copy of the most recent backup I made on my mac.
Background:
I see that each iphone backup I do completely replaces the backup that's already held in my ~/Library/.../..../MobileSync folder.
I also see that Time Machine has preserved the previous iphone backups, but I am concerned that the complete replacement of an older iphone backup by a new one ultimately eliminates any storage efficiency gained by Time Machine's differential backup scheme ... it appears that Time Machine may effectively be keeping full clones of past iphone backups.
If that is true, I would rather configure TM to NOT backup my mobile backup folder. Rather, I would manually put a copy of the most recent iphone backup on an external SSD (thus giving me two copies of the recent iphone backup). The only reservation I have about that is the warnings given in Apple's "manage iphone backups" that say not to transfer backup copies to external drives (oh .... but if you do be sure to put 'em back on the mac they came from before using them to restore an iphone). Without further explanation, I don't know if changes on the original mac (OS update for example), would render an iphone backup on an external drive unusable.
One other thing: I don't use iCloud ... and would not plan to make that any part of my backup strategy.
Any advice on using an iphone copy backed up to an external SSD (or perhaps a network drive) would be greatly appreciated.
iMac 27″, macOS 11.6